to ask you to share your little tips on handling anxiety/panic?

[JollyGiraffe]

Posting here for traffic, in the hopes someone might see something that helps them!

I have suffered from panic attacks and anxiety on and off for the last 8 years or so. Things are much better than they were, but by no means fully resolved and I still have panicky feelings almost daily.

I thought it would be nice to start a thread with some small easy tips on how to distract yourself from the panicky feelings until they pass.

I'll go first:

Chewing gum, or sucking on a mint (peppermint is calming and refreshing, and chewing or sucking on something helps to relieve anxious energy)

My favourite grounding technique: thinking of 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. Particularly helpful when somewhere busy in public!

Anyone else?

I meditate 😊

Counting. I just start counting. Works well for me.

I hated the tv show lost but I loved that the main guys used to allow himself to panic for 5 seconds before getting on with things.

Not everyone will find my technique helpful, but:

I try to remind myself that in terms of the universe, the existence of the entire human race will be nothing more than a tiny blip in time, and that the sum of all our existences, our achievements and our suffering, will have meant nothing, let alone whether so-and-so in the next office thinks I'm weird.

Sorry if others do not find this thought relaxing.

Write it down, work out when is the actual time you can do something about it then you can plan. A lot of my anxiety is work related, so if I write it down I can't forget it and I know when I can solve it. Make like a money /piggy bank but for your worries!

Acting. Act like yourself but act like you're playing a character of yourself that's not anxious and is confident. It doesn't always work but for me it does half of the time. Aside from that I'd love to hear people's tips, I have a symptom that makes me sweat easily so when anxious will especially visibly sweat and hate it when called into meetings or close spaces etc.

Dr Stuart’s tranquility tea - hard to get hold of at the moment but brilliant.

& beta blockers when it’s very bad sadly

following! having a pretty rough time at the moment, and can't seem to stop the panic/hysteria no matter how hard I try!

Rescue remedy.

Deep breathing. Also agree with otters - wait it out. Recognise it for what it is and remember that it will pass and you won't keel over (even if it does feel like that!)

I found a way of curing my panic attacks. It sounds mental but my therapist taught me it.
Pat your body down firmly. Start at your shoulders, patting all the way down your body, down your legs, down your arms, working briskly.

Weirdly its very grounding.

IJoinedJustToPostThis - I love that tip :)

Missionitspossible I do this, normally when I'm really nervous or worried about something. For example, bit worried I'm shit at my new job? Today I'm just going to pretend I'm ace at it and act like I would if I was (if that makes sense). A sort of fake it til you make it approach.

Also, smiling when you don't feel like it genuinely does change your mood a little bit.

I agree with a couple of the said comments. Don't try and find the cause (if you don't know what is already) , it always makes me more frustrated, deal with the symptoms in hand. I tend to get too hot so having a cold drink or cool shower sometimes helps.
Controlled breathing makes a huge difference. Take a big, deep breath in, hold for 5 seconds, breathe out for a count of 5 seconds. Repeat a few times. This will slow your heart rate and reduce the adrenaline rush through your body. This helps with the physical symptoms of anxiety. Which for me personally are the most distressing.
I cope best when physically distracted, pottering about the house or going for a walk helps me.
Hope that helps

Mindfulness. There's a great book on Amazon (Mindfulness a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world)

There's also a great iPhone app called Sway.

Beta blockers and diazepam. I've had counselling and CBT, which helped immensely, but it's the daily beta blockers(for a heart condition coincidentally) and the occasional diazepam keep me sane. It

Ijoinedjusttopostthis - I do that too, and find it very calming.

I do the 5, 4,3,2,1 thing too and find it really helps. Also if I'm walking somewhere e.g. School run which I find stressful / anxiety inducing I play a little game in my head looking at people's gardens/ front of houses finding something I like and something I don't like in each one e.g. They've got a nice pink rose but their wheely bin is in a silly place or I like the colour of the car but I don't like the weeds on the path- grounds me and turns my inner critic from me to something else.

Told my therapist this and she said whatever works for me. She also suggested looking for a colour e.g. What do I notice that is blue, sky, button on my dress, man over the road with blue coat, etc.

I'm thinking of trying calms or similar if anyone has any experience of herbal type stuff I'd appreciate it ( not to hijack thread tho!)

Ask yourself what is genuinely the worst that can happen. This is my go-to technique for calming myself. I identify what I am panicking about and logically work through the stages of "what-ifs"...

So for example:
1)OMG I have a sore throat but I have so much work to do that I can't possibly take a day off because the world will end if I do (my very frequent 4 am panic).
2) If I wake up tmw and am too unwell to go into work, I will phone in sick.
3) BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CLASSES YOU TEACH: THEY WILL DIE WITHOUT YOU.
4) I will set work - Class A can do X, Class B can do Y, Class C can do Z.
5) BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ASSESSMENTS YOU TIMETABLED FOR TOMORROW? THE WORLD WILL END IF YOU DON'T DO THEM.
6) I will email the students concerned and postpone them until I return. The due date is not until next term. It will be fine.
7) OH...

I rarely if ever get to the end to discover that the worst that could happen is that THE WORLD IS GOING TO END AS A RESULT OF WHAT I AM PANICKING ABOUT and thus realise that I might be overreacting somewhat

But seriously, I find the logical thinking through step by step very useful to stop the brain spiralling into that kind of catastrophising that can so easily take over.

There's some really good advice here. Despite having severe anxiety for over 20 years and learning in my own way to cope, it's helpful to see how others manage.
**JollyGiraffe thanks for this thread ☺

Love all these, thanks so much for sharing!

To everyone who says you just need to wait it out- that is 100% true! There's no point fighting it. Accept the feelings, and it will stop.

Rationalising it out that it's just a part of my brain misfiring and sending lots of 'AGGHHH!' messages around my body helps. I try to remember my brain will realise it is being a bit silly, and stop sending the signals. So sort of seeing that part of my brain as a separate entity, rather than it being me being silly (hope that makes sense...)

Dances, similar to you, if I am at home and feeling panicky I sometimes put earplugs in. Often I feel way too overstimulated (even when alone in a quiet room....) and it stops my hearing my own breathing/heart rate.

wisp Hope you find something here that helps you!

Oh, bold fail.
Deep breaths, deep breaths 😂

Munchkin

Accept the panic. I once ranted at a therapist that I was sick of fighting the panic attacks, so he asked what would happen if I just accepted them, maybe with a running commentary. I said 'I'm having a panic attack and described it. I only had one more panic attack after that after having had them daily for months.

A therapist told me that he used to work in A&E and when people came in with panic attacks he would tell them to really panic, go on, panic as much as you can, and that stopped them.

I remember that in the throes of panic.

I also envisage myself somewhere nice - walking across empty fields, for example, and think to myself that if I were there, my panic would stop immediately. That puts it into perspective.

Also, when I was panicking at a funeral recently and my mother asked what was wrong and I told her, she just said 'unwind' and it made so much sense to me as I am always so busy with work/children/running the house that I suppose I am very tightly wound.

Finally, not quite so relevant as it doesn't help IN THE MOMENT of panic, but I have found exercise is brilliant to reduce panic and for overall calming. Running and yoga do it for me.

Great thread.