Your best ways to combat anxiety?

[The People]

For a multitude of multiples anxiety is a huge factor with regards to coping with triggers, causing switches and getting through the day. For us it can be the force the drives our shield of anger.

Two things that help us settle down are 1) a nap in front of the television or, these days, Netflix. 2) A long bath. And I mean hours long. It is the water I guess. We have been known to nap there as well as there is just something so soothing about the water that we doze. These naps do not usually interfere with a regular night's sleep, although what's regular? The only time they cause us to be up all night is when we sleep too long. 5 hour naps is guaranteed to keep us up.

Lately we are working harder to keep more protein in our diet. Recently we were away and our friend had stocked up on a lot of protein. We had it at least 2 meals a day. 3 actually as PB on toast is a protein. We felt good the whole time and managed to lose a few pounds. We know that we feel better when we eat well. It is one of our challenges because when we get worked up it is hard to focus on eating. Viscous cycle. Sometimes we have to bite the bullet and dine out/take out just to get a proper meal.

[Tangled Web]

When we experience anxiety we try to stop everything and just breathe. Well one of us does that anyways and then we try to look around where we are and do positive self talk like "we are ok and we are safe." We say those words over and over again. That seems to help. If it has gotten to the point beyond that things can get pretty chaotic rather quickly but there is always someone inside working hard to regain control of things.
Love the picture

[Cammy]

We try focusing on the breath first and see how that goes - I generally give it about 20 minutes. Sometimes salt baths can help. But, if it is a seriously severe panic attack with nasty palpitations and chest pain symptoms that are not being controlled at all by our usual techniques, and the next thing on my mind is wanting to call 911, then I end up having to use a benzo. I do not do this often and certainly keep this use to the most extreme circumstances, but that is where the worst attacks lead me. I learned a long time ago that if I do call an ambulance and they take me to emerg, emerg just gives me a benzo and sends me home. In a few weeks I get a $1000.00 ambulance bill. So I've learned to forego the bill and just administer the appropriate medication as per doctor's instructions.

[MakersDozn]

- Breathe
- Take a step back from the feelings if possible
- Ask for help within
- Do a safe, calming activity (FreeCell, SuDoku, etc.)

MDs

[FreyasSpirit]

We tend to go on a walk and lightly dissociate and just let our thoughts flow. An uninterrupted 30-60m time period where our mind can freely wander tends to be very useful for finding light stuff that is causing anxiety and needs to be processed. We aren't sure it is conducive for processing things in detail, but it is surprisingly good at digging up things like "there has been more stress than usual at work over the last week" and "we are feeling anxious about the doctor's appointment next week". Once we recognize possible sources of anxiety, we can begin to work through them and work on mitigations.

For more serious anxiety building up over a week or more, we tend to catch ourselves heading that direction and work to mitigate it before it gets too bad. Often, this involves cancelling all social things, removing as many responsibilities as possible in the near term and giving ourselves space to go splat. This often involves lying in bed and just letting thoughts happen, allowing anxiety to be released, allowing ourselves to have flashbacks. This morning, we woke up after a bad nightmare and ended up spending 3 hours in bed, lying there, allowing thoughts to flow freely, allowing ourselves to feel all the pain of the thoughts. By allowing ourselves to feel the thoughts of worthlessness and the pain of feeling like we are causing more harm than good in this world, we were able to process, or at least release those thoughts and at the end of the three hours, we woke up much more able to handle existing and even felt good about existing.

We suppose the biggest thing for us is to not try to postpone or bury the anxiety and to just let ourselves feel it. Sometimes, this means allowing ourselves to have a panic attack at work, but we have found nobody notices and believe this is the healthiest option for us.

[The People]

It is true about the recognizing. Sometimes it is like a popcorn kernel under your tooth. You have to figure out which tooth it is before you get it out.