Hollyoaks star Chelsee Healey has revealed that she often feels her anxiety is 'through the roof' as the weekend comes to a close, but she has found a way to manage the negative thoughts.
The 38-year-old actress, best known for playing Goldie McQueen in the Channel 4 soap, took to social media on Sunday to confess she can sometimes suffer from a bad case of the Sunday Scaries – the feeling of worry that many experience as the weekend ends and the return to work on Monday looms.
Sunday ritual to beat anxiety
Addressing fans on Instagram Stories, Chelsee explained that she has developed a weekend routine to help keep her anxieties at bay. She said: "Hi guys! Happy Sunday! Right, so my Sunday ritual is to take the girls swimming and Sunday dinner."
She continued: "Sunday is probably my favourite day of the week, but it gets to a certain point in the day, and I'm like, 'Oh, it's Monday tomorrow,' and my head goes thinking, 'What's going to happen this following week? What problems are going to come to me?'"
She then confessed: "My anxiety is through the roof, so I've made it, like, a thing to make sure that I have a really good, wholesome Sunday with the girls, just to set me up for the week, and going into the next week in the best possible headspace."
Gratitude as a tool
Summing up her views, she added: "But you know what? We're blessed, guys. I'm able to take the girls swimming. I'm able to have a wholesome Sunday with them. So yeah, whenever I start to feel myself going a bit down, I just relay to myself how blessed I am."
Mental health experts acknowledge that taking note of the good things in life, however big or small, can boost positive thoughts and help banish a negative outlook. American psychiatrist and author Dr Phil Stutz, who rose to global fame through the Netflix documentary Stutz, directed by his patient, actor Jonah Hill, has previously explained how being mindful about gratitude can help people feel more secure in their lives.
Dr Stutz on grateful thinking
He previously told Goop: "Gratefulness appreciates the immediate experience of reality, replacing negative thoughts with thoughts about what’s really going on. It alludes to things in your life that are solid and real, and implies that these things are products of the moving whole."
He continued: "Gratefulness differs from 'positive thinking,' which tends to focus on events that have not yet happened, with the hope that they will. The very nature of positive thinking is not grounded in reality. Think about it, have you ever been able to get yourself out of a deeply worried mood by thinking happy thoughts about your future? Not likely."
He added: "What we all need is a way to penetrate the veil of negativity and connect to the moving force of wholeness as it exists right now. We need to get into the habit of grateful thinking, of letting grateful thoughts flow through our minds as our own defence against negative thinking."
Giving tips on a simple exercise to help others realise there are good things all around, he recommends spending just thirty seconds thinking about things to be grateful for. Dr Stutz explains: "Think of things for which you’re grateful. Not just the big things; focus on everyday things that we often take for granted. 'I am grateful I can see, I am grateful my children are healthy, I am grateful my car started today, I am grateful I had money to eat breakfast, I am grateful I have hot water, I am grateful I live in a democracy.'"
He concludes: "Think of new things as much as possible—you’ll soon see that even on your worst day, there are an infinite number of things already happening that are positive."
