How I manage my anxiety
How I manage my anxiety
This is a necessary post because I know so many people suffer from anxiety and sometimes it helps to read other peoples ways of coping with it. Anxiety is so freaking terrible right?
I am a healthy person. I’ve never had surgery. I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never had a abnormal blood pressure. I have been blessed with amazing health for all my life.
I’ve heard of anxiety but I had never experienced anxiety before so I never really paid that much attention to it. It’s not my problem right? Wrong. So wrong
My anxiety comes in the form of ridiculous, terrifying panic attacks.
My heart starts to race out of nowhere like I’ve been running a mile full force. When my heart goes crazy, my blood pressure goes up and I feel like I’m about to pass out. this happens randomly, even when I’m not stressed out. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to it. It’s really unpredictable.
At that point, Anxiety was kind of taking over my life
Of course, the first thing I did was Google my symptoms. Google said that I was having anxiety attacks and I was like isn’t anxiety something that millions and millions of people deal with every day? I had no idea that anxiety was this severe. How do people live like this?
I didn’t really rushed to the doctor right away because I knew that the only thing they would do for me is offer medication.
But things took a turn for the worst.
One day I was on my way to the park with my kids on a beautiful, sunny, summer afternoon and my heart just started going out of control.
Luckily I was close to the park so I decided to get out and let them play a little bit while I called the doctor to make an appointment.
I was hoping that I could get to the doctor while I was having the symptoms so they could really see what I have to deal with.
Luckily the doctor was able to squeeze me in that same day and I let the kids play at the park for a few more minutes and we headed to the Dr.
This panic attack dragged on and I was still having symptoms when the doctor was seeing me which was actually helpful because they were able to take my heart rate and blood pressure as I was having the symptoms.
When I got there it was confirmed that my blood pressure was ridiculously high and my heart rate was almost dangerously high.
They checked my blood, they monitored my heart for a little bit and they came to the conclusion that I was perfectly healthy, but that I had anxiety.
The doctor gave me two prescriptions to help with the symptoms. One was a pill that I was to take right away in the middle of an anxiety attack to help. Another was a long-term medication, a mood stabilizer to help prevent me from having the attacks.
The mood stabilizer was out of control. It got me so high in a really uncomfortable way. I felt disoriented. I felt like I bought these pills from a drug dealer in the back of a dirty alley in New York City. I could not take them anymore. I wasn’t even able to go to the grocery store without feeling so weird and disoriented, so I stop taking them. I didn’t want to be dependent on anxiety medication anyway.
Additionally, I had serious suicidal thoughts while on this medication.
The other medication that I was given to take in the in the moment of panic attack didn’t really seem to help either. I feel like it was more of a placebo type of thing.
After understanding that I was healthy I just realized that I was going to have to start trying to treat my anxiety by myself. Medication was not producing the results I was expecting. It was only making me feel worse.
So, I decided it was time to try and manage my anxiety myself. It is difficult, and it’s a struggle, but I have definitely seen improvement since I began.
These are ways that I personally deal with my anxiety. This plague is really complex and everyone is different so if you have any tips on how you deal with your symptoms, all suggestions are welcome. I’m certain
1. Breathing
I know it sounds really stupid but understanding how to breathe instead of panic during my attack really helps me. My first couple of attacks I honestly thought I was having a heart attack and I wasn’t able to just be calm because you can’t be calm when you feel like you’re about to die right?
It took me a couple times but once I began taking deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth during a panic attack I’ve been able to manage them a lot better without flipping out and losing my mind.
2. Essential Oils/ Aromatherapy
View this post on Instagram
My childhood friend introduced me to Doterra essential oils, and they have changed my life I have a rollerball that’s mixed with lavender oil and an oil called balance by dough Tara and those two together really are very calming and just make me feel suit and relaxed lavender in general is a very calming sent so even doing lavender candles would be a great alternative for the oils but oils really help me a lot.
3. Candle light showers
Like I said before these are my ways of dealing with my personal anxiety and I decided that maybe I wasn’t making enough relaxing time for myself. Moms are so busy taking care of everybody else that sometimes we overlook taking care of ourselves. I began taking candle light showers where I just sit in the shower and stay there till I get wrinkled and just relax. It helps me unwind at the end of the day and has helped a lot.
4. Laughing
I truly believe that laughter is the best medicine and in times of my worst panic attacks if I can quickly find something that’s gonna be really funny, it’s enough to distract me from the misery.
Laughing is one of the best ways to ease my panic attacks. I find hilarious stuff and save it so I can find it when I need it
- Funny youtube videos
- Memes
- Stand up comedy clips
- Funny comment sections
- Funny tweets
5. Floating (isolation tanks)
If you haven’t tried floating in an isolation tank or float pod and you suffer from anxiety or any kind of body aches or you just need a good detox I highly recommend trying to float pod they are absolutely incredible and really good for people who struggle with anxiety once you get out of the pod you feel so calm and so relaxed and it detoxes you and just makes you feel so amazing it feels like you just got a massage but you didn’t sessions are usually an hour to an hour and a half in there very good for you. You can read a post about my first float experience here
6. Going to the doctor
Even though the doctors medicine didn’t help, It did help me going to the doctor and knowing that there was nothing wrong with my heart. The worst thing is when you’re having a panic attack and not knowing what is truly going on. Once they showed me that my heart was perfectly fine and that I was otherwise normal it helped me handle my anxiety better. I definitely recommend anyone struggling with anxiety to visit your doctor get all of your questions answered. If their medicine doesn’t work definitely try alternative ways to help yourself live better. Over time it becomes easier to manage. Trust me, you can do this ❤️
I know so many people have anxiety and there’s so many different types out there so if you have any tips on how you manage yours please share them in the comment section below. I would love to read them and maybe other readers will learn from them.
