[tweezers74]

Everybody is different. And different at different points of our lives. A night out with friends, a BJ, a drunken night, working out hard for a weekend may have been enough when we were young but may not be a enough now. For me, it is the opposite. I had a lot of stress and anxiety when I was younger and those things didn't work. Now, I am much more relaxed and although I get stressed, it doesn't take much to get me back to normal.

All the advice here is good. It is important to note that stress and anxiety is not totally avoidable. It is part of life. It is part of being human. Once there is some of that acceptance, it makes it easier to deal with. At least for me. When I was younger, I expected everything to be perfect. Known. Organized. Predictable. And when it wasn't, I fell apart. Now, I accept that life is ALWAYS going to have strife, sadness, stress. It sounds weird but to have that expectation that something wrong is going to happen brings a level of peace. When the "bad" thing comes, I almost say, "oh, there it is".

The next step is to always have perspective. When you stop, take a deep breath, you realize 95% of what we stress about really isn't that important in the big scheme of things. I find it useful to go back to basics. Go to nature. No phones, internet, etc. Realize even if I lost my job, I could make enough to have a roof over my head. Food on the table and honestly, the simple life seems pretty good sometimes. Sometimes I think with the more "comforts" we accumulate, the more stress we accumulate as well.

Now your past trauma is no light matter. I agree that although your life may be normal now, it is amazing how past demons can affect your current life without you even knowing it. Therapy may be beneficial and it certainly wouldn't hurt.

Meds. Don't be scared to take them. I am not saying become dependent on them but even healthy people have to take antibiotics to give them a boost during a downtime. You may have to take them to help you get through this until you figure out the right balance of exercise, therapy, yoga, BJs, etc.

Finally, it isn't a stagnant process. Like I said, our life changes. Our support changes. Our job changes. Our stressors change. Constantly. Just because you figure out how to balance your life today, doesn't mean it will work tomorrow. It's like eating right, exercising, marriage. It is a constant work in progress. Improving. Figuring out new ways. But don't look at it as daunting and an exercise in the futile. Look at it as an adventure, learning, growing, an opportunity to find out cool stuff that you can do and learn. For me, I have figured out it is all about perspective. And I struggle with it every day. But every day I get a little better at it. You can't figure out how to get up correctly if you never fall.