What Is A Cause of Anxiety – Your Daily Routine

Your eyes open. Those early few seconds of confusion whilst you stretch, rub your eyes and get your bearings together…and then you feel it for a split second. Just a tiny speck of agitation. But it’s Sunday morning, and you’re relieved you still have time to stay in bed rather than worry about waking up and getting read to go to work. The speck of agitation goes away…for now. So what is a cause of anxiety..? Your daily routine!

Anxiety can make you feel so alone even in a crowded place

Sunday is known as being the lazy day. Most of the day then is spent doing lazy things. Watching TV…eating junk food. For football (soccer) fans in the UK, Super Sunday meant two games used to take up most of the day.

Whatever the activity, Sunday is a day to relax the mind and do nothing, because it’s so tiring and batteries need re-charging from the stressful week of work before, and the one to come.

Evening comes and you have dinner. And then you remember something…the speck of agitation that came in the morning ever so briefly is now back but it’s not a speck anymore. It’s a full blown mental groan: “SH*T”…”Oh FFS”…”Arggh…I’ve got work tomorrow“.

You know the feeling. The dreaded discontent that Sunday is coming to an end, and that means tomorrow morning the same life-sucking mundane routine is going to begin again. Sunday-night-blues.

Lazy Sunday is coming to an end, more TV, more junk, more wasting time on social media. Bed time is coming, and with it a bout of misery and tension.

And so you go to bed mildly depressed, and a little anxious…just not in a very good mood because it’s Monday tomorrow…the worst day of the week…the first day of what feels like modern day slavery.

You wash your face, and brush your teeth with a resigned demeanour. And slip into bed sighing away. Sometimes you fall asleep quick, but most times you don’t. A combination of being annoyed that you have to go to work tomorrow…as well as waking up late on a lazy Sunday.

On the worst days, or nights…you end up waking up in the middle of the night. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the anxiety of work. Maybe something disturbed you. But then you remember you got work in the morning, so you add stress that you need to sleep or you won’t wake up for work to go with the misery of having to go to work.

On a side note, one of the best feelings is when you need to wake up at say 07:00, but your eyes open at 06:00…”YES…one more of hour sleep” lol.

But anyway…it finally arrives. Monday damn morning. Snooze the first alarm that goes off. Snooze the second one.

Wanna stay in bed but the pressure of not wanting to be late forces you out of bed as the misery really kicks in.

With unbelievable force and will, you drag yourself out of bed and even though you’re awake…auto-pilot takes over.

The same routine, done every day without fail, takes course. You have your own routine for the morning, as does everyone.

Washing, getting changed. If you have time for breakfast you have it…otherwise it’s getting something on the way to work and maybe eating it when you get to work.

Whatever the routine, all actions done on auto-pilot are done with a negative mindset: “can’t be assed with this sh*t”…”hate Mondays”…”Wanna go home”.

Getting on the train in dark, wet weather every morning had me depressed

You get to the train station in the morning. Hundreds of people are there on the platform. Every single one of them as depressed as you are lol.

Even the ones that know each other stand in silence…despite there being so many people, there isn’t much noise or much conversation.

Everyone’s lost in their own world. Probably thinking “WHYYY do I have to be here”.

And then there’s a bit of action…the train approaches…and like a pack of hyenas everyone starts to rustle and jostle for position…trying to predict and then walk/jog to where they think the train doors will stop.

The doors open and everyone starts to jostle, push and shove again as they’ve got to make space for the people coming off the train first.

But it’s the morning, not many people come off here, most have the same City end destination. And because most are half asleep, the jostling isn’t that bad…compared to the one going home, which we’ll get to shortly.

When the last person steps off the train, then it happens…it’s almost like there’s been a call to attack because people start to shoot into the train. From whatever angle they can. Left, right, centre. Trying to rush in to get the seats, or best position possible.

This is something that always amazed me…it’s a farckin’ 10-15 minute train ride if that…yet these half-asleepers turn into Gladiators to get get on the darn train.

The hustle and bustle continues, people get seated…I have to mention those selfish, self-centred, inconsiderate mutha-F*&^% that think it’s okay to leave their bags/briefcases/accessories on the seat next to them knowing full well the train is going to be packed…and then have the damn audacity to get annoyed and tut away when they’re forced to move their sh*t.

You know the people i’m talking about…and you know my description of them isn’t an over-reaction…because you’ve felt like thumping them too lol.

Anyway…the train is now packed. The aisles are full of people standing, squashed together. The entry/exit carriage areas are full of people all squashed together. And the train sets off.

You probably have your headphones in by this stage, listening to garbage whilst on auto-pilot.

But if you don’t listen to the music…and you take a look at all the other passengers you’ll see the same thing every single day: silent, depressing, morbid looking people.

Not one person is smiling, or happy or remotely excited. You’re basically surrounded by so much negative energy that it exacerbates your own.

Whilst train journeys in peak times are bad, driving to work is mildly better. Stuck in traffic. A 20 minute journey turns into an hour journey. You drive then you stop, start, move a few inches forward, stop, start move a little forward, stop, start and on and on.

Rows and rows of cars…again if you look at the expression of the other drivers…morbid, lifeless, bad mood.

Whilst sitting in such traffic, I used to visualise zooming out from this scene from a bird’s eye view. Imagine looking down on this sh*t from above…like ants on a colony march.

How relevant or inconsequential is all this?! 

Sitting in traffic to get to work had me just as depressed

But alas, you get to work…and the fake smiles, and “Good Mornings” commence…most again on auto-pilot.

However, sometimes you get to the office at 09:01…Uh-OHHHH…you’re in trouble now. You know what you’re going to get shortly, an email for a “meeting” to “discuss” (which actually means tell you off) lateness.

But anyway, you then get on with the grind, a mind-numbing boring job..where maybe at the best of times you’re probably using 10-15% of your actual capacity.

But whatever, it pays the bill so just need to get on with it.

After lunch…the next step in the same routine starts: CLOCK-WATCHING. Hmm, okay 3 hours until home time. 2 hours left. 1 hour left. Half an hour left, phew…come on.

After a long tiring day, it’s 16:59 and you start to feel the first bit of real excitement for the day…home tiiiiiime, switching computer off…pretending to tidy the desk to look busy…and as soon as it hits 17:00 ZOOOOOOM, you’re out of the damn door.

Trying to make the earliest train back home. But regardless of what time you get there, it’s rush hour.

This time though, the crowd is much more massive, and there’s a lot more noise.

The train approaches…and uh-hoh…it’s the attack of the hyenas again. The pushing, and shoving and immediate rush to get to where the train door stops is frightening when you take a back seat and just observe.

Grown-ass men, and grown-ass women acting like they’re about to go to war.

If you dropped a morsel of food around an area full of ants, you’d see them funnel in and climb over each other to get the food…same thing happens with the trains.

The train doors open, and there’s more pushing and shoving to make space for people to get off the train, the only civilised thing about this uncivilised scene…yet this is one of the most civilised nations on the planet.

Little tip when coming off the train at this point, try not to be the last one off…because when that pack of wolves outside smell blood…when they realise you’re the last, they’re getting ready to pounce…so much so that sometimes, often times, they ain’t going to wait for you to get off…as soon as there’s a little space of entry they’ll force there way through.

Manners, politeness, courtesy all become non-existent.

I used to watch this tragic comedy every day. Sometimes I used to deliberately sit out and wait for the next train than be a part of that rat pack.

But on you get, eventually, onto another crowded, packed out, squishy-squashed train ride home.

When it’s a dull rainy day, the windows all get steamed up. Some people smell too, badly. It’s nauseating…and oh my, if you are a little claustrophobic the next 10 minutes feel like an hour.

I’m not even gona talk about train delays, stops and slow crawls on the track…that shizzle can drive you over the top.

Once at home…you’re too tired to do anything else meaningful.

So it’s the same routine…if you can be assed going to the gym, you go…otherwise it’s watching TV, evening meal, bed.

Rush hour is the worst time to get on a train

Tuesday…the same thing happens again.

And then on Wednesday, and Thursday..but Friday it’s a little different. People are more upbeat…the fricking weekend is coming. Woohooo, what a time to be alive, best day of the week.

Friday night, party, relaxing, doing whatever…great feeling…no work tomorrow, can do anything tonight.

Saturday is spent doing, when you really think about it, nothing. Shopping, watching more tv, just chillin’ relaxing.

And then it’s Sunday morning…and the speck of agitation re-appears…

Week is repeated, until it turns into months, until it turns into years.

NO WONDER 80% OF PEOPLE ARE BLOODY UNHAPPY ABOUT THEIR LIFE. 

So if you haven’t guessed it yet, the above isn’t just a story..it was exactly what I was living through, my exact daily routine, for years.