Hello! So I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and gone to therapy so I’d thought I’d share what helps me.
What really helps is understanding it’s anxiety. Because when you don’t and you’re stressed and having an anxiety attack, it can get bad really quickly. The thing that helped me would be to realize it was anxiety and work from there, treat the anxiety, not the fear.
When you’re having an anxiety attack (I have no experience with panic attacks) it really feels like your body is going against you and you can’t control it. If feels like something is wrong. For me, it feels like I’m nauseous and going to throw up (which is shocker- my main anxiety!). I was prompted to discuss this because I saw one post about how someone wanted advice cuz they kept getting anxiety attacks and would be constantly afraid something was wrong and that they needed to go to the hospital or something.
Although that isn’t my specific fear, what I can say generally is to:
-
Realize you’re having a peak point of anxiety.
Center your thoughts around your anxiety instead of the actual matter you’re worrying about.
For instance, I was at work and started getting nauseous and was thinking, “could’ve I eaten something today that made me sick?!” Then I remembered that I used to get these a lot before medication and therapy and it’s all about not focusing on those thoughts. If you do that you’re just feeding the anxiety.
So I changed those thoughts to, “what have I been stressed about recently?”
And then I thought about how I’ve been really stressing about college recently. -
What thoughts did you have right before the anxiety attack?
Anxiety is usually (at least for me) triggered by something.
Sometimes it’s something that relates to my fear- like something sick related.
Or it’s a build up of stress.
So it can also be helpful to think back about what moment occurred before you started feeling wrong. For me, I had thought about my future and not being able to be a good teacher. I guess those thoughts were too overwhelming.
- Talk to someone.
My manager asked if I was okay and I said out loud that I was stressed about college stuff. That helped me by making my body and mind realize: hey this is because of stress! You’re not going to be sick. It’s not like we had a whole heart to heart either I just was casually like, “yeah all this college stuff is generally stressing me out” and that. Afterwards my anxiety went down.
It’s not even like you have to say that you’re having an anxiety attack, if you think you know the root of the problem just verbalize it and say, “I’m stressed about…”
Either to yourself or someone else! - Breathe
Take a few deep breaths. Sometimes doing this first for me doesn’t help, but once I’m beginning to calm down it does. - Reflect
After an anxiety attack, if you’re safe to do so, reflect on why you think you had it and what caused it. That way you can think more clearly next time about what techniques work for you!
Ever since being on medication I haven’t had as much but since I’ve gotten diagnosed with anxiety that helped me realize the way your body reacts to stress. Then in therapy I learned about how to deal with this stress in better ways and how to get myself out of an anxiety attack. I went from having one at least once a day to now I barely have them and if I do I can get myself out of them!
And it’s also good to understand that anxiety shows up in many forms aside from just being about your main fears. If you’re worrying about something that can be anxiety too! (Especially if you’re diagnosed). My mom told me you can identify anxiety from “what if” thoughts but personally I rarely have “what if” thoughts or notice them! But it’s just helpful to be more mindful of yourself and your feelings so you can recognize when you’re worrying, why and how to lesson it. And when you’re stressed and getting to that peak point.
My last tip is that if you can’t do any of this yet don’t stress out or be hard on yourself! I used to watch YouTube videos and stay up (often my anxiety attacks happened at night) until I felt better. It’s okay to wait it out too! But it’s a skill and keep working on it. Eventually they won’t be as bad and you’ll be able to control it more.
Anyway, let me know if this was helpful and feel free to share any advice of your own!
I can also give more specific advice if anyone wants it lol. I’m no expert though.
