How I Cope: Counting Colours On My Daily Walk Keeps Anxiety At Bay
You’re reading How I Cope, a series sharing self-care tips as we all adjust to the coronavirus pandemic.
There’s the tree blossom, obliviously starting its spring parade. Then tulips, proudly standing in my neighbour’s garden. Next, the abandoned packet of prawn cocktail crips, blowing across the street like tumbleweed. And finally, a child’s coat as she toddles alongside her family – across the road, of course, at a strict distance of at least two metres.
What do all four have in common? They’re pink: my colour of the day. And no, the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t caused me to regress to a reception-aged pupil.
I’m writing this two weeks into working from home and almost one week into the UK lockdown. Each day, I’ve been trying to practise a simple mindfulness technique while out on my walk or run: you pick a colour, then see how many things you can count in that colour.
I picked up the technique when I interviewed Rebecca Adlington about her experience of anxiety and panic attacks earlier this year for our Head In The Game series, where we interviewed athletes about their mental health.
“If I’m at home and I’m feeling [panicky], I try to just acknowledge where I am by looking around the room and looking for five things in a certain colour,” she told me. “It brings you back to the room and gets you concentrating on something else.”
The concept is so simple, yet it really does work. Before I started using it, my lunchtime walks involved pacing up the road, stuck in my head, physically moving but mentally focussed on the latest coronavirus news. My break wasn’t really a break at all and I noticed I was increasingly catastrophising, thinking about the worst case scenario.
Then, I spotted that first blossom and the world felt a bit brighter. I remembered Rebecca’s words and decided to see how many other pink things I could spot. Within minutes, my heartbeat slowed and my mind was given a genuine break from the C-word. I’ve used...
