Conquering Anxiety: Coping Skills
Hi everyone! Thank you for following our Conquering Anxiety Series. We are in week 3! Last week we covered the cycle of anxiety. Please review the post here if you have not yet. The way this series is planned, it is important to follow the posts in the right order to benefit from the series. So if you stumble upon a random post, I recommend going back to the master and catching up in the right order.
In the last post, we talked about the cycle of anxiety! How the choices we make can weaken or strengthen the cycle. But the reality is, just knowing that we are doing the right thing does not make it any easy. It is still so hard to stand up to anxiety. This is why coping skills exist! These are ways you can make your anxiety manageable, and activate your parasympathetic nervous system. They should not be used with the intent to run away from anxiety as that is only going to strengthen the cycle of anxiety. Instead, think of them as your support system while you tackle your fears.
Here are some effective and simple coping strategies
Grounding Techniques
The 5-4-3-2-1 Method
This is one of the most used methods where you ground yourself. Here is how it works:
Look around you and identify
🔎 5 things you can see around you (clock,laptop, phone etc)
📲 4 things you can touch around you or are currently touching (your phone, floor etc)
📢 3 things you are currently hearing (fan, AC, birds chirping, traffic etc)
🌼2 things you are smelling (coffee, your perfume etc)
✨1 emotion you are feeling (Happy, sad, anxious)
It is a good way to take your mind off your intense feeling of anxiety and helps you focus on what is in front of you.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Also known as belly breathing or abdominal breathing. The best way to understand how to do it is through watching a video such as the one linked below.
If you find this challenging to do while sitting up, try it while lying down and it is a lot easier to do! Once you get used to it, it becomes easier to do it sitting up. This technique can help relax you during times of distress but you should not wait for anxiety to kick in and instead make it a point to practice this for a couple of minutes day and night and make it a part of your routine.
The 4-7-8 Method
These numbers may be easier to remember and use compared to the first numbers technique as this is relatively simpler. We are again focusing on our breathing like the last method, however, it's fine if you can’t do it through your belly just yet!
Here is how you do this
- Let go of any air you are holding (empty your lungs of air)
- Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds
- Hold up to 7 seconds
- Exhale through your mouth, through the lips, and make a whoosh sound (whoosh sound is optional, it's okay if you can’t)
- Do it for 4 cycles!
Remember that this is what we want to work our way up to, it's fine if you can’t hold for 7 seconds yet or exhale in a controlled way, with practice this becomes easy, just do what you can!
The second thing to note is that when we get anxious air feels scarce, and some people don’t want to take deep breaths, in that case, you may not like the Diaphragmatic Breathing in times of heightened anxiety but this 4-7-8 method can work as you don’t have to take deep breaths, just follow the second's rule, focus on that instead of how deep the breath is or where it is going.
Now you have these three techniques, make it a point to practice them again and again so that they become second nature to you and when you do feel the anxiety rising, you don’t have to try and remember what the tools were. Some individuals may prefer one or the other and that's okay, find what works for you!
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Technique
Leaves on a stream
We have learned how to ground ourselves and reduce the intensity of the anxiety we are dealing with. However to be able to do that we need to understand that thoughts are just thoughts, just because you think something does not mean it's true. You can view your thoughts without passing judgment or engaging with them.
To practice this skill, there is a meditation called ‘Leaves on the Stream’
❗Tasks for you
- Go through all three of the grounding exercises and complete them.
- Completes the leaves on the stream meditation
Share with us how these exercises made you feel and one way you can incorporate at least one of these into your daily routine
Further Reading
- Diaphragmatic Breathing
- 7 deep breathing exercises to help you calm anxiety
- How to use 4-7-8 breathing for anxiety
@Hope
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique is very nice. I've never tried it or heard of it before but it's good it helps me recognise my feelings and worries. I've been always using the 4-7-8 technique. It's the only one that helps me during my panic attacks.
The leaves on stream meditation seems good but doesn't seem to have immediate effect on me. And I'm someone who finds it difficult to stay consistent with things so I don't know how it'll work.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day.
@Hope
Love the 54321 method, I have helped members using it before. I gets you thinking because you have to focus on one sense at a time
@Hope
They lead to feelings of calm and peace.
I guess they woukd be useful during times of high anxiety and before sleep
@Hope
Share with us how these exercises made you feel and one way you can incorporate at least one of these into your daily routine
All theses exercises made me feel very calm and relaxed. I was a bit stressed at the beginning but as I did these exercises, I was was feeling much more calm.
One way I can incorporate these exercises is when I have a presentation to give or an exam to write. During any of these occassions I can focus on doing the 5-4-3-2-1 method to help calm and relax my mind. I can also do the diaphragmatic breathing when i am stuck in traffic.
@Hope
These techniques have all been extremely helpful at different times. I find the 5-4-3-2-1 works best when I know the cause of my anxiety. The breathing techniques help more when I don't know what is causing my anxiety. Unfortunately; I usually can't pinpoint what is causing my anxiety, but I do controlled breathing a lot, so it basically is part of my daily routine at this point.
Meditation is harder for me because my mind tends to run on its own and I lose track of the meditation. I try to do ,meditations in small increments, and I think I'm starting to be able to do it for longer periods.
@Hope
I just did two of these methods for a forum post on Mindfulness and everyone loved it and are going to try it. I will post my answers later
@Hope
As someone with panic disorder, I've used diagrammatic breathing preventively throughout my day to reduce overall stress and nervousness and found it helpful. I would also recommend the 4-7-8 method for coping with heightened anxiety in the moment. As I become more accustomed to managing my panic attacks, I've discovered that it really isn't so different than experiencing other strong emotions. I also have bpd so emotional regulation can be a challenge and I'm interested in trying methods like "coping for anxiety" but for situations where, for example, I feel very angry. I still think something like 4-7-8 would be helpful because in my body anger and anxiety produce many of the same symptoms like racing heart, sweats/chills, etc. I also experience the emotion of sadness and despair strongly sometimes and for that I think I could practice grounding techniques. My sadness often goes hand in hand with my anxiety because if I'm worrying excessively, I can find myself spiraling into a pessimistic and cynical perspective on myself or others or the world around me. 5-4-3-2-1 grounding sounds like a good idea because it would keep me in the present moment and not in a hypothetical worse future.
Something we've been doing in the weekly DBT group is a mindfulness practice before getting into learning about the skill for the week, because mindfulness is like a base that we can return to to help us practice any other DBT skill. It's expected on my diary card that I practice mindfulness on my own between group sessions, too, but I haven't been doing this. Every time I try to make a routine, I procrastinate until the end of the day, then I'm too tired. But I'm always up and ready for group. So maybe having both/either a time (group is the same time each week) and others (I know I'm expected to support others and receive support) are good accountability tools. I can use these with Leaves on a Stream.
@Hope
I completed the grounding exercises and it helped me ground myself and feel more present, reducing any anxious thoughts. Diaphragmatic breathing helped me feel more relaxed and in control while 4-7-8 breathing technique was soothing and easy to follow, calming both my mind and body.
The "Leaves on the Stream" meditation helped me detach from my thoughts, creating a sense of distance and calm acceptance.
@Hope
Meditation does not really work for me and never has done much for me apart from making me feel worse than when I started.
However, certain mindfulness/grounding techniques can help at times to some degree. I think because with these type of techniques it is about coming back and actively being in the present moment. Where things like meditation can be more about using your imagination to feel yourself in a different moment.
Any type of breathing technique are probably one of the worst if not easily the worse for me. Just the idea of slowing down, breathing a certain amount and in certain manners is a pretty scary, overwhelming, and more anxiety producing activity.
However, something like the 5-4-3-2-1 method or something related can actually often times be a good coping technique. One of the reasons is because it helps me be present in the moment and physical space I am in. Also, depending on how I do these methods it can force me to have to focus on other things then my emotions, thoughts, feelings. I find it always beneficial when I can be outside of my head, as I can sometimes especially when I was younger get stuck and lost in my head. And end up overthinking and ruminating about everything and anything than what I should be.
