These are a few things that I have noticed help me and hopefully you can benefit from them.
-During times of high panic, self care becomes a huge priority, doing anything and everything that helps calm me and making sure I make time for the things I enjoy. Engaging in preferred activities lowers my stress levels.
-Breathing exercises have been a lifesaver, there is a shift caused in your brain in a positive way when you do breathing exercises. If done correctly they may not stop the attack entirely but they will take the edge off of the physical symptoms. I use a breathing and anxiety app called calm to help me with my breathing exercises.
-When you have a panic attack your body overproduces adrenaline which is what causes the uncomfortable physical symptoms (your body goes into fight or flight mode) When you are panicking do something that is very physical in nature to help burn off the adrenaline. I do cartwheels, running, or jumping jacks.
-I remind myself that the feeling is only temporary and that although it is uncomfortable I have faced it before, I have beat it and it will pass again, you just have to get through it one minute at a time. I just keep reminding myself it will soon be over.
Use grounding techniques, pay attention to the things around you: what do they feel like, what colors are they, just put extra focus on your surroundings and it will help you to be more calm.
Stay away from all caffeine when your anxiety is at a level that you are having trouble functioning, caffeine is seriously anxiety's worse enemy!
I like to read when I am anxious because it takes me out of my head and forces me to focus on what is in front of me rather than what I'm battling.
Music has always been really helpful for me as well, find really relaxing music that is designed for sleeping to help calm you, nature sounds work well.
My doctor taught me a trick where you move your eyes from side to side and count from one to ten, each movement counts as one number, so you move your eyes both to the left and count 1, then move both eyes to the right and count 2, etc. (Keep doing until you reach 10) so the point of this exercise is to get the brain to switch from one hemisphere to the other to force it to focus on something other than the anxiety, it really helps!
Hope this all helped you!
Answered2021-03-01 16:03:06
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