Calm the Fuck Down

by Sarah Knight

  You may not be as into tidying-as-therapy, but surely there’s another hands-on task you enjoy that you could turn to when you feel your Anxious face settling in around the temples. Perhaps industriously restringing your guitar, mending a pair of pants, or repairing the teeny-tiny trundle bed in your kid’s dollhouse. (It’s probably time to admit it’s your dollhouse, Greg.)*

  GET DOWN WITH O.P.P.

  Other people’s problems, that is. Maybe you don’t have an on-call therapist—but you’ve got friends, family, neighbors, and the guy down at the post office with the beard that looks like it rehomes geese who got lost on their way south for the winter. Chat ’em up. Ask your sister how she’s doing and listen to her shit. Release some of your anxiety by giving her advice that you should probably be taking your own damn self.

  It’s harder to stay anxious about any particular thing when you don’t allow yourself the mental space to dwell on it—and a darn good way to accomplish that is by filling said space with conversation, human interaction, and other people’s problems. How do you think I stay so calm these days? I spend all year giving you advice.

  Tonight You, meet Tomorrow You

  This seems like a good place to address the tarantula in the room, which is that when anxiety is keeping you up at night, you may be able to name your problem (Good job!), but you can’t necessarily solve it in the moment.

  I get that, which is why I want to take a moment to introduce you to one of my favorite mental magician-and-assistant duos: Tonight You and Tomorrow You.

  Let’s say it is currently 3:00 a.m. on Friday, and you can’t sleep because on Tuesday you made an offhand comment to your coworker Ruth that you’re worried she may have interpreted as an insult even though she didn’t give any indication of such at the time and even though not one single word that came out of your mouth could possibly, by any sentient being, be thought of as a criticism.

  Still. What if?!?

  Well, if it’s 3:00 a.m., then Tonight You CAN’T call Ruth and CAN’T tell her you hope she wasn’t offended by that thing you said and CAN’T feel better about it when she replies, “What? I don’t even remember you saying that, so obviously I was not offended, you silly goose.”

  But Tonight You CAN set Tomorrow You up for success—by getting some goddamn sleep, Chief.

  You may think it’s impossible to fall asleep when you’re anxious about making things right with Ruth or when your to-do list is scrolling through your mind on endless loop like the NASDAQ on Times Square, but hear me out—this might be the single most useful nugget in this entire compendium of calm.

  First, think of the problem in terms of what we’ve discussed thus far:

  Falling asleep is the more urgent issue, so it should be your priority, right? Check.

  Furthermore, it’s the only part of this equation you have some control over now, and it’s one you can actually solve, correct? Check plus.

  This is reality. Can you accept it? Checkmate.

  Ah, but not so fast, eh? I can smell your annoyance from here—a heady musk of Fuck you with a hint of Don’t patronize me, lady. Do you feel like you’re being bullied into doing something you simply cannot do, even though you know it’s good for you? I get that, too. For whatever reason, sometimes taking good, solid advice from other people is impossible. Definitely an occupational hazard for moi.

  So let’s look at your problem another way. Say, through the lens of my early twenties—a time when my then-boyfriend, now-husband’s entreaties for me to hydrate after every third cocktail felt more like a scolding than a suggestion, and when even though I knew he was right, I didn’t like feeling pressured, condescended to, or preshamed for tomorrow’s hangover. Nope, there was no better way to activate the You-Can’t-Make-Me Face than to tell Sarah Knight a few V&Ts in that she “should drink some water.”

  Did I regret it in the morning? Yes. Did I take his advice next time? No. ’Twas a vicious cycle, with extra lime.

  Then one blessed day, a friend introduced me to the concept of a “spacer,” and everything changed. This was not a stupid glass of stupid water that somebody else told me to drink. No, it’s a spacer! It has a fun name! And I get to control my own narrative by sidling up to the bar and ordering one. My spacer, my choice.

  Where the fuck, you may by now be thinking, is she going with this?

  Well, besides having just introduced you to the second-most-useful nugget in this entire book, I would argue that deciding to have oneself a spacer is similar to deciding to go to sleep. In terms of being in a state where you know what you should be doing but don’t appreciate being told to do it, “intoxicated” is quite similar to “whipped into an anxious, insomniac frenzy,” is it not?

  I take your point. But what if I just can’t fall asleep, even though I agree that it’s best for me?

  Good, I’m glad we’re getting somewhere. Because I think—based on extensive personal experience—that you CAN drift off to dreamland if you approach the task differently than you have been thus far. If you take control of the narrative. If you treat “going to sleep” like ordering a spacer or checking off an item on that scrolling to-do list. Set your mind to accomplishing it and therefore to feeling accomplished instead of feeling like a very tired failure.

  But you’re not going to be there to remind me of this helpful nugget every night when my brain goes into overdrive—and even if you were, you still sound kind of smugly self-satisfied about the whole thing, tbh.

  Noted. But remember Tonight You and Tomorrow You? They’ve been waiting in the wings for the grand finale…

  One night as I was tossing and turning like one of those Chinese fortune-telling fish, my husband looked at me and said, “Tonight Sarah’s job is to go to sleep. Tomorrow Sarah can deal with this shit tomorrow.”

  So I thought about it that way, and I gave Tonight Me her marching orders.

  And it worked!

  Maybe he adapted it from the spacer trick when he saw how well that penetrated my defenses, or maybe I married a goddamn wizard, but I don’t care either way because ever since, I’ve been able to reframe the I-can’t-fall-asleep conversation—with MYSELF—and shift my focus from not being able to do the only thing I so badly want to do, to doing the only thing I can do.

  And you know, I’ve always trusted Tomorrow Me to handle tomorrow’s tasks, assuming she gets enough shut-eye. Now I recognize that it’s Tonight Me’s job to get her to the starting line in fine fettle.

  Talk about sleight of mind. Yep. Definitely married a wizard.

  But hey, you don’t have to take it from us. Take it from Tonight You—Tomorrow You will thank you tomorrow.

  Other ways to reduce anxiety that I didn’t invent but that have been known to work

  Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  Yoga

  Sex

  Bubble baths

  Counting slowly to one hundred

  Magnesium supplements

  Adult coloring books

  How to stop being sad about something

  What’s another word for grieving, blue, mopey, forlorn, despondent, and depressed? HURTING. You’re hurting. So you need to heal. Grant yourself a reasonable amount of time and energy to be sad about whatever shit has you worried and weepy.

  Then, crate your emotional puppies and stave off the prolonged wallowing with a shot of SELF-CARE.

  LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

  Much like “Calm the fuck down,” the phrase “Turn that frown upside down” is advice not often well received by a person who is midfreakout. I know that, but I’ll say it anyway, because that shit works. For example, when I’m feeling utterly dejected, a certain someone’s patented C + C Music Factory tribute dance/lip sync always brings me back from the brink. If something has you down, seek help from things that reliably cheer you up. Cat pics. Videos of people coming out of anesthesia. Perhaps an aptly termed “feel-good movie”? Anything in the Pitch Perfect oeuvre applies.

  Even if this
trick stops you worrying for only the length of one song (in my case, “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…”)—you’ve stopped, haven’t you? Progress!

  YOU’RE IN FOR A TREAT

  When someone else is sad, be they grieving or recuperating, you might stop by with some prepared food to get them over the hump—casserole, cookies, a fruit basket. Why not show yourself the same kindness? Your treat doesn’t have to be food-based—some of us like to eat our feelings, some of us prefer to have them massaged away by a bulky Salvadoran named Javier. So do unto yourself as you would do unto others, and trade those worries for a trip to Cupcakes “R” Us, or an hour of shoulder work from Javi. Yummy either way.

  5 things I have stopped worrying about while eating a king-sized Snickers bar

  Final exams

  Thunder

  Credit card debt

  Nuclear proliferation

  That rat I saw outside the deli where I bought the Snickers

  How to stop being angry about something

  Exhaling bitchily, shouting “Shut the fuck up!” every five minutes, and jabbing a broom through the hole in the fence that separates your yard from the neighbor’s new pet rooster is one way to pass the time, but it’s not a good long-term use of freakout funds. Trust me on this.

  Instead, calm the fuck down by redirecting that time and energy into more PEACEFUL pursuits.

  WORK IT OUT

  I said I wouldn’t make you get physical with your mental decluttering, but sometimes I fib, like the lady who waxed my bikini area for the first time ever and told me the worst part was over and then she did the middle.

  But I digress.

  Serotonin, known as “the happiness hormone,” can be naturally boosted in many ways, including by exercise. But that doesn’t have to mean dragging ass to the gym, per se. Sure, you can run out your rage on the treadmill or crunch your way to calm—if that works for you, so be it. Even I sometimes enjoy a low-impact stroll on the beach to clear my mind of rooster-cidal thoughts. Got a stairwell in your office? Walk up and down it until you no longer want to tear your boss a new asshole with his own tie pin. Empty lot down the street? Cartwheels! Empty lot down the street, under cover of night? NAKED CARTWHEELS.

  PLOT YOUR REVENGE

  Hopefully they won’t revoke my guru card for this one, but let’s just say you live downstairs from Carl and his all-night drug parties, and every morning your anger rises just as he and his crew finally drop off into a cracked-out slumber. Instead of seething into your dark roast, you might consider perking up by mentally cataloguing the ways in which you could repay your neighbors’ kindness. You don’t have to follow through—merely thinking about the mayhem you could visit upon your enemies is a terrific mood booster. (Though “accidentally” upending a bottle of clam juice into Carl’s open car window on your way to work is fun too.)

  5 forms of revenge that are fun to think about

  Writing your enemy’s phone number and a related “service” on the wall of a sketchy bar bathroom

  Or, like, fifty sketchy bar bathrooms

  Ordering a 4:00 a.m. wakeup call to your enemy’s hotel room

  Mailing your enemy a box of loose black pepper

  Filling your enemy’s pants pockets with gum right before they go into the wash

  How to stop avoiding something

  If anxiety sends you into overthinking, overwhelmed, overstimulation mode, then avoidance sends you in the exact opposite direction. Your worries have you paralyzed with inaction, indecision, and inability to deal. You may think you’re saving freakout funds with all this inactivity, but you’re actually wasting a lot of time that could otherwise be spent shoveling shit off your plate. It’s the difference between napping as healthy self-care and napping as unhealthy coping mechanism. Let’s not ruin napping for ourselves, okay?

  Instead, try these ACTIVE alternatives on for size:

  GET ALARMED

  If you’re putting something off—say, having “the talk” with your teenage son—use the alarm feature on your smartphone or watch to remind you about it ten times a day until you’d rather unroll a condom onto a banana than listen to that infernal jingle-jangle ONE MORE TIME. Even if you chicken out yet again, you’ll have forced yourself to acknowledge the situation with every beep of your alarm, and that’s half the battle.

  (Actually, if you’ve been paying attention, it’s one third of the battle. The middle third is accepting that you can’t control a fifteen-year-old’s libido, and the final third is addressing the part you can control—teaching safe sex—with prophylactics and phallic produce. You’re welcome.)

  PROPOSE A TRADE

  If you’re the ostriching type, I bet you’re avoiding a few things at once. Oh, I’m right? Funny how that works. Well, just like focusing on one anxiety-inducing shitstorm at a time helps clear the deck of another set of worries (see: Choose it or lose it), you could make a deal with yourself that you only get to avoid one thing at a time. For example, if you’re avoiding going to the doctor to get that suspicious mole checked out, you’re not allowed to ALSO avoid balancing your checkbook.

  And while you might be avoiding each of these activities because you additionally wish to avoid “getting bad news,” I should point out that closing your eyes, plugging your ears, and singing “Nah nah nah nah” never stopped a hurricane from making landfall, and it’s not going to halt the total shitstorm of skin cancer or bankruptcy. Confront the fear behind the worry now, so at least you have a chance to deal with it if it turns out to be warranted.

  Is sleight of mind a little sneaky? Maybe. But you have to admit, it’s hard to freak out while you’re enjoying yourself—whether that’s laughing at a silly movie, savoring a tasty treat, or focusing on getting every last drop of clam juice out of the bottle and absorbed deep into a Subaru’s upholstery.

  And if you ostriches took my advice and sprang into action, well, you may still be worrying a little as you sit in your dermatologist’s waiting room, but you’re also not avoiding it anymore. I call that a win.

  Secret Option C

  “Just fucking let it go” and “sleight of mind” are two excellent paths forward to a calmer, happier you. Highly recommended. But depending on the person and worry and related shitstorm in question, these two methods alone are not always enough. I understand. And I’m not here to set you up for failure; if I wanted to do that, I would have called the book How to Reason with a Toddler.

  As such, it’s time for me to make a confession. Despite its powerful cross-branding with my NotSorry Method from The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck and a very strong hashtag, the “NoWorries” Method may be a slight misnomer.

  No worries—like actually zero? Ever? That’s probably not strictly possible. Sometimes your probometer is in the shop and your worries remain omnipresent and all-consuming. Sometimes you really just can’t stop worrying or focus on other things.

  It’s okay, we can work with that.

  Much like the “responsible procrastination” I detailed in Get Your Shit Together, or the “good selfish” discussed in You Do You, there is such a thing as “useful worrying.”

  You might engage in it in order to prevent the thing you’re worried about from ever happening—as with a Category 1 Highly Unlikely Shitstorm that could be blown out to sea with a preemptive strike on your part.

  Or, you might do some useful worrying to help yourself be in better shape when the shitstorm lands—as in the case of a Category 5 Inevitable. There’s bound to be a lot less cleanup if you’ve adequately prepped the metaphorical house and grounds. (PS Have you made that dermatologist appointment yet?)

  Wait, both of those sound like “dealing with it.” Did you skip ahead?

  Good on you for paying attention! But I really try not to skip ahead; it sets a bad example for my readers. No, what I’m about to teach you isn’t quite “dealing with it,” which we will cover in the aptly titled part III: Deal With It. This is sort of an in-between step.

  Ladie
s and Gentlemen of the Worry, I give you…

  Productive Helpful Effective Worrying (PHEW)

  Up to this point, our goal has been to discard worries about shit you can’t control, saving your time, energy, and money for dealing with the shit you can. We’ve been CONSERVING freakout funds.

  That’s one way to do it.

  If you can’t bring yourself to discard your worries altogether, another way to calm the fuck down is to CONVERT those worries into productive, beneficial action—ensuring that any FFs you dole out in advance of a shitstorm are spent wisely. They will (at least) help prepare you for surviving it; and (at best) help prevent it altogether.

  That’s what makes it PRODUCTIVE, HELPFUL, and EFFECTIVE worrying. The awesome acronym is just a side benefit. Here’s how it plays out:

  • Once a shitstorm has been classified and prioritized, the NoWorries Method dictates that you ask yourself Can I control it?

  • If the answer is no, ideally you ACCEPT that you can’t control it, and discard said worry. That’s Step 1: Calm the fuck down.

  • If the answer is yes, I can control it, then YAY! You may proceed directly to Step 2: Deal with it, organizing your response.

  • However, if the answer is No, I can’t control it, BUT I ALSO CAN’T STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT OR DISTRACT MYSELF WITH OTHER THINGS! then it’s time to do some Productive Helpful Effective Worrying.