AIBU to ask for simple ways to manage acute anxiety tonight?

[Tiddlysocks]

I need urgent, simple advice to get through the night, please. I am by nature not an anxious person. This just means anxiety doesn't usually stay with me. I deal with it and it goes. However, due to a highly stressful situation over the last 6 weeks, my anxiety has increased to almost unmanageable, and i need simple, usable tips to just get through tonight. I am seeing a GP tomorrow.

At the moment, I cannot calm myself. I feel like I am constantly on the edge of a panic attack and i cannot get rid of it. I cannot switch off my thoughts, which is unbearable, I cannot eat. I cannot bear to just use google, which makes no sense. Just typing here is calming a little.

Please help

All that SIB09 said too

Looks like we’ve all said similar actually :)

personally I like beta blockers too but have found via exercise and breathing I’m doing very well without ever taking them.

I do think l theanine helps me too, I take one in the morning and one at night.

Minute by minute. Time yourself and tell yourself you will keep it together for only one minute. After the minute, take some deep breaths and then time yourself for another minute. Maybe work up to three minutes then start over with one minute.

When it’s bedtime if you can’t sleep start doing your multiplication tables in your head. Then start at 1000, and subtract three and keep doing that. Then tell yourself you will stay absolutely still for up the count of 500. These things help Me to relax and they pass the time. I will be thinking of you and sending you good thoughts.

Can you cool yourself right down? Get an ice block under your feet and keep it there til you’re shivering, this really helps me for some reason.

Play a mindlesss game like candy crush - this helps me pass the time and distract the racing thoughts. Hope you feel better, it sucks but it does pass xx

I find comedy helpful too.

some of Serena Terry’s stuff about mental health is very funny (see on Facebook.)

Yes! Being cold definitely helps me too!

So sorry you're feeling like this - it's horrible. Perhaps not simple, but what about a call to the out of hours GP to see if they can send a prescription to a 24 hour pharmacy nearby this evening?

I was once beside myself after a loss, called the locum who sent a diazepam script. Sanity saver.

Don't, however, ask for diazepam by name. Let them suggest the meds.

This may be stupid but I chat to chat gpt and ask it to distract me with word games and quizzes and facts. It really helps me calm down and focus on other stuff even if I’m not sleeping.

Yes - the calm app!! This has saved my sanity a number of times during the night. Forgot this great one!

Have you tried chat gpt? It can be very good at reducing anxiety.

An addictive game on your phone can help, I like Magic Sort or Scavenger Hunt. If you can focus enough for a book, that always helps me too if I’m snuggled in bed.

Open your window to get a cool breeze. Put on some comedy that you like, a panel show or sitcom etc. Try YouTube for some short clips maybe. Something that is mildly distracting but requires no concentration.

Try the 5 4 3 2 1 grounding technique. 5 things you can see. 4 things you can hear. 3 things you can touch. 2 things you can smell. One thing you can taste.
take your shoes and socks off and really feel the floor beneath you.
look at the Childline website toolbox/calm zone- you do not have to to be a child to need calming ideas.
piece of paper with a-z on the left. Think of categories like clothing female names male names countries animals birds and write them down ie Angela Barbara Charlotte etc etc

This is just a feeling. Well done for seeing your GP. Also look at docready.org.uk for prep for seeing GP. In my experience books are too long term, you need something g immediate. In the longer term build your box of things that help, knowing that some times, a thing will work and other times it won’t-which doesn’t mean it never will, just its not the right to g right now.

This too will pass! Every five minutes, every half hour and hour you get through, are a little victory.

Comfort or compelling viewing is my recommendation. I can watch sitcoms like Friends, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and so on and they are soothing. What are some of your favourite TV shows? Put one on.

Listen to yoga nidra. I’m sorry you feel so dreadful.

If there’s a late night chemist I find the Bach flower pastilles (yellow tin) very helpful. I am going through a prolonged period of stress with my business and these help the knot in my stomach dissipate . Not sure if the relief is all in my mind but it helps to feel I’m doing something to relieve it

Hey, I am here, how are you now?

Been having really similar and have posted about it. Sorry I havent read all the comments.

First for a really quick fix, have you tried the dive response reflex? Fill a basic with cold water, lean well over and fully submerge your head. Hold your breath for 20 - 30 seconds. Its a quick reset.

I have been given distress intolerance work to go through by my therapist and it has helped so much. The key is to remember and engage the fact that although your thoughts and feelings may feel big or overwhelming, they are still just thoughts and feelings and you can experience them without getting swept away by them.

You are safe. Your thoughts are just thoughts, and even if you did have a panic attack, which you won't because we are here supporting you, you will be okay anyway. Is it nice? Not at all, but its all a safe experience and you will get through it.

Try to detach, observe what you are feeling for a few seconds, recognise that you are feeling anxious, but remind yourself that you can cope, you will get through this moment, and then you need to redirect your attention. You do not need to engage with the thoughts or fight them in any way, just keep trying to acknowledge them, remind yourself that you dont have to get caught up in them, and then focus on something more positive and self care minded. Read the thread, focus on a hot cup of tea, put something naff on the telly.

How do you feel now? X

Sipping water helps me. Don’t know why.

its a hideous feeling, but it absolutely can get better.

I hug a teddy really close to, despite being in my 40s. Something about the squeeze makes me feel better.

also, if you just want to hear about peoples’ days- I went to a sort of Comicon thing today and nearly got wiped out by R2D2.
cheeky git wheeled straight for me 😂

A second for a walk
Move it to lose it Just a long walk will maybe
improve perspective and problem solving thinking

I find that counting how long I'm breathing in and out for can make me feel more stressed. I like the 'physiological sigh', which (almost) avoids all counting and is very effective for quickly decreasing your heart rate.

First Inhale: Take a deep, full breath in through your nose.
Second Inhale: Without exhaling, take a second, shorter, sharper breath in to fully inflate your lungs.
Exhale: Release the air slowly and completely through pursed lips, as if sighing.
Repeat: Do 1 to 3 rounds of this pattern to achieve an immediate calming effect.

Oh and Google progressive muscle relaxation. Another good & relatively easy thing to do

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2023 I started writing in a nice notebook with a nice pen whenever I felt I needed to get things off my chest. I just wrote what I was feeling. What I was worried about. What I was angry about. If I was awake at 2 in the morning and I was worried then I got up and wrote in my notebook.

There are lots of things you can do physically as well, and I think all the PPs have probably told you most of those, but writing it down is what helps for me. I now write in my journal every night before I go to sleep, but just what I feel like, and as much as I feel like, so some days it's half a page, some days it's 3 pages. I am now NED (no evidence of disease) but it is still comforting for me to be able to write things down.

This is great advice. I’ve suffered with bouts of crippling anxiety for years and this has truly been the thing that’s helped me the most. Recognise that it’s ’just’ anxiety, it can’t hurt you. And by ‘just’, I don’t mean that it isn’t a really awful feeling. But it isn’t going to kill you, you aren’t going to fall apart or go completely mad. Acknowledge ‘I am feeling anxious’ and then try to do something like, say, the washing up or folding some laundry. You’ll be doing those things while feeling anxious, sure, but so what?

The problem with trying harder and harder to make the anxiety go away is that it reinforces the sense that something Very Bad and Scary is going on and that you MUST stop/fix it. But when you try to acknowledge ‘ok, I’m anxious, now what?’ it gradually stops feeling like such a threat. And then, ironically, for me that’s usually when the anxiety starts to dissipate.

Anxiety sucks!!! I feel for you, im going through similar at the moment. It's the 2,3,4am times that I really struggle. Think I've imposter syndrome and scroll looking for jobs.

I know I will need an anti-anxiety tablet, but also that I cannot ask for it. Sigh

Are there any that don't make you drowsy? Any that are not addictive that work?

Actually, i don't know if i can ask that here. Sorry!

Hi OP, sorry you're feeling this way. It will absolutely pass even though right now it is overwhelming. This is temporary and better days will come where all this will be a distant memory. I do understand as I have been in the grip of extreme anxiety more times than I would like to count. It WILL pass. I cannot emphasise this enough.

What I used to find helpful was putting something funny on the TV, a daft American comedy film (loved Identity Thief!) or even something old and nostalgic - bit of Disney?

Most of all, when the feeling was too overwhelming, I just imagined myself as a giant, solid rock in the sea. The waves of anxiety may come but just let them, don't fight it, let them wash over you and recede again. You are a giant, solid, unmoving rock and you'll still be there. You won't lose your grip, you won't wash away. Let the waves come and let them go away again. You're safe and solid. Always will be 🤗