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Hello, my lovely listener and welcome back to owning it the

anxiety podcast with me, Caroline Forin. So we have another week of lockdown in the bag and I am praying

that we now have more behind us than we have ahead of us, but it's very hard to know at this stage.

I'm sure it was the same for a lot of you, but I certainly found the last week to be quite tough. I think it's because we've been in the

situation for so long now that the novelty of being stuck at home has worn off. Not that it was ever

any kind of a positive novelty, but it was certainly new. And I think the adrenaline that might

have gotten us through the first while has had definitely dissipated by this week. And what was left was just a feeling of general fed-upness. I wouldn't say

I was feeling particularly panicked. I think I've definitely gotten used to the current reality so

much so that I can definitely know read the news without feeling that spike of cortisol, whereas in

the beginning I couldn't cope with reading the news, I had to just be informed on a need-to-know basis.

But I've been feeling really, really low the last few days.

And sometimes feeling low can lead to feelings of anxiety because it's not a nice feeling

and we're not sure how to shake it or if it's even possible to shake right now.

The best way I could describe it is that, and this is, I've never ran a marathon,

by the way, but I imagine it's like you're running a marathon and you're finding it really tough,

yet you've no idea which mile you're at or how many more lie ahead of you. That sense of not being

in the know or not having control is such a surefire rescue for anxiety, and it completely derails

any sense of motivation or progress.

So if you're still feeling it, but you're feeling yourself move maybe out of the panicking anxiety

and more towards the low-lying sense of uneasiness, this is why. It's temporary. It's not forever

and although it certainly feels like a lifetime, I always say rather than to try and snap yourself out of it or shake it off,

...