anxiety tips and tricks

disclaimers: i am not a certified/licensed mental health professional. this is not professional mental health advice. i just have a lot of experience working with mental health professionals on my own personal basis, and decided that maybe sharing a few tips and tricks they've given to me, could help someone else!

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so i'm going to include a lot of different types of things, for different thought processes/situations that i have noticed i struggle in sometimes.

first off, a general trick that works sometimes for me!

1. Counting - but make it random

i've found that my brain cannot focus on being anxious, or in a state of early panic, if i use this trick. so what you do is, you pick a number range you want to go with. for me, i usually do 1-10, because its easier. take a deep breath, and start counting from 1 all the way up to 10, but in a random order. my brain can't focus on my anxiety if it needs to remember what numbers i have already said, if that makes sense. for larger amounts of anxiety, i'll use a larger range of numbers. this is normally helpful in the earlier stages of anxiety symptoms for me.

2. Five Senses

so this is probably one that you've all heard a lot. it might work for you, or it might not, but i do it with a twist. most people with anxiety have at some point in time heard that you need to find a way to ground yourself. meaning to bring yourself from that state of anxiety back into a state of reality. one way to do this is again, through distracting your brain. normally, you go down the list of your senses. pick 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. for most people this doesn't work because they aren't prepared. so what i've developed is what i can my "anxiety go bag." i keep it in a small little bag in my purse and it contains the essentials that i need to successfully do this trick. inside my go bag, i carry around at all times some fabric swatches (you can literally go to any place that sells carpet or curtains or fabric and take a swatch for free). this gives me concrete things that i can use when doing my feeling task. a sour candy because thats my preference for something to taste. a playlist of music that makes me feel better for things i can hear. essential oils or perfume for something to smell. and i keep a small gallery of photos on my phone that i have picked out as well. this might help if you give it a try!

3. Chunking your time!

this one is a big one for my friends who get anxious about having to work, leave the house, to do a task that could take a while. as someone with anxiety, these sorts of activites can be really daunting. so i chunk my time in my head. think about it. you can do anything for 10 minutes. 10 minutes of your time is nothing. it took you ten minutes to get this far on this post. chunk your time. so for me, at work if i'm going in for a four hour shift, i chunk it into hours. this makes it easier for my brain to understand that i'll be here for that amount of time and that it is OKAY. so i think about my shifts in terms of one hour chunks. i can do anything for an hour. one hour is = to almost one full episode of greys anatomy. or three episodes of the office. i can deal with having to do something for one hour. when that hour is up, i repeat the same thought process in my head which seems to help when i get overwhelmed.

4. TW!! SH! Frozen Water Bottle Hack

so this one i've put a trigger warning for self harm on. please be advised.

I learned this one from group therapy - and as it didn't really pertain to me, i thought sharing it could possibly help. when you get the urge to cut, or self harm in any way. get a frozen water bottle out of the freezer, and place it on the spot you would normally hurt yourself in. while you're still getting the effect of "hurting" yourself because you are providing yourself with a feeling of small pain if your water is cold enough and on your bare skin, but does so in a more healthy way that doesn't actually cause you any physical harm.

these are just a couple of things that help me. i have so many more i would love to share with anyone who needs them - if you need any tricks on anything specific feel free to let me know and i can share my experiences and tips with you!