BY ALICIA
doodle here!
Colour Be Happy!
My name is Alicia, I’m 22 years old and suffer with anxiety. I have found colouring/drawing to be therapeutic and help ease my anxiety. With the help of Fixers I have created this colouring book to raise awareness of anxiety but more importantly offer a simple yet effective aid to coping with it.
Instructions
This colouring book is for you to colour, draw, scribble and doodle all over. Have fun, relax and enjoy yourself.
Colour Me In!
white space... ...doodle space
Colour Be Happy! As a sufferer of anxiety, I have always found prevention a more favourable option than cure. For me, two things help me prevent anxiety becoming a problem: talking and looking after myself. And if it does become a problem, I know I haven’t done these enough and that I need to start! Talking to someone close to you and expressing your feelings can really help. Something that might seem like a massive problem to you could be easily solved with someone else’s take on it. If you don’t know where to start, I do. Take some deep breaths and explain that you are finding it hard knowing where to start. To look after yourself, make that time for you (but obviously still do what you NEED to do, like homework, tidying or revising). This is a way to stop the pressures of life creeping up on you. For me, I need to find a balance. I can’t do nothing - but I can’t do everything either. Sometimes we all need to say ‘NO’. Stay in next Saturday night if you want a cosy movie night with snacks and an early bedtime, maybe you just don’t feel up to fitness training for the third night in a row and want to have a bath or you can’t face the two hour drive to your sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s dog’s previous owner’s photography display and would rather play Call Of Duty. It’s ok to say ‘NO’. I know colouring-in might not be for everyone but it has helped me and the point I want to stress is that there is a past time or an activity for you and you should make time to do it! Be it drawing, doing crosswords, writing, walking, swimming, sports, painting, knitting, playing computer games, watching movies, gardening, pampering yourself or something (anything!) else... find and do something which you enjoy. You don’t even have to be good at it! But do it! Spend time doing what makes you happy and helps you relax. Hopefully for some of you it will be this.
Have fun, enjoy it. You deserve to…. For help or information on anxiety please visit one of the following websites: youthbeyondblue.com anxietyuk.org.uk youngminds.org.uk
Fixers is a campaign that helps young people ‘use their past to fix the future’ and is part-funded by the National Lottery through the Big Lottery Fund.’ These are the experience of a young person, and should not be relied on or substitute for formal medical advice.