TL; DR - I have a lot of anxiety, looking for ideas to help me calm down temporarily.
The long version: I have a long history with depression, and a relatively new problem with anxiety. Today I had to leave work early, because I reached a point of complete paralysis. I spent about an hour sitting on the floor in the corner crying on and off. (I was the only one there at the time.) Called my therapist, then called my boss and said I had to go. Fortunately, I work for/with people who are extremely understanding, so they figured out someone to cover for me so I could leave.
Once I got home, I did some mindfulness exercises recommended by my therapist, took a long shower, and watched a favorite movie from my childhood. I’m no longer in full-on crisis mode. However, it’s been several hours, and my heart is still pounding, and my hands are still shaky.
I’m looking for suggestions of other calming self-care activities to try tonight. I know nothing will solve this fully right now, I just want to be able to relax a little. Thanks in advance!
Are you able to have any pets where you live? Nothing beats my anxiety more than spending time with or merely taking care of my dogs. Cats, rabbits, rats, gerbils, chickens, goats…any lovely other being with a beating heart and two eyes is a blessing.
When my anxiety flares up, it’s usually because I’m not listening to that little voice inside my head that’s always telling me the right thing to do. I’m not eating right, I’m not exercising, drinking too much or being stupid with my money.
Once I start doing all those things I KNOW I should be doing, I feel better.
Me ex GF had issues with heart racing anxiety. She overcame it by doing lots of cardio exercises. She made herself accustomed to having a racing heart. So when she was at work or in public, and her heart started racing, she didn’t go into full panic mode because she was already used to “racing heart”.
So I recommended (physical) exercise. Cardio in particular.
A second recommendation for physical exercise, steady cardio, as long as you can manage. Your level of fitness doesn’t matter - just do whatever gets your body moving and your heart pumping. Running, brisk walking, whatever. I find that outside in nature is better than a gym.
My view of it is this. Humans evolved as hunter gatherers, and (in part) our bodies are designed for endurance running. If our mind is are agitated and confused, getting our bodies doing something that they were designed for helps to make us feel physically more comfortable with who we are.
Regular exercise tends to make you more attentive to diet, and you may sleep better if you’re more physically tired. I find that if I look after myself physically, the mind usually follows.
If it’s interfering with your work, you might want to consider medication. There are lots of options. It’s not just Benzos or nothing. There are things you can take everyday that raise your threshold so you can “put up with” a lot more before you reach panic attack. I know someone who was up to two 4mgs of Valium a day, and wanted an alternative, and started taking something called Topamax. It’s a very new antipsychotic, with no weight-gain potential, that is also used to treat migraines. Taken every day, you stop feeling it after about a week (I take it for insomnia), but it definitely raises your threshold for tolerance on anxiety producing stimuli. For me, it’s going to bed. Makes my mind race, and keeps me awake. Not anymore on Topamax.
I take a does way below that of people who take it for seizures, and I think even below that of people who take it for migraines. No side effects (not even the weight loss one).
And that’s just one one many, many non-benzo, non-barbiturate alternatives. There are about seven different classes of drugs, with on average, 10 drugs per class, most of them on the market less than 15 years. Most are very clean (ie, few side effects), and are useful for anxiety in very low doses. Some of them are antipsychotics, but don’t let that throw you. People with schizophrenia take 200-400mg of a drug that people who take it for anxiety may take 25-50mg of.
ZipperJJ, I’m not allowed to have pets, but the internet has an endless supply of puppies and kittens to look at, which is better than nothing.
Grrr! and Riemann, I hadn’t thought of exercise in those terms. I took a walk today, but not a very long or strenuous one. I’ll keep that in mind.
RivkahChaya, I am very open to the option of medication. I’ve tried various antidepressants over the years, but they didn’t have a strong effect on my depression. It’s possible that they will help this new anxiety thing, though. I don’t currently have a psychiatrist, so making some calls is on my to-do list for tomorrow. The challenge will be to find one who accepts my insurance, since I can’t really afford to pay for that out of pocket. I’m currently paying my therapist out of pocket, although my new insurance plan may end up reimbursing me for some of it. When I find someone, I’ll definitely ask about Topamax.
I don’t have an answer or suggestion. My girlfriend suffers from the same thing. As a person who doesn’t suffer from this but has in the past the big difference between now and then is that I no longer think about me or how I feel. Not sure how the transition took place but it has a lot to do with keeping up with things, not overloading myself and allowing myself time for creative hobbies. It has been close to 30 years since I have experienced anxiety and I do know how bad it can get.
Like others have said: exercise, meditation, hobbies.
You don’t need to go running for miles. A few minutes of mild exercise every hour or two can have a big impact.
Meditation has a passive benefit which you can get after a session and over time in that you will get less mental noise. It also has an active benefit of strengthening attentional control. It’s active in that once you have strengthened it, you need to actually use it outside meditation in everyday life; It’s like working out a muscle; It gets stronger but you need to actively use that increased strength. For example, during a meditation session, you might dispassionately observe your thoughts, take note of them and gently bring your focus back on the object of the meditation. You can do that outside meditation too with whatever activity you’re doing. Today, I woke up anxious and used the same kind of “observe - note - move on” technique even though I wasn’t meditating.
Also, meditation can be paying attention to your breath or an “Om” sound but the object of the meditation can be just about anything. I’ve had meditation sessions where I put on eyeshades, headphones and focus on listening to music in the same way I would my breath. To follow up on ZipperJJ, I’ve had sessions where I focus on petting my cats with the same mindfulness as I would when meditating (they’re ok with it). You don’t need to limit yourself to the traditional objects of meditation. You can experiment with non-traditional objects too. For example, if you get really into them, gardening or city building games aren’t all that different from a sand mandala.
I had a pretty bad breakdown at my job earlier this year. I’ve been off and on medications pretty much all my life for both anxiety and depression.
I did find a medication (Pristiq) that seems to be doing ok but I still have bouts where things are just too much and I kind of disassociate myself from, well, myself.
I don’t have the healthiest coping mechanisms but I find revisiting my childhood helps a lot. I’ll go on Youtube and watch old commercials and kind of get lost in that. (It seems silly but old ads are an interest of mine)
At that point I kind of get into more videos and that seems to help.
It always helps to talk to someone, even if you want to get away from the world. Just having someone make you laugh can cut the anxiety down by a lot.
I wish I had more to give, but just know you are definitely not alone.
When I’ve had anxiety attacks, fortunately not often, the thing that helped the most in the immediate throes was walking. I’d just get out and walk and focus as singularly as possible on one aspect of that action. Putting one foot in front of the other, the way the weight of your body shits from side to side, or how your arms move back and forth, etc. It helps if you have somewhere where you can do this without getting interrupted (city streets for example don’t work too well) But after a while of this I would always calm down. I suppose it’s just another form of meditation, as mentioned upthread. The quiet and still kind of meditation never seemed to kick in for me.
As far as meds go, you might consider a beta blocker. It basically prevents (supposed to anyway) your heart rate getting too high. It doesn’t have the direct mood effects of the anxiolytics, like benzos. Seems to work for some people. Best of course to do this in consultation with you medical practitioner of choice.
I’ve so rarely been anxious to the point of it effecting my life so rarely I’m never developed a technique. When my heart acts up I tend to go more to panic mode and for times like that I I have an Rx for Klonopin <sic?>. For just generally nervous I like walking or maybe working on some wood or metal projects to get my head back together.
Walk, walk, walk! Somewhere pastoral like a park or green space is best. I go with a dog but he’s kinda incidental, it’s the walking. I always feel better afterward. Sometimes I go out for a short walk, after receiving upsetting news, as a way to counter the worst of my response. It is really helpful to me.
When I’m really anxious,( like before the dentist), I usually try to memorize an affirmation while I’m out walking. It doesn’t really matter what is says. I just look them up, surf through till I find one that pleases me just then, usually something calming, maybe 3-4 sentences long max. Write it on a piece of paper and attempt to commit it to memory during the walk. Repeatedly referencing the slip of paper as required, and repeating it till memorized is enough of, just the right kind of distraction, to unstick my mind from anxiety. Combined with a 30-40 minute walk and it’s like a magic tonic.
Depending on the cause the anxiety can come back, but when it does it’s always lessened and weaker. After a few days of this practice it seems to not return, for me anyway.
Hope you’ll consider giving it a try, silly as it sounds, it actually works quite well. (And you don’t have to take drugs!) wishing you Good Luck!
Don’t be afraid of anxiety attacks, fear is their greatest weapon. If you feel one coming on just resolve to find a place to have it, let it happen, and then go on with your day. Once you are no longer afraid of them, they almost never happen.
For anxiety that is not an attack, here is a good post by a psychiatrist on things that can work.
The ONLY thing that helps me is .25 mg of xanax. I’ve used it as needed for over 30 years.
MY personal “as needed” protocol is as follows: I never take more than .25 mg at a time. (That’s 1/4 of a milligram or half an orange tablet.) I never take more than .25 mg in a 24-hr period. I never take it more than two days in succession. I have never once deviated from this protocol in 30 years. It works every damn time. It’s the only thing that works. For me.
I’ve done years of therapy, read every book on the subject, done meditation, yoga, walking, petting my dogs and cats, sex-- nothing helps with an anxiety attack except 1/4 mg of xanax. I can remember walking in a park one time on a beautiful sunny day, birds singing, breeze blowing, utterly consumed by anxiety. Maybe it’s superstition or a self-induced placebo. I don’t care. It works for me.
I have been on a variety of meds over the past nearly 40 years. Depression, panic, mood swings and feeling I was looking at the world through the wrong end of a telescope. I finally, finally have a great psychiatrist, who has adjusted dosages many times, and I’m functioning as well as a bipolar hermit can.
However, what has truly worked wonders is coloring. Got me through a dogless time and the guilt associated with it. Whenever I am getting overly stressed, even if I’m not aware of it, I start coloring.
I know this sounds trivial, but perhaps taking a trip back in time with Crayolas might help now and then.
I’d rather have the blackest of depressions than a single anxiety attack. Good luck.
Well, that depends on the nature of the anxiety. Sometimes mental states just don’t arise through straightforward cause-and-effect like this. Anxiety can be a perfectly healthy reaction, a cue to take action to resolve a cause of stress. But not always. Similarly, being sad can be a normal healthy response to the slings and arrows; being depressed is not, and telling a depressed person that they have no reason to be sad doesn’t help them.
I went through a period with terrible anxiety. I found watching very harmless things (you mentioned a favorite movie–I would watch childhood cartoons) helped. Listening to calming music, trying to find outside things to focus on like repetitive crafting projects, and herbal teas helped me ease out of panic too. I’d like to echo Whatever4’s suggestion of coloring–I’ve had a lot of fun with adult coloring books, and it can be both simple and absorbing enough to keep my focus off of whatever is stressing me. The downside is that I’ve spent a lot of money on sparkly gel pens to color with. What? I like sparkles!
Good luck! People underestimate just how bad and even crippling stress can be, especially when it’s chronic and not a reaction to a temporary problem.
Maybe. I had terrible panic attacks as a young teen when I was home on summer vacation with nothing to do.
I opted for meds (currentl Lexapro) to take the edge off – it helps me handle things better and when I get panicky from something really bad, I have Ativan as a safety net.
I’ve heard of Topamax as a treatment for compulsive overeating but I think the effects are serious enough my doc didn’t think it was worth it.
