5 Quick Ideas To Try When Dealing With Anxiety
I am personally no stranger to anxiety, along with 50 billion other people I’m sure.
It is such a consuming feeling that is so hard to get out of. It feels like a back and forth game of your thoughts on loops mixed with various body feelings of pain, inability to be comfortable, and an insatiable tightness in your chest.
While I don’t have a cure for anxiety, I do have ways that actually do help manage. The key is managing mental health, it’s an eb and flow and a wave you have to ride out. Instead of putting on the pressure to get rid of the bad feelings entirely, sometimes managing is the best we can do.
I used to get really annoyed with “simple fixes” for anxiety, because my anxiety was so grandiose and loud I assumed there was no way something so small would fix something that feels so big to me. But from a super anxiety riddled girl..I have found some gems.
#1. I use Dr. Amen’s work for anxiety
As much as I would love to (and am manifesting into the world) to get a brain scan and the whole Dr. Amen shebang..that is not my tip. I really resonate with Dr. Amen’s work and his holistic approach he has to psychiatry. It’s refreshing to not hear a psychiatrist suggest a pill in the first 10 minutes of a consultation but instead has tangible/natural actions and advice to try and practice.
One thing I found really helpful in time of severe panic attacks/downward spirals/meltdowns is his help with killing the ANTS (automatic negative thoughts). Good gawd the side swipe I get from my negative thoughts can drag me down so quickly, so I use this a lot.
The workbook is linked here. The workbook is a tool that helps you label the kind of negative thoughts your having and gives you clear, easy direction on how to flip the thought into something that is positive and helpful to you. It’s life saving how quick it can take a thought from negative to positive, and I now find myself using it naturally when I have negative or scary thoughts.
Link:
https://brainmd.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Killing-the-ANTs-Workbook-DIGITAL-2.pdf
#2. Treat yourself like a plant in anxiety
If you theoretically leave your house plant in a cold dark closet, would you be surprised when you find it rotting and brown and sad 2 weeks later?
This goes to say that a healthy, thriving plant has the right environment, it has food, it has nutrients, it has sunlight, it has water, all basic things that aid in its vitality.
Pretend you are a plant. Get sunlight. Drink water. Eat food.
It’s simple, but sometimes I feel like I am crashing and burning…everything is falling apart….I will never figure my life out….and then..my stomach growls. I was simply just hungry. And even in that moment I am not thinking of the basic necessities I need because I’m missing out on those basic necessities needed to be logical and clear minded.
So steal my checklist if you’re starting to feel anxious, sad, irritable. THINK: am I treating myself the way I would treat a plant?
Sunlight
Food
Water
#3. I do grounding techniques during panic attacks
For me, a lot of my downward spirals start in my head. Just a thought that plagues my present moments, and once I let it consume my head I feel it all in my body resulting in a full body experience.
Once it’s in my body, it is much harder to let go of the thought, because not only am I thinking it but I’m also feeling the repercussion of the thought I let slip through my “is this a true thought” radar. Sometimes my radar is off duty apparently and these thoughts just get in for free. I may start billing them for therapy.
But anywho, I have found that grounding techniques help me to move out of that full body feeling of panic. Reminding my body that it is only a thought and everything is okay in the present, has brought me out of panic attacks before.
I am lucky enough to have a partner with a sweet, gentle heart that helps me through these. We sit criss-crossed in front of each other and we hold hands. Together we name:
3 things you feel
3 things you see
3 things you hear
3 things you smell
And I truly don’t know the science behind it, but regaining your awareness and your senses is so helpful in returning to a state of calm (or calmish).
#4. I take some sort of action on what is making me anxious
You know that wonderful moment when you’re chilling and then you have a thought and then it just keeps replaying and you get stuck on a thought loop?
I’ll give an example:
I’m sitting in bed. I haven’t moved much out of bed that day. My brain chimes in “you’re lazy”
I try to brush it off..I have had a busy week, not feeling great today..naming reasons I’m not lazy and that chilling in bed is okay.
Then..
“You’re lazy”
“You’re lazy and you’re doing nothing with your life”
“You’re lazy and you don’t matter”
“You’re lazy and you’ll be like this forever”
Um can you lower your VOICE please. But it doesn't, it just keeps going.
So, instead of laying in bed and moaning and groaning. I will first, honestly, moan and groan a little more, THEN do my ANT exercise and get my mind going in the right direction. Then I will do 1 thing to remind myself why I am not lazy and why I do matter, or if it’s about something stressing me I’ll do something to aid to the solution instead of feeding the problem.
For example, if I feel stressed about a bill I’ll door dash, if I don’t feel like I’ve done enough studying I’ll study for 30 minutes, if I don’t feel like I’ve exercised or moved enough today I’ll run 1 mile. I just do something small to remind myself there is always a solution no matter the problem.
#5 I remind myself I can feel 2 things at once:
It is okay to feel anxious, and feel hopeful for the future
It is okay to feel sad but happy about life in general
It is okay to feel lost/confused but curious as to what is next
I think it’s easy to get stuck in harder emotions/feelings because sometimes it can be more common, but you can pair that with something good to help redirect that energy into solutions, hope, change, and a shift in mindset.
Emotions are information about yourself, they are not your entire personality. Learning to manage these big feelings of overwhelming anxiety and depression is a hard thing to juggle, and I get it. But adopting the mindset to manage and evolve with them and ride them like a wave instead of avoiding them or trying to get rid of them completely makes the anxiety experience feel more human and attainable.
There’s always a solution and the little changes work. I hope you try them. :)
