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Grounding and Coping with Anxiety

Karrot March 2nd, 2020
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Hello Anxiety community!

Do you know that feeling of your heart beating faster in response to a stressful situation? Or perhaps, instead, your palms get sweaty when youre confronted with an overwhelming task or event? Having anxiety can be very hard to manage at times. It is important to find different tips and tricks in order to help ourselves ground.

I wanted to share some different grounding techniques with you all so that you can try them out and maybe one of them can work for you. Not one technique works for everyone and what I have found is that it goes by trial and error until you find the one that works best for you.

➤ 5,4,3,2,1 Is a grounding exercise that helps bring us back into the present moment and focus on what is currently around us.

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➤Using Affirmations can be another helpful trick in coping and grounding with your anxiety

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➤ Meditation is another grounding technique that can be useful to help cope with anxiety

➤ Breathing is another way that you can cope with anxiety for some you may know it as square breathing

Image result for square breathing gif

➤ Writting down your thoughts can also help to release the tension that anxiety gives you and feel as though you are not holding them in.

➤ Learning what triggers your anxiety can also be helpful in learning how to better manage your anxiety. Have you ever thought to yourself that triggers me to feel anxious? Sometimes taking notes of these feelings can be really helpful and it will allow you to know when it is occuring so that you can label them.

➤ Self soothing with your five senses can also be helpful.

So I ask you this:

What are some ways that you cope with your anxiety? Is it grounding or something else. Feel free to share!

@vickyp @zataarhoney

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VickyP March 2nd, 2020
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Thank you for the post @Karrot heart This is very helpful!

What are some ways that you cope with your anxiety?

>For me, focusing on my breathing always helps me control my thoughts when feeling anxious!

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Goldcherry2113 March 2nd, 2020
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@Karrot Thank you for posting this. I use all these to help me ground. The 5 step works the best for me.

DiamondSpace March 3rd, 2020
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@Karrot

I really needed this! Thank u!!

SecretlyMe March 3rd, 2020
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@Karrot Thank you for posting this. It's very helpful to have so many techniques in one place. Then we can come back here when we need new ideas. smiley

I've been trying a lot of these techniques since I joined counseling. I've found meditation to be a great thing to practice but so far (because I'm not that great at clearing my mind on command yet) it isn't helpful in the middle of an attack. For those situations, focusing on my breathing and grounding techniques work the best.

I also recommend Root'd to anyone suffering from a lot of panic attacks and a little disposable income. The app is designed to talk you down from o panic attack and it has an emergency button which contacts your emergency contact when you can't calm down. They have a free version but it isn't as helpful but I would definitely check it out to see if it works for you.

Also I don't know if this is a common technique but I do a lot of self soothing touching throughout the day when I feel particularly anxious. That can mean resting a palm on the top of the chest or touching my neck a lot (I wear a lot of necklaces so I tend to touch where the chain lays on my skin so hopefully that makes it less weird for observers to see me touching my neck so often) I also keep my hands together and rub one thumb over the other. Or I guess I tend to move my thumb in a slow rythmic pattern where ever I put my hand (if my arms are crossed, it's on the inside of elbow, if I rest my head on my hand, I'll rub the underside of my head). I don't know why the touching calms me but it does.

TheAtticusFinch March 4th, 2020
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@Karrot

Thank you for posting this Karrot <3 Although I do not have anxiety, I often feel anxious a lot and stressed because of school and debate and life in general. One of my favorite coping tips is going out for a walk (if possible) to breathe and clear my head a bit. :)

zaatarHoney March 5th, 2020
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@Karrot

This is such an incredibly helpful post!! Thank you for taking the time to pool all this information into one convenient space. ♡ ( ᵕ̤ ‧̫̮ ᵕ̤ ) you da best!

Karrot OP March 5th, 2020
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@zaatarHoney Thank you <3

bledBones March 5th, 2020
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Nowadays I am left only with affirmations (mainly "It is only temporary" and "I've been through this before") and breathing, yet it still takes time for the wave of anxieties or panic to go away...

In the past, repeating a meaningless word of my choice (much like a mantra but without any meaning at all) helped to completely clear my mind of any thoughts or feelings at all (it is important that the word has absolutely no meaning at all so as your mind cannot make any logical connections to it), but in the last years I've lost that ability too...

I know tgat is counter intuitive but sometimes, surprisimgly I could fend them off with anger. Whenever I sensed an anxiety wave or panic attack coming, I swore and yelled out aloud for a few moments and suprisingly that managed to snap me out of the anguish of the attacks even though apparently seems illogocal...

Good wishes for all🤗😊