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From Dave Tomlinson, writer and vicar at large:
I’m looking forward to Nadiya Hussain’s film ‘Anxiety and Me’ on ´óÏó´«Ã½1 this week – part of the ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s Mental Health Season. Bake Off winner, Nadiya has made no secret about her struggle with intense anxiety and panic attacks. Like many mental health conditions, anxiety appears to exist on a spectrum – it’s something most of us probably experience in some measure from time to time. I know I do. Most people see me as an upbeat, confident person, which isn’t untrue, yet it isn’t always how I feel. 
A couple of years ago, I dipped for months into a mental state of being convinced that I had some terminal disease. It’s strange how, once that thought takes hold, you analyse every twinge or ache concluding the worst. Sometimes, of course, these can be a sign of a real problem, but they may also be nature’s way of telling us to slow down, take a break or pay attention to some minor ailment. One of my worst moments occurred when visiting a family about a funeral. A relative described her sister’s symptoms – which seemed to correspond exactly with what I was experiencing. In an instant, a panic attack overwhelmed me. Without anyone knowing it, my hands became sweaty, my mind raced in endless unhelpful directions, I barely heard what anyone was saying, and I felt stifled, hardly able to breathe. 
Thankfully, my autopilot kicked in, I left with everything I needed to prepare the funeral. However, I did fix a long overdue appointment with the doctor that set my mind at rest about the ‘symptoms’. More importantly, she helped me recognise the need to maintain my mental health – to build more time for relaxation, to talk openly about my anxieties, to get a good night’s sleep. There’s a night prayer that says: ‘What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done. Let it be.’ It’s like a liberating bedtime mantra – a way of clearing the mental desktop of stuff I cannot do anything about while readying myself for the things I can do something about tomorrow.