Anxiety and panic: How can I cope with it?
Anxiety can be an incredibly overwhelming thing to experience. I recently spoke with a friend who’s been experiencing anxiety themself and needed some tips for how to manage what she was experiencing. That got me to thinking - maybe more people would like to know a little about this. After all, anxiety disorders make up one of the largest mental health concerns in the U.S., with just over 19% of adults and 7% of children aged 3 to 17 experiencing some form of anxiety (source: NAMI).
Anxiety can come in many forms - phobias, general fears, incessant worry, obsessive thoughts, panic. And while a certain degree of anxiety is relatively normal, people with anxiety disorders experience much more intense and ongoing symptoms. They can include:
excessive worry
difficulty controlling the worry
feeling nervous or restless
rapid breathing
trouble concentrating
difficulty sleeping
shaking/tremors
wanting to avoid things that make us feel anxious
This is not an exhaustive list either. Depending on the kind of anxiety disorder, there may be additional symptoms or a mixture of some of the ones listed combined with others not listed. All that to say - what can I do?
Thankfully, anxiety is a highly treatable issue. While it’s important to work with your counselor to figure out what might be at the root of that anxiety (and therefore overcome it), it’s equally important to feel as though you’re able to manage it in the meantime. Here are some counselor-approved tips to help get you started:
Grounding exercises: these are things you can do to help connect back to the present. So often with anxiety, our minds are preoccupied and not in the here-and-now. One of my favorite grounding exercises is the 54321 exercise. Where ever you are, look for 5 things you can see; 4 things you can touch; 3 things you can hear; 2 things you can smell; and 1 thing you can taste. Make sure to take your time when doing this and avoid trying to rush through it. Allow yourself 5 minutes or so to really practice this.
Breathing: seems logical, right? Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction once wrote that it’s a good thing our bodies are automatically breathing for us because if we had to remember to do it on our own, we’d more than likely forget! Have you ever noticed that small children always breathe with their bellies? We tend to stop doing that when we’re adults and get caught up in the every day responsibilities we have. Taking a few minutes to practice Belly Breathing can go a long way. Besides, it’s easy to do - take a deep breath in counting to 5, hold the breath for 4 seconds, and breathe all the air out for another 5. Do this for as long as you need until you start to feel your body releasing tension.
Move your body: this one seems pretty self-explanatory, but try it! Go for a walk. Take a few minutes and do some stretching.
Final pro-tip: splash some really cold (think icy) water on your face. Run cold water on your wrists. Or even try both. Studies have shown that this can actually help to reduce cortisol levels (the stress hormone) and release endorphins (feel-good chemicals) for an overall improvement when you’re feeling panicked.
Like I said above, while these tips can be very helpful, they alone won’t completely remedy anxiety (though they will give you some much-needed temporary relief!). Ultimately, talking with your counselor to explore what might have brought on that anxiety in the first place and working through it will be the ticket to living a life with mild, occasional, manageable anxiety vs a life defined by it.
If you’d like to get help for an anxiety-related issue, feel free to reach out to us. For more information on how to do that, visit the Contact page on our website.
And as always, be kind yourself.
Sincerely,