If you’ve been having anxiety attacks or episodes lately try these things: A Short Thread

First things first anxiety is triggered for a few reasons, understanding yours is going to majorly help you control it. For some anxiety is triggered in the gut due to lack of eating or an imbalance. Eating small snacks and a daily probiotic can help.

Some people have anxiety triggered by events where they think they’re in danger. Breathing, moving around, fidgeting and talking to yourself helps. I like to shuffle cards and hum to myself or talk out what I’m feeling.

For others, anxiety is completely random intrusive thoughts. There’s no trigger, just intrusion. This anxiety is hard to deal w/ because there’s no pinpoint trigger or way to stop it from coming on b/c you can’t feel it. It just shows up.

When I have these episodes I find a few things work. One, pretend you have a giant air bazooka, and pull back your hand in the motion you’d use to fire off the bazooka. Aim it at your intrusive thoughts and blow them away. Keep doing this until they’re gone.

This works because you’re doing a robotic motion, recentering yourself, you’re slowly being awareness to your body, and you’re visualizing the thought get blown away. Remember our brains can’t tell the difference between visualizing and real.

To your brain, you are very much blowing away the threat it thinks is real. When we do things like this, we signal to the brain that we have it under control, we’re not in danger. You can also flick rubber bands at a wall or throw little paper balls if that helps.

If you have intrusive thoughts, another thing to try. This works for people who are fairly in control of their emotions and spend a lot of time executing therapeutic strategies. Tell the thought “no”. Anytime it pops up, say “no”. Keep saying it, eventually it goes away.

This sounds silly and out of touch w/ mental health. But it actually does work if you’re on the more developed end of healing. Reason being, your brain is already trained to listen to you because you rewired your neurons.

Something that works for pretty much everyone when you have intrusive thoughts: talk out loud to yourself and explain what’s going on in your body. It brings awareness to you, rationalizes everything, and is a quick way to shut a fear response down.

I say things like “I’m anxious because I don’t know what’s going on. So my body thinks it’s in danger, and is sending out a mix of chemicals designed to make me run. My blood is rushing to my feet to help them move, that’s why I’m dizzy, that’s why I’m suddenly starving...”

Talking your body through what’s going on allows you to make sense of the flood of chemicals entering your body. It reminds you that you aren’t in danger. Rationalizing the “danger” is massive on stopping anxiety, esp sudden onset anxiety.

Another thing you can do with intrusive thoughts is to talk out loud through a list of things you know. It can be anything. Basic math, directions somewhere, how fabric feelings, what your favorite book is about, this forces your brain to anchor onto something.

When you anchor onto something, even the most random things, you stop your thought spiral. When you say something true, your body stops freaking out about a lie or catastrophic event and focuses on something it knows. Which stops the spiral.

For my people with chronic anxiety, you exhibit on a regular basis a mix of everything above and your default state of living is fight or flight. The tips above will help you manage but there’s also another layer to chronic anxiety.

Chronic anxiety is draining to deal with because it’s responding to every stimulus in the world around you and your thoughts. People with chronic anxiety need to know the way their anxiety slips in and manifests in the physical in order to cope with it or heal it.

My first tip is journal. (Most therapist too ever.) You don’t need to write about anything in particular, just mind dump. Write everything in your head. Get it out. No matter how big or small, you need to push it out of your head.

With chronic anxiety thought spirals aren’t necessarily a spiral, they’re a constant voice in the back of your head. They’re second guessing every thought you have, it’s constant work and stopping the thought mid track and reframing.

Another tip: your body naturally has coping mechanisms it developed from years of living like this. Mine is over explaining. Use whatever yours is to your advantage. For me, I personally Google things on anxiety or thoughts to understand what I’m thinking.

This works because I’m using the same response my body naturally does to think catastrophic, I’m not working against my trauma response. I’m using the energy and momentum in a way that helps me get out of that anxious moment.

I know athletes who need to move or fight. That’s their response by default. Instead of those responses they go for a run, clean, listen to rap, debate a random topic to themselves, they use that same energy elsewhere.

When you have chronic anxiety it’s more draining to worse against your responses and anxiety, working with it takes practice, but it’s much easier on you and easier to do in a moment.

Another thing you can do (even if you don’t have chronic anxiety), ask why. Keep asking why until you can’t answer anymore. This looks like, “I’m mad. Why? Because I feel unheard. Why? Because everyone’s ignoring me. Why? Because they’re watching a tv show. Why?”

“Because their favorite actor is in it and I never told them I need attention. Why? I didn’t want to look like a bother. Why? Because I don’t know exactly what I need. Why? Because I’m feeling a lot. Why? Because I’m overwhelmed. Why? Because I’m scared. Why?”

“Because I feel lonely and unloved. Why? Because I don’t like myself. Why? Because I’m not special and no one stays. Why? Because they don’t invest in me. Why? They don’t know how to. Why? Because no one invested in them. Why? Because it’s just a cycle. Why?”

Notice with this example, (which I took from a previous journal entry of mine), I thought I was mad, when underlining I didn’t feel seen or heard, and that made me feel like I didn’t matter. But I never asked for help or attention because I assumed no one could give it.

I’m being vulnerable here. But people rarely are on this topic. This is what an anxiety thought spiral looks like when you unravel it. Under anxiety is more layers of shit. To stop the spiral, you need to address those layers.

This is also why it’s hard to deal with anxiety, especially if you don’t have the education to explain it on a neurological and biological level. There’s layers to your feelings, that’s why when one thing subsides, suddenly this random thing pops up.

You may think you’re overwhelmed with anxiety, but when you unpack it, it really is a handful of instances that just manifested into this beast. I’m not saying that to discredit your feelings, cuz god they matter. But I want to empower you. This isn’t as powerful as it feels

***disclaimer: everything mentioned is a practice. You need to do them frequently for them to be effective. While they may work in the moment w/o regular execution, the more you do them, the easier and more effective they become.

Another trick I love to do with my anxiety is remind myself “nothing has meaning except the meaning I give it”. We choose how to see things and react. When I’m in a attack you’ll see me walking around saying “this doesn’t matter. I told it that it matters” to a pencil.

Literally guys, I walk around and pick up things and say you don’t matter. I told you that you matter. Then I’ll eventually turn to my thought spiral and slowly pick it apart and say you don’t matter.