8 Ways to Deal with Anxiety Fast and over Time

Staying physically active makes a world of difference. I started running after my depression started evolving into anxiety and panic attacks. You might not notice the first couple times, but once it becomes a part of your routine you'll find you're loads happier. I hope that helps!

So if you’re reading this and currently in the midst of an anxiety disorder, let me start by saying I know how you feel. I’ve had panic attacks where the adrenaline rushes just don’t stop, I’ve been nauseated and unable to eat or drink for days on end, I’ve felt so short of breath it was like drowning above water, had the jitters and the lump in my throat. I’ve also had all of the uncomfortable mental symptoms. I’ve dissociated for almost a full day multiple times, I’ve had racing, intrusive thoughts that lasted weeks and sometimes months at a time. And I’ve felt like I was going crazy. A lot.

But I’m here to tell you my struggle with my anxiety disorder is over. After almost a year of conscious and concerted effort, all of the worst symptoms of my anxiety are completely gone. Some of the more mild ones still appear from time to time; I’ll get fatigued or dizzy/foggy maybe once every few weeks, but this happens so infrequently (and becomes less frequent with each occurrence) that it doesn’t really bug me. I was also on medication (an SSRI since day one and a benzo for the first few months) and am in the process of tapering off .

So I wanted to write a post about how to get over each stage of your anxiety, mainly because I know I really would have appreciated this kind of guidance when I first sought help in late April of last year. If you want a summary of things you can do regardless of what stage you’re at, scroll to the bottom and check the paragraph in bold.

I don’t discuss responses to specific symptoms here, just a general approach. If you’re looking for tactics for specific symptoms, check out the list of books I left in the second section. I think the first one does a particularly good job of addressing every symptom, but you can try the third if you don’t feel it makes enough of a difference.

Before you read, I want to mention something once so I don’t have to later on. Recovery is going to be like a rollercoaster. Some days you’ll feel like you made incredible progress, and others you’ll have difficulty even doing simple tasks. It’s going to be a lot of two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes it’ll even be two steps forward, two steps back. But even those times are okay, because they serve as proof that you are capable of improving. Just know that once you start to give effort, things will start gradually getting better.

So here it is. My comprehensive guide to recovering from an anxiety disorder.

If you’re at a constant 9/10 - 10/10 anxiety and can’t calm down:

At this stage, you’re either in the middle of panic attack (which lasts up to 60 minutes) or you have GAD and are constantly anxious. I was diagnosed with GAD and Pure-O but I’ve had maaaaaany panic attacks, so I know this advice will work for both.

1. Stop trying to fight your anxiety symptoms. Understand that the best thing you can do for your body right now is just let it run its course. This is the basis of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which is one of the types of therapy currently used to treat anxiety disorders. To do this:

• Don’t try to stop any symptoms you are experiencing. This is infinitely easier said than done at first, but with practice you’ll be able to pick this up fairly quickly. When I was first having constant adrenaline rushes, I kept trying to consciously stop them. This was actually making things worse. The more you try to fight your symptoms, the more worried you become, which in turn causes your system to release more of the stress-causing hormones, causing your symptoms to become worse. The best thing you can do at this point is wait it out and let your body tire itself out.

• Questions, doubts, and fear will come up. When they do, remind yourself that this is a totally normal process that your body is going through, and try to rest in the anxiety. It may be difficult, but try to ease into the symptoms. This was initially what helped my adrenaline rushes decrease in severity and frequency.

• If this isn’t working and you find your symptoms are still persisting and won’t stop, ask for more. As the DARE Response (discussed later) puts it, run towards your symptoms. If you’ve ever read a book on ACT, this step is likely in there. When you ask your body to make your symptoms worse, you’ll find it can’t. The symptoms of anxiety are driven by a subconscious worry, and not something you can control. Keep running towards it until your symptoms gradually begin to ease, then move on to step 2. In case you’re interested, the clinical term for this is “arousal reappraisal.” It’s not discussed very often, but I found it to be very helpful.

2. Do anything you possibly can to get your mind off of the anxiety. In older forms of anxiety treatment, this kind of thing was referred to as a distraction tactic, but in The DARE Response, Barry McDonagh calls it being “engaged.” This basically means do whatever you can to focus your mind on something other than your anxiety. Regardless of what level of anxiety you’re at, this is incredibly important. Your anxiety is most easily fueled when you focus on it, so do whatever you can to move your attention to something else. Again, MUCH easier said than done, and your mind will fight you at every stage. But it’s an integral part of recovery. When I first started out, I found short activities the most helpful, like picking up my guitar/cajon and playing a song or two, or doing homework.

3. Give it time. Your system can’t sustain anxiety levels this high for an extended period of time unless you consciously fuel it. If you are properly easing into your symptoms and engaging yourself in other activities you’ll eventually calm down to the next phase of anxiety recovery.

4. If recommended by your physician, a benzo might help. Benzos are basically nervous system relaxants, but they’re no magic pill. When I took my first dose of valium, I didn’t feel a thing. It took a few days of constant dosing to see any effect. Benzos are fine to use in the very beginning, but I will issue a warning about them: try to use them as sparingly as possible. Benzos are not meant to be used in the long term, and if the first thing you do when feeling anxious is reach for your benzo, you’ll have real difficulty recovering in the later stages. But since at this point, you’re in a constant state of panic, they’re a great way to ease you down to the next lowest stage of anxiety, so you can start focusing on the long term.

5. Journal. I don’t recommend this as much beyond this stage, as I’ve found it doesn’t really help all that much. But in the beginning stages of my experience with GAD, I found journaling to be an indispensable asset to really figure out what I was going through. Just write out whatever you’re thinking or feeling. It’s a great what to get out of your head for at least a little bit.

6. Get up and do something to release all your pent up adrenaline. Walk around the block, take a stretch break at work. You don’t need to be doing a full workout at this point, just something to help you use the jitters and adrenaline you’re getting for something productive.

7. This one may seem rather minor, but it helped me a lot in the beginning: fix your posture. It’s much easier to feel short of breath when you’re in a position that doesn’t let you breath easily. If you’re lying down, lay on your back. If you’re sitting, sit up straight.

Once you’ve thoroughly calmed down from this point (this took me about three or four weeks), you can move on to the next step.

Constant 6 - 8/10 with occasional panic attacks:

If you’re at this phase, you are probably still experiencing physical manifestations of your anxiety, like jitters, nausea, jelly legs, shortness of breath, and so on. But you’re not in constant freakout mode anymore. You can make logical decisions aimed more at long term recovery because rather than being focused on your anxiety 100% of the time, you pay attention to it 80 - 90% of the time. You may be leaving the house occasionally but your symptoms are still bad enough that they keep you at home most of the time. So here’s what to do at this stage:

1. Start reading or listening to books on what you’re going through. The more you understand the subtleties of what’s going on in your brain and body, the better you’ll be able fix them. Read up on therapy techniques as they’ll be your quickest route to recovery. In the end, this ended up being the single most helpful thing for my recovery. When you’re knowledgeable of exactly what is at your disposal, you can try everything and see what works best for you. In fact, I found really helpful ideas in books that none of my therapists had even heard of. Like your anxiety, the list of books that will be the most helpful for you is very personalized, but here are my recommendations (all of these books are available on Audible, which is how I consumed them):

• The DARE Response. Phenomenal book written by someone who’s been through the worst parts of anxiety and paved his own path to recovery. His techniques are a combination between ACT and a little CBT. I would especially recommend this book if you’re at the higher end of the anxiety scale.

• Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. This book is considered the gold standard of CBT. It’s aimed at treating depression, but (as the author notes) it works for anxiety as well. I listened to the whole thing, then picked out the chapters I thought applied to me. It’s long, so I don’t think you need to do the first part, but there’s a lot of valuable information in this book that a lot of other books skim over.

• Rewire Your Anxious Brain. This one is 1/4 CBT, 1/4 lifestyle guidance, and half about the neuroscience behind anxiety. I like this one a lot because it gets into some of the mechanics of why we feel the way we do, and why therapy and lifestyle changes are so impactful.

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. This one has been mentioned on this subreddit several times before, and I really like it. It serves as a great reminder of why some things in life just aren’t worth giving a fuck about. Fair warning: Mark Manson describes OCD as “an incurable disease” in this book. He’s not a doctor or therapist and isn’t really knowledgeable on the subject, so I’d take that section with a grain of salt. But the message he drives home at the end is really good regardless. Remember, the point of these books isn’t to give you step by step instructions on how to get better. Rather they are there to give you ideas on how to best help yourself.

2. Get into therapy. This is perhaps the second most important things you can do for yourself behind reading. Therapy is the first line of treatment for anxiety, and for good reason. Once you find a therapist who you work well with, you’ll notice you progress much more quickly. Some things to look out for when you screen your therapist:

• Are they nice? Kind of an obvious one but worth going over. Do you feel like they take what you’re saying seriously? Are their answers usually thoughtful and caring?

• Are they experienced? My first therapist was tremendously nice and caring, but he didn’t know much about anxiety treatment beyond the very basics, like square breathing.

• Are they accessible? Or do you have to drive two hours to see them? Are they available for weekly sessions or can you only see them once a month? It may take a while until you find a therapist who’s right for you, but this is a person you’ll be meeting with multiple times a month for several months/years. I would advise giving your therapist at least three or four sessions before you consider switching to a new one.

3. Continue with all the acceptance techniques outlined in the previous section. These are things that I remind myself of even now. The more open you are towards your anxiety symptoms, the more quickly they’ll dissipate. In addition, if you can, start easing off your benzo a little bit. If you’re taking it three times a day, try to move down to two. If you’re down to two a day, try one.

4. Start making some lifestyle changes that are proven to help with anxiety in the long term:

• Cardiovascular exercise. It’s said that exercise is one of the most positive things to improve mood when you’re anxious, but I’d like to look at it from the opposite perspective. When you’re anxious, your body is filled with excess adrenaline that keeps building up. If you don’t dump it out somehow, the symptoms will inevitably get worse. So getting up from your desk or your bed is one of the most effective things you can do to help yourself in the long term. If you’re not super exercise savvy, my suggestion is to get out and walk, jogging occasionally. Walking is great for releasing excess energy, but you can boost the speed at which you let off adrenaline by running. You don’t need to do sprints whenever you run, but you’ll get the most out of your exercise if you really challenge yourself each time. More on this later.

• Meditation. The reason so many people say this is so good for anxiety is because it helps you better come to terms with your symptoms. It also lets you really hone in on some of the less productive thought processes you’re having so you can learn to catch and correct them. Keep in mind, the purpose of meditation is not to clear your mind and think of nothing. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. While meditating, your job is to let your body and brain work as normal and merely try to act as a conscious observer of all your thoughts and feelings. A really popular visualization technique for this is thinking of your thoughts as clouds, and you’re just watching them pass by. There is plenty of information out there on how to meditate, and it includes helpful techniques like noting, so I won’t go into it that much here. Make sure that your approach to meditation is similar to your approach to exercise: slowly ease into it by doing it for short periods at first, then working up very gradually to longer periods after every couple sessions. I suggest trying out the meditation app Calm.

• Diet. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably read the do’s and don’ts of your diet about a hundred times, but I’ll reiterate quickly here: no caffeine, no alcohol. Try your best to avoid excessive sweets and fried foods, and those are shown [1] to worsen your mood in the long term. One of the less known changes you can make to your diet is to include more natural sources of magnesium. It is speculated [2] that magnesium plays a part in anxiety regulation, though the research isn’t entirely there yet. Regardless, try to include dark leafy greens like spinach and whole grains like brown rice into your diet to hit this as a staple. You can also take a magnesium supplement (I’ll defer to the DARE Response for information about it), though again, research is shaky so this alone won’t bring change.

• Medication. This one will be completely at you/your doctor’s discretion. Some people respond well to antidepressants, some don’t. I didn’t feel like they helped me all that much, but you might. Note, the purpose of antidepressants isn’t to make you happy or to gradually cure your anxiety. Research shows [3] that antidepressants are useful for supplementing long term change in the brain. This is a REALLY important thing to note because it means that antidepressants won’t change anything on their own. Only if you give conscious effort will you be able to see positive change. Medication only makes it happen more quickly.

5. Give it time. Your nervous system doesn’t change overnight. It may need a week or two more before you achieve the results you want. So just keep practicing your therapy techniques and doing everything you know works and push through.

Once you’ve been at these things for a while, you’ll notice your anxiety start to decrease to the next phase.

Hovering around 4 - 6:

If you’re at this stage, congratulations! The first two stages are really hard to break out of, and if you did, it likely took a tremendous amount of effort. So give yourself a pat on the back. Once you’ve reached this stage, your anxiety likely doesn’t manifest itself physically as much. You may still get nauseated occasionally, but most of the time you’re able to eat and drink and (hopefully) sleep through the night. You’ve started reclaiming your normal life. You get out of the house relatively frequently and do things like run errands. But you’re still really anxious whenever you go out. In addition, though your physical symptoms may have eased up, your mental symptoms may still be incredibly difficult to deal with. So here’s what you should do at this stage:

1. Keep staying the course. It’s easy to flounder or stop, and it’s okay if you do. But remember to pick up right where you left off. Also, don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes. Everyone falters from time to time, it’s part of what makes us human. And it’s okay if things are taking longer than you expected. Take it from me that if you keep looking for ways you can improve your anxiety and practicing the techniques you know work, things will get better.

2. Keep pushing the envelope. Identify areas of your life that you’ve always been anxious about and challenge yourself to use therapy techniques to improve them. I used to beat myself up for being awkward ever since I was a little kid. I’d find flaws in every interaction I had with others and nitpick every little thing. Once I started working on this, I noticed not only an improvement in these kinds of situations, but also an improvement in my overall anxiety. This is part of how Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy works. You expose yourself to situations that make your anxiety flare up, and use CBT techniques to curb your conscious worry. An important note about this is these experiences aren’t meant to be fun. If you’ve got social anxiety and you’re challenging yourself by going to meet new people, it’ll likely be an uncomfortable experience the first few times. People around you may be having plenty of fun while you keep worrying and criticizing yourself. But you’ll slowly notice improvement, and with time, it’ll become more and more natural over time.

3. Along the same lines, start making your workouts more difficult. Run/bike/swim for longer, lift heavier weights. When you’re anxious, you tend to stagnate in certain areas of your life, sometimes without realizing it. The only way to get better is to keep pushing the bounds of what you do. I saw a post on this subreddit a while ago along the lines of “I’ve been lightly jogging for 25 minutes a day for the last month or two, why aren’t I seeing my anxiety improve?” And the answer in this case is because this person wasn’t pushing him/herself. If you continue to do the same things, you shouldn’t expect to see improvement.

4. Start identifying and cutting off some of your crutches/unhealthy habits. For a lot of us (me included), this comes in the form of googling symptoms or constantly asking for help on this subreddit. It’s okay to cave every once in a while at this stage, but you need to consciously stop yourself from constantly asking for help on the internet. One of the things this does is keep you focused on your anxiety, which is exactly what engaging yourself is meant to prevent. I stopped browsing this subreddit for almost a half year, and my condition got much better as a result. If you’re seriously concerned about something, visit your doctor/psychiatrist/therapist and ask them, but once they diagnose you, do not second guess it. I spent my entire college career going to different doctors (I think at least 10 or 11 different types, sometimes multiple doctors of each kind). I was convinced there was something wrong with me that no one could find, but the true culprit was anxiety. If you feel like you’re constantly sick or dying, yet doctors can’t find anything wrong, this is a clue that you have an issue with being a hypochondriac. You can go about fixing this the way you did in all areas of your therapy (I personally used the CBT method outlined in Feeling Good), but the important thing is to recognize that just because your brain is telling you something doesn’t mean it’s true.

5. Give it time. I’ve said it before but it’s important to reiterate. Recovering from this stage might take several months, so try your best to be patient. And remember, if things aren’t the way you want them to be now, they will be soon.

I think it’s also important to discuss the idea of cognitive fusion, which you may have come across in your book reading, as I think understanding it will be really helpful. Google defines cognitive fusion as attaching a thought to an experience, but since that’s kind of vague, I’ll give my own definition. Cognitive fusion is when you take what your thoughts tell you as fact. In other words, you’re using your thoughts to draw irrational conclusions about the world around you. One example of this is if you’re someone who criticizes themselves too much. You might tell yourself “that conversation was so awkward, so that person must think I’m a loser.” In this case, whether or not the situation was awkward, you don’t know what the other person is thinking. I used to think this a lot until I realized people really didn’t see me that way, and all the worrying I did was for nothing. A healthy level of questioning can do lots to help you overcome your anxiety.

At this stage, I had the most trouble with mental symptoms, namely the feeling of going crazy. I thought the little floaters in my eyes were hallucinations, I always second guessed my own sanity, I thought the weird dreams or intrusive thoughts I was having were a sign of schizophrenia, and anytime I was happy, I thought it was a sign of bipolar disorder. This is another great example of cognitive fusion that took me a while to get over: I thought I was going crazy, so to me that was evidence that I really was. If you think this describes you, it might do you well to get into the habit of questioning your thoughts as well. Is it more logical that your psychiatrist, therapists, family, and friends are correct when they say you’re not crazy and are just experiencing symptoms of anxiety, or that you’re the one person out of the fifty who’s somehow figured out you’re losing it? This applies to basically every anxious situation you may encounter. Remember: just because you think something doesn’t make it true.

One of the things that took me a long time to realize was that my constant worry over these things was caused by the fact that I was paying so much attention to them. At this point in recovery, it’s absolutely imperative that you keep yourself occupied, especially when you’re most anxious. I found that doing things like cooking and cleaning were ways to keep my mind off my anxiety without having to think about it. I suggest doing the same, as they’re both productive and beneficial in the end. Eventually, your mind will calm down on its own and you’ll find your own solutions to these symptoms. I find that at this point the really important thing really is time. Once I felt like I was going crazy for the hundredth time, I realized that if every time before this one was a false alarm, this one (and all the ones after for that matter) are false alarms too. This stage took about 3 months to recover from, but once I did, I hit the next stage.

Anxiety is 1 - 3 most days, with some days feeling almost completely anxiety free:

You’re in the home stretch. This is it. You’re likely already giving yourself credit for all the hard work you’ve done, but you should still take a moment to recognize just how far you’ve come. For me, having a day where I go out and try something new with friends while anxious is something I wouldn't have been able to do even BEFORE my anxiety disorder. Certainly not anything I’d ever dreamed of while in the thick of it. Seriously, if you’ve hit this point, the light should be at the end of the tunnel. And on the days where it’s a little harder to deal with, let me reassure you: you’re almost home free.

Note: your symptoms will still be present at this point. Some of the intrusive thoughts might still come, sometimes you’ll have a bit of dissociation or an occasional almost-panic attack, but you know how to deal with these things. Your moments of panic don’t last more than a few seconds, and your symptoms don’t really illicit a response from you. At this stage:

1. You know what works best for you. Keep doing it. You have your techniques and you’ve clearly demonstrated they work. All that’s left is to keep doing them and reap the rewards you know will come. On the worse days when your anxiety peaks at a 3 or 4, remind yourself where you were several months ago and how you’ll never experience anxiety that bad ever again. Then gently engage yourself in something and ride the wave of anxiety until it subsides.

2. Slowly lose your crutches. If you discuss your anxiety with your friends, stop doing so as frequently and eventually stop altogether. If you’re still occasionally taking benzos, slowly taper off. The more of your independence you get back, the more confident you’ll feel.

3. Keep exploring other areas of your life where you’ve had anxiety and use what you’ve learned to stop worrying. For me, this meant things like conquering my fear of heights by going snowboarding, and confronting my discomfort with physical and emotional intimacy by going out of my way to discuss these things. The more of these long-standing anxieties you’re able to ease, the better you’ll feel overall. Plus you get the added sense of achievement for doing things that past you would’ve never been able to do.

There really isn’t much left to say at this stage. I found myself being discouraged more frequently at this point just because I knew I was so close to the finish line but not quite there. In case you need any encouragement, remind yourself of how well you’ve done so far and that there’s more to come.

Then finally…

No anxiety, with the worst days peaking at a 0.5 or 1:

That’s it. All the voices in your head telling you you’re not good enough have gone silent. All those symptoms you used to worry so much about don’t really happen anymore. You might still be a bit fatigued or foggy some days, but most of the time you’re energetic, present, and can confront new challenges with a sense of confidence you’ve never had. It’s been a few months since you’ve even given your anxiety a second thought. You know some of your symptoms might come back for a short spell every once in a while, but you’re not worried about them. You know exactly what to do when that happens, and that they’ll go away just as quickly as they came.

I don’t have any advice for this point. You know what got you here and have built up the mental fortitude to know you’ll keep on doing it.

Congratulations. You understand how amazing it is that you got to this point. Remember this feeling. _

My therapist once gave me a great rule of thumb I think sums things up really well: whatever your anxiety is telling you to do, do the opposite. If it’s telling you not to get out of bed, do it. If it’s telling you not to go to a social event, do that. If it’s telling you you’re going to suffer from some grave illness, remind yourself that’s not true. If it’s telling you to google your symptoms or ask for help, don’t. If it’s telling you you’re losing your mind, remind yourself you’re not. Give it enough time, and eventually things will get better.

Summary:

Ease into your symptoms. Remember that it’s just anxiety and can’t do anything other than make you uncomfortable. You’ve been through this a hundred times before and survived every single time.

Don’t fight it. When you fight your anxiety, it only gets worse. So let your anxiety do whatever it wants and just watch as a detached observer.

Keep yourself occupied. The more time you spend thinking about your anxiety, googling your symptoms, posting on this subreddit, writing in your journal, or just stewing in general, the worse off you’ll be. Cook, clean, dance, exercise, paint, draw, do anything you can to forcibly rip your mind off your anxiety.

Keep pushing the bounds of what you’re doing. Expose yourself to more anxiety. Exercise harder. Try things you’ve never tried before. Make your anxiety flare up as much as possible because you know it’ll only benefit you in the end.

Regularly question your thoughts. Just because you think something doesn’t make it true. You’ll find a hundred times out of a hundred the thing you’ve been dreading isn’t half as horrible as your brain has made it out to be.

Give it time. You’ll find once you experience the same anxiety for the same reason for the thousandth time in a row that it becomes a bit easier to stop believing what it tells you.

Thank you for reading this. I really hope that, no matter where you’re at in life, you gained something from this. Please let me know what parts of this were the most helpful, or if there’s anything you want me to expand upon. I’ll try to respond to comments as best I can, but I work full time and don’t log into this account all that much, so I’m sorry if I don’t get to your comment as quickly as you’d like.

Sources:

3. Listed in Rewire Your Anxious Brain. Sorry I don’t have the citation offhand.

Books:

Edit: Sorry if the formatting is a little funky.

Edit 2: Thank you guys for the overwhelmingly positive response! I've read all of your comments and am super happy ya'll found this helpful. I want to remind all of you who are currently going through bouts of anxiety that you absolutely will make it through and that you'll be a much better person for it.

Keep in mind: anxiety does not define you. An anxiety disorder is not a permanent condition. Much like any other illness or disorder, you can take gradual steps to recover. It may not come as quickly as you want and you will encounter plenty of pitfalls. But once you start counting your victories, however small, you'll realize what a huge difference your efforts can make.

Good luck guys :)

Edit 3: Tossed another David Burns book (author of Feeling Good), When Panic Attacks, up in the book list. Thanks . Also fixed some formatting issues.

Edit 4: Thanks again for all the support everyone. I'm glad people are still managing to find this post even though it was written almost a half year ago. I tossed a book recommended by up on the list in case anyone is looking for more resources.

Hey everyone,

I've been exploring unusual ways to deal with anxiety, and I thought I'd share a list of weird strategies that have worked for me. Like probably everyone else here I have tried a ton of different traditional methods to relieve anxiety such as breathing exercises, meditation, journaling, therapy, working out etc and while those are amazing methods that work for some, sometimes nothing seems to help in the moment. So I started experimenting and came up with some unconventional tricks (and some I’ve picked up from others) that work surprisingly well for me!

I have separated methods into different categories so you can browse each category depending on what works for you!

Body Oriented:

• Turn Your Room Cold - Turn the heat down or open a window. A colder space can sometimes help your body calm down.
• Chug a Bottle of Water - It’s refreshing and forces you to pause for a second. Bonus: dehydration can make anxiety worse, so this helps on two levels.
• Lay on Your Other Side (Away From Your Heart) - If you’re lying on your left side and can feel your heartbeat too strongly, flip over. It can stop you from hyper-focusing on it.
• Dunk Your Face in Ice Water/Take a Cold Shower - This one feels extreme but it really works. It triggers your "dive reflex," which slows your heart rate and calms your nervous system.
• Hold Ice Cubes or Something Cold - The cold sensation brings you back into your body and out of your head.
• Sit on the Floor - Just plop down wherever you are. Sitting on the ground can make you feel more grounded.

Mind Tricking:

• Spell Words Backward - Pick a random word (like elephant for example) and spell it in reverse. Keep repeating with different words until you are distracting enough to break the cycle of anxious thoughts.
• Count Things Around You - Look around the room and count how many blue objects you can see or how many things are round.
• Force Yourself to Smile - Even fake smiling can trigger endorphin release and convince your brain you’re okay.
• Do Some Math - Start at 100 and count backward by 7s. Or do a Times table.

Behavorial:

• Flip Your Environment Around - Rearrange your furniture, your desk, or even just your pillows. Cleaning up your space can shift your mindset too.
• Play The Floor Is Lava - Lol like the game you played as a kid. Jumping around the room is a great distraction.
• Eat Some Crunchy or Sour Snacks - The texture, taste and sound give your mind something else to focus on.
• Wrap Yourself With Blankets - Weighted blankets are ideal, but even regular ones can work.
• Gratitude - Think about everything you are grateful for. This can help take your mind off of insecurities you are thinking about.

Environmental:

• Turn on White Noise or Static - The background hum of white noise can calm your brain if silence feels too loud. However, this one sometimes leads to hyperfocusing on intrusive thoughts, dissociation or depersonalization for me, so proceed with caution.
• Dim the Lights or Change the Color - Swap your lighting for something softer or cooler (like blue or green tones).
• Smell Something Really Strong - Smell something like peppermint, citrus, or even vinegar because a strong scent can "shock" your senses and pull you out of your anxious headspace.

Interactive:

• Carry Something Heavy - Holding something with weight can help ground you.
• Balance on One Leg - It sounds weird, but focusing on balancing can help distract you.
• Scribble - Grab a pen and just scribble as hard and fast as you can. Helps release energy, is super calming, and can help distract you
• Stare at Something Moving - Watch a fan, a candle flame, bobblehead, the snow falling outside, etc. It gives your mind something repetitive and calming to focus on. However, this one also sometimes leads to hyperfocusing on intrusive thoughts, dissociation or depersonalization for me, so again, proceed with caution.

Some of these sound ridiculous, but they’ve actually helped me, and I hope they can help you too!!!

This is going to sound really dumb but it’s helped me a lot and it’s a good trick my therapist taught me. When I’m starting to get really bad anxiety (I always have anxiety but I use this mostly when I’m having panic attacks or it’s really bad) I start thinking of names that start with every letter (I’ll sometimes do objects if I can’t think of a name) and it distracts me from whatever it is that is making me anxious and really helps me to calm down and not panic so much.

Something a therapist said that I thought about a lot afterwards: Treat yourself like you would treat a small child. Never let yourself go over tired, malnourished, cold, uncomfortable. Keep yourself clean, and if you get sick or upset, deal with it immediately

I have heard some great and creative things people do to live with their anxiety and truly embrace their lives while doing so. Seeing anxiety as a scared child. Naming your anxiety. Speaking about your anxiety in the 3rd person...... what are some of yall's best anxiety hacks and what specifically do they do to help you with your relationship with your anxiety??

I “speak” to my anxiety as if it were a person. For example if I can feel it ramping up, I’ll say things like “stop it, you know better.” It sound silly, but it honestly really does help me regain control over my thoughts sometimes. It certainly helps me realize how outrageous my anxious thoughts can be. I find realizing my anxiety is “tricking me” into believing something horrible can usually be calmed down if I speak to it.

Oppositely I’ll speak highly of myself sometimes (in my head) and say things to encourage myself that I’m stronger than my anxiety and I have control of my thoughts.

Source.

DISCLAIMER: I’m about to share the most effective, efficient, and reliable anxiety-reducing technique I’ve ever encountered. However, until I understood its mechanism and rationale, I spent years dismissing it as silly pseudo-science. With this in mind, I urge you not to skim this post. By taking the time to fully understand its concept, you'll be more likely to implement it and reap its full benefits.

PLEASE NOTE: I suffer from situational / anticipatory anxiety. I do not suffer from chronic anxiety or panic attacks. Thus, I can't speak of this techniques effectiveness for these conditions.

THE TECHNIQUE

Whenever you're confronted with emotions such as nervousness, dread, or anxiety, do the following:

1. Firmly declare to yourself: “I’m not [insert emotion here], I’m excited.”
2. Repeat the affirmation, alternating it slightly. After 10 or so repetitions, you’ll notice a positive shift in your emotions. This shift is often likened to a surge of warmth, happiness, or wellbeing. It’s a subtle feeling that begins in your chest or stomach. Once this occurs, proceed to step 3.
3. Personalise it. Continue repeating and alternating your affirmation, and add situation specific context. With each affirmation, consciously improve the conviction of your delivery (say it like you mean it).

Example:

“I’m not nervous, I’m excited.”

“I’m not feeling nervous, I’m feeling excited.”

“I’m feeling amped up right now.”

“It’s good to feel this excited.”

“I am buzzing with excitement right now.”

“I’m not nervous about this date, I’m excited to practise my communication skills.”

“I’m not anxious about meeting her, I’m excited to see if we’re well suited.”

“Tonight is going to be a great night.”

“No matter the outcome, tonight is a great learning opportunity.”

THE SCIENCE

The subconscious mind plays a pivotal role in determining how we feel. When we experience a particular emotion, it's because our subconscious has deemed it the most appropriate physiological state to match our situation.

Here's where it gets interesting: the subconscious mind has no perception of the outside world. Instead, it relies on information gathered by our conscious mind. However, this exchange of information isn’t a perfect science. After all:

Sometimes our conscious mind is wrong.

And as a result, our subconscious makes us feel situationally-inappropriate emotions.

Example:

You're sitting in a bar and you think a strange man is staring at you from across the room. Your conscious mind relays this information to your subconscious, and in response, you begin to feel paranoid and defensive. As the night progresses, you keep your guard up, perhaps even avoiding eye contact or thinking of ways to confront this dude. Eventually you notice there's a TV right behind you. It dawns on you that this guy wasn't staring at you at all – he was watching the TV. Despite this realisation, you've already spent a significant amount of time feeling unnecessarily defensive and uneasy, all because of a misinterpretation by your conscious mind.

Sometimes our subconscious mind misinterprets things.

Examples:

After a shitty day at work, you hear a song that reminds you of a great night out with your mates. You suddenly feel happy, even though your environment hasn't changed. This is because your subconscious mind has misinterpreted the cue from the song as being from the present moment.

You feel a touch on your shoulder and jump, thinking it might be someone trying to get your attention in a forceful way. In reality, it was just a friend tapping you lightly, but your subconscious misinterpreted the touch based on past experiences or a heightened state of alert.

You've just been studying about a particular illness in school or watched a documentary about it. Later, you feel a slight headache or some minor symptom, and you suddenly worry you might have that illness. Your subconscious, influenced by recent information, might misinterpret common sensations as signs of the disease.

Our subconscious mind can’t differentiate between real and fake.

Reading a touching story or novel can make you cry or feel emotional, even though the characters and events are fictional. Your subconscious reacts to the emotional narrative as if it were a real-life event.

On your way home, you spot a billboard showcasing a delicious pizza. Just seeing the image makes your mouth water and creates hunger pangs in your stomach, even though there's no actual food nearby. Your subconscious reacts to the image as if it were the real thing.

Why the technique works

The fact that our subconscious mind influences our emotions and that it’s unable to differentiate between real and fake means that we have the power to control how we feel.

Thus, when you’re anxious or nervous, if you repeatedly tell yourself you’re excited, your subconscious will eventually start believing it, and your emotional state will change accordingly.

Why excitement? Why not calm?

You've likely heard the advice when you're anxious or nervous: "Breathe deeply and think positive thoughts." The intention behind this guidance is to mimic the behaviour of someone who's calm. This is done in hopes that if you act calm, your subconscious mind will be convinced that you indeed are, leading your body to react by lowering your anxiety levels.

However, there's a challenge to this approach. Anxiety and calmness are at two extreme ends of the emotional continuum. Given their stark differences, it's quite a leap for your subconscious to quickly transition from a state of anxiety to one of calmness, especially after experiencing an intense situation. By the time your mind processes and believes this change, and your body begins to feel genuinely calm, considerable time may have passed. And the lengthier the transition of emotional states, the more prone you are to allowing doubting thoughts to creep in, reversing the transition, and bringing you back toward anxiousness.

On the other hand, excitement shares many physiological characteristics with anxiety: an increased heart rate, sweaty palms, heightened alertness, and a surge of energy. By affirming, "I’m not nervous, I’m excited," you’re not trying to make a drastic emotional leap. You’re simply reinterpreting a sensation that’s already present. This makes the transition from anxiety to excitement swift and painless.

Things to keep in mind

Practice makes progress.

Many clients have abandoned this technique after 2 or 3 lazily executed attempts. It took me at least 2 weeks of daily practice to really start feeling the benefits of this technique. Keep practising.

Ignore your inner dialogue.

When I first tried this technique, I was met with a great deal of resistance from my inner dialogue.

Me: “I’m not nervous, I’m excited.”

My inner dialogue: ‘Not you’re not, you’re nervous.’

This is natural when you first start out. But fear not, over time, as you continue refining your pitch, and begin experiencing the technique's benefits, that doubting voice will quieten down.

Don’t try to go from 0-100. Begin practising this technique in anticipation of low-stakes anxiety inducing situations. Stuff like making a phone call, choosing what to wear, or deciding where to eat. As you gain confidence, you can begin applying it to higher-stakes situations, like public speaking, approaching an attractive stranger, or attending a job interview.

Treat the technique like an acting audition. The effectiveness of this technique relies on how convincingly you deliver it. As such, pretend it’s your job to convince a casting director that your character is excited. Speak with conviction, enthusiasm, and passion. Raise your voice, and really believe in what you’re saying.

Your words are only half the story. Amp it up by letting your body join in. Stand tall, pull your shoulders back, lift your chin, and use your hands. Think of how animated people get when they talk about something they love and replicate that behaviour.

Chamomile tea you will not regret it. I use to make fun of people who drank it. Now look at me. It will make you feel relaxed.

for panic attacks: - crying - emergency medication - ice pack on my head, neck, and chest - going outside for cold air - listening to binaural beats on headphones - distracting myself on my phone with memes lol - trying to sleep it off

for anxiety attacks: - gum - water with electrolytes - going on a walk - listening to my favorite music - talking it out with someone i trust - ice pack on my chest, head, neck - breathing exercises

situational/random anxiety (not an attack) - take a break from my current situation to sit with the anxiety and allow it to be present - if that’s not an option, i try to distract myself as quickly as i can with things like dancing, sex, talking, walking, phone, etc. - breathing exercises - self talk affirmations and telling my brain that i am safe and i don’t need to be anxious right now, but thanking it for trying to keep me safe - eating something easy to digest - mints/gum/water - talking it out with someone i trust

I hope that helps!

The dehydration thing was huge for me. I didnt realize it at all for awhile and now I try get my gallon of water in every day.

I also notice my face and ears get hot when my anxiety is high so I stand in front of a fan or ac vent for 10 minutes.

I just read about eating a really sour candy when an attack sets in that helps redirect your brain. I ordered some to see if this works. 🙂

Exposure therapy is the only method that works. Facing anxiety again and again and showing yourself that you can do it will conquer the beast.

Building off of a post from yesterday about how anxiety presents/occurs in the body; what is your go-to technique or practice for overcoming this anxiety event in the moment. Because our emotional and physical reactions/processes are so intertwined, I'd love to hear how some of you overcome both the physical and emotional responses to anxiety. Thanks for sharing!

My anxiety is constant and nothing helps. My anxiety physical symptoms are also unbearable and the pain my body goes through 24/7 is ridiculous!! I’m consumed with intrusive thoughts and it just keeps getting worse by the minute. This has been going on for years but the last few months have become just too much. My psychiatrist can’t do anything. Medication is not working. People don’t get it. What am I supposed to do?! How will I be able to live the rest of my life feeling this way?!!

I am interested in seeing what other people do… but here are some things I do - I literally tell the thoughts that create anxiety to F off and then I do something to distract myself - I imagine a stop sign if a thought arises (I think that the thought will not move past the stop sign, and I will not ruminate on it) - I have different “mantras” I use such as “I have been through this before, and I can handle this” (that usually works if I am really in my head) - I do body scans and breathing exercises (I use the calm app) - using positive self talk in response to irrational thoughts. Since my anxiety is based on thinking of the worst case scenarios, I tell myself well what if it all went well!

These are some things that help me, it really depends on the type of anxiety that you are dealing with. Some of my anxiety is situational based while some of my anxiety is just flat out irrational. Especially if it’s situational, you can justify your worries and concerns and tell yourself it’s normal to feel anxious. I feel that irrational anxiety requires yourself to reframe your thinking and response to the thought provoking anxiety. It really depends!

for me its:

1. Get busy. I can be having a panic attack at work, but if shit hits the fan, suddenly I have other shit to do.

2. A panic attack has never made me pass out, killled me, or anything of the sort. This has gotten me through life so far. This to this day remains true. If I were to ever pass out or anything similar, than all of this would go out the window. But having that undefeated status has really helped so far.

The cold factor with either drinking water, making the room colder, or dunking your face has helped me tremendously. It works fast too! I'll give the rest of these a try. Thank you! 😊

i have bad health anxiety and feel my brain just takes any opportunity to spiral. i feel i need tools when i'm veering into panic to reduce anxiety immediately. i've tried splashing cold water on my face and it helps a bit and weirdly narrating to myself what's happening in the third person (like "he's sitting at his desk. he's noticing his chest feels tight. he's fine." or whatever). i've also used the personalised meditations on the shroomy app which are calming. these normally work but i'm feeling a bit panicky and need other suggestions.

what's yours?

I like to thank my body for trying to warn me, but try to tell myself that I'm actually okay and the anxiety isn't necessary. This often helps calm me down when I notice a sudden flare up of anxiety or I can tell that my thoughts are leading me to enter a potential prolonged anxious state.

I visualize that I'm on a train and it's racing and I decide to get off of the train and stay at the station. This helps me to stop when my anxiety is causing a lot of worst case scenarios or overthinking.

I also do what DueNerfariousness said and try and remind myself that I've experienced this before and I am able to handle it.

I also sometimes try to check in and see if there's something else that may be causing the feelings that I'm labelling as anxiety. This is more situational, so if I'm going on a date or starting a new job, I reframe my thoughts as excitement or nerves. Sometimes I check in to see if I'm hungry and the sugar crash is causing these physical feelings of anxiety (this is a big one for me because my anxiety often causes me to lose my appetite and often eating helps settle my nerves a bit)

Its a horrible feeling mate.

Try 4-7-8 breathing.

Breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds

Hold for 7 seconds

Breathe out through your mouth for 8 seconds

Repeat 4 times.

This will help engage your parasymathetic nervous system.

If you can, Google and read about tje parasymathetic nervous system, it might actually help calm you down knowing about the science behind it 😊

Wha helps me the most is jumping jacks or going for a run. Until you're tired. Your body needs to get the adrenaline a place to go.

Sometimes you have to let the thoughts come and go. Of course, saying that, it’s not like that’s very helpful advice, is it? That’s what a former therapist told me.

Honestly I have ticks and those serve as a way for my nervous system to balance out a little bit of the anxiety. I try to distract myself and 8/10 that works. Otherwise I reset by laying in bed until I fall asleep.

Of course, this all works more for my intrusive thoughts than it does my anxiety.

Disclaimer: Im highly medicated. Before meds, I simply wasn’t able to regulate.