Anxiety question.

[Dawn.]

How do you personally deal with your anxiety?

It's difficult. If I am grounded enough to be in control, I breathe and if it is possible, remove myself from the situation. I try to find distraction in music or writing, which brings me back down to Earth. I find writing very helpful, and this can be anything. Fanfiction, original fiction, lyrics, poetry, blogging, free-writing, whatever. Words are pretty much my escape. However, if I am not grounded or able to remove myself, I try to act out because I guess this is a defense mechanism. It's not a good one to have, and especially so in your thirties. You end up looking childish and foolish. I definitely need to cope better.

[Concinnity]

Journaling helps me a lot. I think just writing everything down, whatever comes to mind, kind of helps to just get everything out of my head so it's not plaguing me so much.

Depending on the situation, listening to music can help, especially as just a distraction. Sometimes watching Netflix or YouTube videos or whatever is helpful to me also, but only if I can relax enough to actually focus on them.

My last therapist also recommended meditation to me (which I was skeptical of), so I downloaded an app called Breathe on my phone, and it was actually helpful sometimes. It talks you through some breathing exercises and things. The only problem was that I really needed a quiet and empty space to listen to it in, and it would sometimes make me so relaxed that I would almost fall asleep - so I really couldn't try it in the middle of the day!

[del677]

I just suffer and wait.

Ride it out.

I try to occupy my mind with something else. If I'm not thinking about it, it hurts me less.

Or the opposite, find someone to talk to.

I'm never sure if I should talk about it or not think about it.

Distract myself. Usually I do so by reading because with reading I have to concentrate on the words and story and so I don't have time to think about the anxious thoughts. However, there are times when my anxiety is so bad that reading does not work in the least and I end up having to either do breathing exercises or take medicine.

Walking helps some people but I have never really been helped by it. It helps while I am walking but within five minutes of stopping the anxiety comes back full force.