> [!waypoints] [[IRL Blog Home]] # Update May 2026 Published: 21 May 2026 Tags: #anxiety, #symptoms, #IRL Hi again! It's been a while. Wow, mid October 2025 was my last blog post. What happened? Well, I started writing up something intending to post it at the end of November but didn't. Then December rolled past. And January. Sitting here writing this, I admit there were no excuses. My [[Brain Fog|brain fog]] had cleared by the end of 2025. I just didn't want to write. Then I got COVID again at the end of January (more about that later). Once I recovered from it, I found that my world had shrunk. I wanted to stay in the bubble that was my room & block everything else out. I didn't know at the time what was happening. I only knew I wasn't my usual self. I had a visceral reaction to doing anything outside of my daily routine. I had already cut back on my online activities, which now spiralled into doing almost nothing every day beyond existing. Don't get me wrong. I wanted to do lots of things. I wanted to get back to work. I just couldn't make myself do what I kept thinking about doing. And because I wasn't doing anything, my imaginary to-do list was growing & adding to my anxiety, snowballing until I was concerned enough to get my symptoms checked out. By then, it was late March. All I knew was I had chest pains that came & went. Breathlessness for no reason. Tinnitus that got quite bad on some days. My eyes got blurry on those days too. I was always tired. So I went to see my GP. Scans & tests showed nothing unusual. Except very mild sleep apnoea. My GP's conclusion: [[Anxiety]]. A surprise diagnosis, but one that made complete sense when she said it. I just hadn't recognised it. This was anxiety like I'd never experienced before. It was so physical. My body was reacting to anything that _might_ stress me before I was even aware of it. But anxiety is something I know what to do about. I'm a psychologist with a lot of professional & personal experience with it. The first step was acknowledging it. Labelling it went a long way towards knowing what I was dealing with and accepting it as a part of living life (for now). What was I worrying about? Mostly my health. I was worried that I was going to go back to square one with Long COVID. Mostly, I didn't want to live with the debilitation of PEM again. Being present to it opened up my awareness of what else was there. I could give myself credit for noticing my symptoms and doing something about them. I had experience from living with Long COVID last year that I could now use to reduce my chances of it developing again. What have I been doing to regulate my anxiety? [[Journalling]] so I can see any patterns in my symptoms, behaviour, thoughts and feelings. It also helps me be aware of whether the choices I'm making are towards or away from good health. [[Qigong]] to calm down my nervous system, since all my symptoms were physical. [[Connection|Talking]] to family and friends about some of my fears. Most significantly, I've been getting together with friends to get things done. We keep each other accountable for showing up and we celebrate each other's progress towards our goals. We practise together. It makes the work less daunting. It even feels fun sometimes. Finally, [[Appreciation vs Gratitude|gratitude and appreciation]]. It makes such a difference to how I experience my day when I can look back and be grateful for the little things that went well despite my anxiety about them. I can appreciate my body for bringing me back to the present moment, even when it's inconvenient, so that I can be more intentional about how I do things. Hopefully, 🤞🤞, by continuing these practices that help me live more wisely, I'll avoid a new episode of Long COVID in 2026. --- >[!note] Before you click off this page, a couple of notes: >The article above describes one of my personal experiences recovering from Long COVID. It's not intended to imply or prescribe a treatment for it. > >I'm sharing my experience so that readers with similar symptoms can know that recovery is possible and maybe inspire them to look at what they can personally do to reduce their own symptoms. > >If that's you, please remember to check with your GP before starting anything new that affects your health. > >--- > >If you'd like to share your personal experiences of Long COVID, click on the link to <a data-tooltip-position="top" aria-label="mailto:[email protected] subject=My Long COVID experience" rel="noopener nofollow" class="external-link" href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=My%20Long%20COVID%20Experience" target="_blank">email me</a>. --- ## Read next See [[IRL Blog Home]] for more stories of living with Long COVID.