Serious anxiety this morning.

[Turbineguy]

7. I used to be a ship's engineer.

When something went wrong with the machinery (usually at 2 am) the phone would ring (or I would be woken up by an eerie silence). I would make my way to the engineroom and start up the standby generator.

One day one of the assistant engineers asked me, "Chief, why do you always do that no matter what the problem is?" I told him I was a very nervous person and this gave me a chance to calm down in addition to making the situation more secure.

I find doing something mundane and yet at the same time providing more certainty is helpful. That could be making sure you never have less than a half tank of gas in the car, or keep a running shopping list, or call someone you like to talk with.

You don't have to do everything you can think of, just enough to keep you instead of the anxiety in control.