I would classify myself as a person with an unusually tough mental resilience formed from a really messed up childhood. However, I once worked a job so stressful and anxiety inducing that I actually vomited during work hours from anxiety just being there, I even had big clumps of my hair falling out! The stress and anxiety were so alien to me as most things in life compared to my childhood seemed so trivial but there I was vomiting on the floor at work…
The only thing that really helped me get through it was people watching. I would leave work to grab food at the local food court in a nearby shopping center and just watch the ambient crowd while I ate my food.
Hearing, seeing, and simply existing around all those other people living out their lives, chatting, laughing, shopping, eating and generally going on about their day, really helped me to realize that there’s way more to life than my stressful job.
It helped to put it into perspective and I vividly remember saying to myself, “See there’s lot of life happening outside and people are doing just fine without my job” Something about that helped me immensely and got me through that job. Almost like a feeling of “Everything is going to be ok” would come over me.
Might not help everyone but it really did wonders for me, I hope this helps someone else.
I give guided tours of the Nile. Spend a good amount of time navigating denial.
Talking myself out of it because it used to be based on imaginary stress. Now it’s real. Yay.
I have a dear friend that I think very highly of. I often think how they would act in certain situations. It’s just my projection of them and I’m almost 100% certain that they would never act like this but it really helps me decide on things and how to act.
Nobody wants to hear it: exercise.
Walk up a steep hill for an hour or two a day. Rate your mood every day. Watch the results form clear as day.
I used a mood tracker for over 5 years. Every May I would hike a nearby trail every morning. Looking at 5 years of mood tracking data, I was always happier than average every May. It lasted into June. Was gone by July. Every year.
If you push your cardio to the point where all you can think about is your next breath, it forces you to meditate. It forces presence. It trains you to break the ruminative thought cycles.
So, again, no one wants to hear it. But exercise is by far the best solution to anxiety. Plenty of research backing this up.
I know the article says depression. It’s a meta analysis. Anxiety is also covered in some studies analysed here.
That’s great that it works for everyone, but I get annoyed when it is peddled as a cure all.
Most forms of exercise simply magnify my current mood. Feeling good? I’ll feel fantastic. Feeling shit? I’ll feel even worse.
That’s how it works for me, personally. I need an activity that much more intently involves both my body and brain. There are exercise forms that do this, but you have to search for them.
I just get a bit sore about the subject because I went on a journey where I exercised more and more and harder and harder over a span of about 1.5 years. All the while my mental health kept declining…ending up quite severe.
What “fixed” me wasn’t continuing to go harder and harder into my exercise mode. For me, I needed intensive therapy and medication combined with trying to fill my schedule more with activities. I’m actually in the best headspace I’ve ever been now after I stopped fruitlessly and endlessly trying to exercise away the pain.
I’m glad it worked for you. And I think it’s worth a shot for many. But for those who keep diving further into it never finding relief, it’s time to look elsewhere on what to try next.
I can’t exercise because it feels futile and unrewarding. I need a big plot of land to maintain. Mowing a couple acres or fixing a roof or something works for me.
Think I can get a doctor to prescribe me 40 acres?
In my experience, it hasn’t helped reduce anxiety, and it only provides multiple new vectors for the anxiety to manifest: performing a mindless task that leaves me in my own head with few distractions, and trying to force myself to keep up a routine that I generally despise
You call it meditative, but it’s never worked out that way for me, no matter how hard I push myself
It’s called masking and it works as far as making other people think I’m not having an active anxiety attack.
Letting people finish talking and thinking about what to say after that. Not while they are still talking, or even in the shower the morning before.
Keeping my thoughts in the moment. Framing all my worries as minor inconveniences with contingency plans. For attacks, go ahead and do something inconvenient like sit in the shower with your clothes on.
Finding an effective anti depressant after 40 something years. It’s much easier to function without the feeling in my chest telling me everything is wrong.
certainly doomscrolling on instagram. gotta internalize all that hate, baby
Weed.
Oops it triggered the paranoia-causing area of my brain and now I’m having a panic attack.
Eating salads, and being socially and physically active.
I mean in fairness we’re being a few different people and it’s going swimmingly, sooooooo.
