Welcome back to an anxiety slayer.

Today on the podcast we're responding to

several listener questions asking us what helps when anxiety leads to

feeling housebound or agoraphobic, including venturing out again after lockdown,

or when worried about getting COVID, even when the restrictions have been lifted.

Welcome back, Ananga. Hey Shen, it's always good to be with you and to answer

listener questions. We've had so many come in and I'm glad that we're able to respond and today's is something, the

agoraphobia is something that has been coming through every day for weeks.

Yeah, I think it's a challenging thing anyway, but it's also a challenging time where we've had, you know, lockdowns and concerns about being out for, there's been a couple of years now.

I know for myself in the UK when the first lockdown was declared,

I remember writing in my journal how happy I was to be in,

not happy about what was going on. I'm very concerned for those

suffering of course but happy to be in and now just have that expectation and

pressure taken off and I remember writing you know I could happily do this for a month.

Little did I know.

I've been doing it for many months and have a few goes at it,

but those of us that are quite introverted by nature can use those times to retreat and we're glad of those times but sometimes venturing out again can be challenging and I think you know the anxiety about leaving home is very complex and very personal, not complex and difficult to get helpful, but it can come from a number of different reasons, as with many types of anxiety, a good place to start,

is by asking ourselves some questions and gaining some clarity, gathering some information.

It's a really individual experience so finding out

exactly what we feel anxious about is a good start. It really is and I think

about the first few outings that I had after the restrictions were lifted and even to this day on occasion I'm still not 100% comfortable being in very public settings.

Many episodes ago I talked about my daughter and I going to this butterfly exhibit and

...