My anxiety is pretty bad today so I want to ask a question. What do you do when you are anxious to try and soothe yourself?
I try to do simple repetitive tasks that can help take my mind off my worries but that doesn’t always work.
My anxiety is pretty bad today so I want to ask a question. What do you do when you are anxious to try and soothe yourself?
I try to do simple repetitive tasks that can help take my mind off my worries but that doesn’t always work.
Definitely distraction, but like you said that doesn’t always work. When that fails, I try deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. For breathing, my fave technique is just to count each inhale and exhale as you breathe all the way into your belly (so inhale is 1, exhale is 2, next inhale is 3, exhale is 4, etc. I rarely go past 25-30 because it calms me down fast).
Progressive muscle relaxation is seriously a godsend. If you haven’t tried it before, definitely do. Your mileage may vary, but it works great for me. Here is a guided recording for progressive muscle relaxation (mp3 format).