With our webinar on managing the anxiety of an optionality-driven life coming up this Wednesday (hope to see you there), this week we‘d like to know: How do you handle it when your anxiety is interfering with what you want to be doing? Whether you call it a doom loop, spiraling, spinning, or just unhelpful ruminating…what are your favorite tactics to manage those moments?
I have to say that casual gaming is helpful to me in these moments. Crosswords, Sudoku, Wordle, Backgammon, even Candy Crush…when I’m focused on solving some other non-critical problem, like in a game, I can move my focus to it and stop the spin cycle.
Oh doom scrolling is absolutely an anxiety contributor. I cook a lot as well...it's another good thing that you must focus on, and probably way better for me than too much casual gaming :)
Write it out. Sometimes just taking it out of my head and knowing that I don't need to keep looping through the thoughts because I'm not going to forget them helps.
Sometimes I do that for sure. I've got a Notes page with comments or posts or emails I will probably never post/send captured. Sometimes I do actually pull a line or two, but rarely the whole mind dump LOL
@Saundra do you do it in a directed way like I do (i.e. write that email you'll never send) or do you do it in a generalized journaling kind of way? (Not sure it's that different, but...)
More journaling, I guess. I don't do it every day, but when I have a lot going on or big feelings...or if I want to put myself in the frame of mind of gratitude I'll write a list of what I'm grateful for. Sometimes I'll be bored and don't want to be on my phone or online, so just start writing whatever flows out.
Once I realized that it can be whatever *I* want and need it to be - and not what everyone else does or what the therapist says 'needs' to happen, it changed everything.
Depends how big the anxiety is. A few years ago I went to what I call "trauma camp" where they taught us a somatic exercise to bring ourselves back into the body & present moment when the brain gets overwhelmed. Name 5 things you see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell, 1 thing you taste.
For me, doing that exercise brings me into awareness that I need to find something (preferably offline and away from my phone) that brings me JOY like reading, walking the pup, sitting outside and listening to the sounds...even if only for 10 minutes.
Honestly, I tend to tap out. Since I WFH full time, I escape to my sofa,grab my weighted blanket, and my eye covering. I basically reboot. System shut down. Restart. Set the timer for 20 minutes, and go from there. With a little space between me and the thing, I can SOMETIMES come back better. If not, water. Hydrate for sure. Then eat. Because, yes. And maybe some butterfly taps with deep breaths. Or saying "thank you" repeatedly (about 100 times) to shift my internal energy and mindset. A walk w a podcast, or sitting on my balcony people watching and taking deep belly breaths. Writing it out. Getting the ideas and my feelings out of my head and onto paper or into a fille on my computer---brain dump me. It really depends on what works THAT day. I don't have a technique that works everything. If nothing else, by the time I go through all of these options, I am usually so done, I can move through it or beyond it.
I should just save this comment as a mini-primer on ALL the coping mechanisms. it's a good list! I would like to get better at not waiting until I'm on my very last nerve to do tsuch things though. I too sometimes tap out and go read on the couch, but usually by a point from which there is no returning to productivity. I just stay there LOL
Sometimes I doom-scroll, but that increases rather than alleviates the anxiety so I lean into cooking to take my mind to a quieter, more
peaceful place. And. often — if all goes as planned - I end up with a good meal as well!
Oh doom scrolling is absolutely an anxiety contributor. I cook a lot as well...it's another good thing that you must focus on, and probably way better for me than too much casual gaming :)
Write it out. Sometimes just taking it out of my head and knowing that I don't need to keep looping through the thoughts because I'm not going to forget them helps.
Sometimes I do that for sure. I've got a Notes page with comments or posts or emails I will probably never post/send captured. Sometimes I do actually pull a line or two, but rarely the whole mind dump LOL
The more I do this, the more I realize how beneficial it really is!
@Saundra do you do it in a directed way like I do (i.e. write that email you'll never send) or do you do it in a generalized journaling kind of way? (Not sure it's that different, but...)
More journaling, I guess. I don't do it every day, but when I have a lot going on or big feelings...or if I want to put myself in the frame of mind of gratitude I'll write a list of what I'm grateful for. Sometimes I'll be bored and don't want to be on my phone or online, so just start writing whatever flows out.
Once I realized that it can be whatever *I* want and need it to be - and not what everyone else does or what the therapist says 'needs' to happen, it changed everything.
Ah, I like your rebel spirit :)
Depends how big the anxiety is. A few years ago I went to what I call "trauma camp" where they taught us a somatic exercise to bring ourselves back into the body & present moment when the brain gets overwhelmed. Name 5 things you see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell, 1 thing you taste.
For me, doing that exercise brings me into awareness that I need to find something (preferably offline and away from my phone) that brings me JOY like reading, walking the pup, sitting outside and listening to the sounds...even if only for 10 minutes.
Oh, I've heard people talk about this exercise before, but I've never tried it. I definitely should.
Honestly, I tend to tap out. Since I WFH full time, I escape to my sofa,grab my weighted blanket, and my eye covering. I basically reboot. System shut down. Restart. Set the timer for 20 minutes, and go from there. With a little space between me and the thing, I can SOMETIMES come back better. If not, water. Hydrate for sure. Then eat. Because, yes. And maybe some butterfly taps with deep breaths. Or saying "thank you" repeatedly (about 100 times) to shift my internal energy and mindset. A walk w a podcast, or sitting on my balcony people watching and taking deep belly breaths. Writing it out. Getting the ideas and my feelings out of my head and onto paper or into a fille on my computer---brain dump me. It really depends on what works THAT day. I don't have a technique that works everything. If nothing else, by the time I go through all of these options, I am usually so done, I can move through it or beyond it.
I should just save this comment as a mini-primer on ALL the coping mechanisms. it's a good list! I would like to get better at not waiting until I'm on my very last nerve to do tsuch things though. I too sometimes tap out and go read on the couch, but usually by a point from which there is no returning to productivity. I just stay there LOL
Been there waaaaay lots.