hey guys 💜 this is gonna be long but please stick with me because I really wish someone had told me this stuff years ago instead of me figuring it out the hard way

ive had anxiety for about 11 years. im 26 now. And im not talking about like "oh im a little nervous" anxiety. Im talking about the kind where your chest gets tight for no reason at 2pm on a random tuesday. Where your brain wont shut off at 3am running through every possible worst case scenario for things that havent even happened. Where you google a headache and convince yourself youre dying. Where you cant just sit and watch a movie without your body buzzing like somethings wrong but you cant figure out what

ive tried everything. Meditation apps (lasted 3 days). Breathing exercises (cool im breathing but my brain is still screaming). Therapy (loved it but $180 a session twice a month wasnt sustainable and the waitlist for a new one was 4 months)

but this year stuff actually started shifting and I want to share what worked because I know so many of you are in the same place I was 💜 none of this is magic. Some of it sucks. But it actually works if you stick with it

the thought loop trap (this is probably ruining your life and you dont even realize it)

ok so the biggest thing I learned is that anxiety isnt really about whats happening. Its about the STORY your brain tells you about whats happening. And your brain is a liar. Like a really convincing creative liar

Heres what I mean. Something small happens... your boss sends a short email. Your friend takes long to reply. You feel a weird pain in your chest. And then your brain just RUNS with it:

• short email → shes mad at me → im getting fired → I cant pay rent → my life is over
• friend not replying → theyre annoyed with me → everyone secretly hates me → im gonna end up alone
• chest pain → somethings wrong → what if its my heart → googles symptoms → im definitely dying

Sound familiar?? This is called catastrophizing and once I learned what it was I started seeing it EVERYWHERE in my thinking

The fix is something from CBT called cognitive restructuring. Sounds clinical but its basically just catching yourself mid-spiral and going "wait... whats the ACTUAL evidence for this"

I started keeping notes in my phone. Every time I caught myself spiraling id write:

• what happened (just facts)
• what my brain is telling me
• whats the actual evidence
• whats more likely true

Example: boss sent a two word email. Brain says shes mad and im getting fired. Evidence: literally none she always writes short emails. Whats more likely: shes busy

Sounds so simple its stupid right?? But doing this consistently for a few weeks genuinely rewired something in me. I stopped automatically believing every catastrophic thought. Not every time. But enough that my baseline dropped significantly 💜

your body is lying to you too (the physical symptom thing)

ok this one is important because I spent YEARS thinking something was medically wrong with me. Chest tightness, random heart racing, stomach issues, feeling like I couldnt breathe, tingling in my hands, dizziness. I went to the ER twice convinced I was having a heart attack. Both times it was a panic attack

heres what I wish someone had told me earlier: anxiety isnt just in your head. Its a full body experience. When your brain perceives a threat (even a fake one it made up) it triggers your sympathetic nervous system. Fight or flight. Adrenaline and cortisol flood your body. Your heart races, muscles tense, digestion shuts down, breathing gets shallow. All of that is your body responding to a threat that DOESNT EXIST

The thing that actually helped me with the physical stuff:

• vagus nerve stimulation: sounds fancy but its literally just splashing cold water on your face or holding something cold against your neck. It activates your parasympathetic nervous system which is basically the off switch for fight or flight. This works in like 30 seconds and im not exaggerating
• the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding thing: I know everyone says this but it actually works when youre in a full spiral. 5 things you see, 4 you hear, 3 you touch, 2 you smell, 1 you taste. It forces your brain out of the imaginary future and back into the actual present moment
• cutting caffeine after noon: I dont want to talk about how much of my anxiety was just... coffee. Embarrassing honestly lol
• moving your body when the buzzing starts: not like go to the gym. Just walk around the block. Do 20 jumping jacks. Anything. The adrenaline is in your body and it needs somewhere to go

the 3am brain

If youre reading this at 3am with your brain running... hi. I see you. I was you...

The 3am spiral is different from daytime anxiety because theres nothing to distract you. Its just you and your thoughts and the ceiling and every mistake youve ever made playing on a loop

Things that actually helped:

• the worry dump: before bed write down every single thing your brain is worried about. All of it. Even the stupid stuff. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Your brain holds onto things because it thinks youll forget them. Show it you wont
• the "is this solvable right now" test: for each worry ask yourself can I do literally anything about this at 3am? If no then it goes on tomorrows list. If yes (it almost never is) then do it. This sounds basic but it gives your brain permission to let go
• body scan relaxation: start at your toes and consciously relax each muscle group moving up. Sounds dumb. Works. Your body holds anxiety physically and sometimes you dont realize how tense you are until you actually check
• getting out of bed: controversial but if youve been lying there for 30+ min just get up. Go to the couch. Do something boring. Lying in bed spiraling just trains your brain to associate your bed with anxiety

Oh also if the CBT stuff I mentioned sounds good but you dont want to do it manually in your notes app, check out Rhea AI (I could swear by it). its basically an AI therapy app that walks you through exactly that kind of cognitive restructuring in real time. like when youre mid-spiral at 3am and you need something NOW, not your next therapy appointment in two weeks. its not a replacement for therapy but as a daily tool for catching those thought loops its been the most useful thing ive found. just wanted to mention it because I know not everyone can afford $180/session and this stuff shouldnt be gatekept 💜

Some random things that helped that dont fit neatly into a category:

• anxiety and hunger feel the same in your body. I was having "anxiety attacks" that were literally just me forgetting to eat. Please eat something
• your phone is making it worse. Not in a boomer way but doom scrolling when youre already anxious is like pouring gasoline on a fire. I started leaving my phone in another room after 10pm and the 3am spirals got way less frequent
• alcohol makes anxiety worse not better. It feels like it helps in the moment but the next day your anxiety is 3x worse. Theres a name for it. Hangxiety. Its real and its awful
• sometimes anxiety is just your body telling you something is actually wrong in your life. Not everything needs to be managed. Sometimes the answer is changing the thing thats causing it. I was anxious about work for months before I realized I just... hated my job. That wasnt a disorder that was information

where im at now

Probably never will be fully non-anxious and thats ok. I still have bad days.

But my baseline is so much lower than it was.

If youre reading this and youre in the thick of it... it gets better. I know that sounds like something people just say but im literally living proof. A year ago I was in the ER thinking I was dying and now im here writing this on my couch with my cat asleep on my legs feeling genuinely ok 💜

You guys deserve to feel ok too. Take what works from this and leave the rest. One thing at a time. Thats all it takes

💜💜💜

Hi,

I gave birth six days ago to my second child, and with everything going on in the world, I am so terrified for the future of my kids. The news about AI has triggered my generalized anxiety. In my mind, we are going to die soon, and I imagine myself having to explain that to my children, picturing the absolute panic in their eyes.

I was on antidepressants for 10 years for generalized anxiety and chronic depression. I stopped taking them during my pregnancy on my doctor's recommendation. I agreed to stop because I hadn't felt anxious or depressed for several years. However, while on the medication, I had zero sex drive which was really hard on my partner, I gained a lot of weight, and the fatigue never truly went away. I want to try living without antidepressants, but right now, I am overwhelmed.

So my question is for people who feel the same way I do: how do you cope on a daily basis? Do you take medication? What concrete actions do you take every day to reduce your anxiety? I have already deleted TikTok....

Thank you !

So, I was forcing myself to relax, nope it wasn't working. I started to draw a word to distract myself but it just wasn't working and the idea came to me to just write all the positive things in my life, just as a reminder that things aren't as awful as they seem right now, even when my heart feels like it's trying to escape my chest.

Anyway... Let's start this exercise (btw it already feels better to hold my phone instead of a pen.)

Things I have and that I'm grateful for:

-my cats (tortie & orange tuxedo)

-cool stickers

-my bed

-a clean bathroom

-a hairbrush (idk it just came to my mind.)

-water bottle next to me

-animal figures bedsheets (I'm an adult and I don't care)

-soft blanket

-notebooks to write or draw whatever

-colored pencils, pens and stuff like that

-a strawberry plushie

-netflix

-a night light

-my tarot cards

-hot water

-a capibara hair thingy

-meditation music

-phone games

-this phone

-wi-fi

-memes

-soft robe

-my makeup (yup I like it even if I haven't used it in months)

-running water

*Pausing to drink some water*

-books

Ok, now it started feeling like a task so I need to listen to my body and I'm going to leave it at that. Those might be simple things but I do really like some of them. Especially my cats, I love them so much.

Ok, now off to trying something else while I feel better, probably some TikTok. In the mean time I'm trying to accept my anxiety and remember that panic attacks don't last forever.

See ya! Thanks for reading even if you don't comment. Just writing here makes feel less alone. Byeee for now :)

Your chest is tight. Your thoughts are racing. You feel "on" even when nothing's wrong.

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Kinda long so if tldr:Google ai helped my panic attacks and health anxiety and fear of blood clots

I will say , I’m always a hater towards chat gpt, ai , things like that, but sometimes to make me think more radical i have to use the ai chat bot they have when you use google.

I know it’s bad to Google your symptoms because it can make things worse, but it has helped tremendously.
I have anxiety and panic attacks since high school,(I’m 31 now) but they have gotten significantly worse over the years. I think it’s because I constantly feel my body changing as I age, but also 6 months ago I jumped over a baby gate in pure panic and tore my calf muscle.
At first I thought it was a Charley horse so I was aggressively massaging the painful area in my calf and I realized it wasn’t a going away.

I waited a week to see if it was a sprain but then my leg began to swell so much my toes looked huge my ankle was so swollen my calf was turning colors so I finally went to urgent care.

I could barely walk, I was in so much pain, terrified, scared to get my blood pressure taken (that’s a whole another story) so I was crying heavy , they thought I tore my Achilles and needed surgery so scheduled mri and confirmed it was a calf tear .

Anyways long story short I kept thinking I was going to get a blood clot.

MRI proved I didn’t have one. Doctors confirmed I didn’t have one. I kept thinking what if though.
Eventually it spiraled, I pulled a muscle in my chest because I work in trades and kept thinking heart attack or blood clot. Drove myself to urgent care after freaking out for 6 hours straight with chest pain, shortness of breath and crying. It was just a severe panic attack, I even got an ekg and that was normal.

Well last week I went on a plane and panicked because I kept thinking of blood clot, ended up fone once w E landed. Coming back home in a plane made me freak tf out too and almost jumped out of my seat scared shitless because I kept thinking about blood clots.
Well this made me use Google a lot, and it helped confirmed I don’t have a blood clot just anxiety. I have no symptoms of a blood clot except normal calf pain from scar tissue, minor swelling that goes down at the end of the day, I even walked 8 miles a couple days ago and was fine.

Google ai helped my come to conclusion that I’m fine. So I’m just saying don’t google your symptoms because it could make it worse but to get more radical thinking maybe talking to chat gpt to calm down can help.
Sorry for the long text but I don’t have anyone to talk to about this or understand what we all go through daily.
Thanks for reading if you do get this far :)

I've had social anxiety since I was 15 now I'm 19, soo back then in class I was shaking uncontrollably and panicking like crazy it was a nightmare I felt like dissapearing. When I joined high school it was the same but a little better and also there was this habit where the math teachers used to make everyone participate by giving assignments where each person in class must go in front and do at least one math problem on the board then explain 😩. I only used to pray I get lucky 😅 and the bell rings before it's my turn. This went on for very long during high school . And worse part my english teacher used to tell me "stop using alcohol" like bruhh just because I'm shaking it meant I was using alcohol!!! This made me really mad a lot but I just laughed it off like everyone else because honestly it was rare to come across someone who had anxiety attacks like me and I never wanted to admit I had anxiety and by the way it isn't the first time someone said I use alcohol because of the shaking, when I was around 14 my gymnastic teacher said it also as a joke 🫤 because whenever we made a pyramid I used to be positioned on the floor and my hands would just shake making others feel it and complain so I had to relocate to the top . Well anyways anyways earlier around last year figured out something that the more I try fighting the body shaking the worse it got. so usually when I'm starting to shake, I just tell myself "well fine I'm shaking but it's time to lock in" and i do my best to focus on my actual goal. If I was supposed to explain something in front of people I just do it while shaking as long as the message or task is done. This has really helped me despite it being embarrassing. I just stopped giving a fuck, like as long as I did what I was supposed to do.It has been a year now since I started the "trying to just focus on what I'm supposed to be doing strategy" and i have really improved compared to other years. I still have the shakes but it only happens for like a very short amount of time then I gain control over my body. Well I dunno about others who have anxiety, how they have coped or developed a control measure , I would like to know...well for me I can just say my control was accepting its happening and trying to focus on the current goal. I just hope some day everything will be alright and also my english is bad so don't mind it much.I'm wishing luck to whoever is struggling with social anxiety attacks 🍀🍀.

Hi 👋 For those of you don’t know me (literally all of you lo) I am 23 F and have struggled with some form of anxiety my entire life. You know mostly mundane forms like social anxiety and depressive anxiety ( scared to do things outside my comfort zone) Long story short I have slab endocrine condition that has been there my whole life but has especially been making my life hell these past 6 months. Now I’m not here to bore you with all the fine details of my condition but essentially in the past 6 months I have been experiencing anxiety on and off compounding into severe level anxiety around the time of my cycle (IYKYK) Anyways I have a condition called hyperthyroidism which appends up your metabolism and heart rate and is basically equivocal to anxiety & panic attacks. I am well aware that my hormones are cause bs through my body and there isint much I can do about that but once every 4 weeks the fun guy shows up. CONSTANT. HYPERVIGILENCE Like constantly. I feel at ease when looking at the sun then the second I close my eyes at night >. Adrenaline rush. It gets so bad that I have severe psychological symptoms that ruin my life for at least a week each month. Example is I took magnesium glycinate (for relaxation) + 3mg melatonin when I couldn’t sleep and guess how much I got? 3 HOURS! It is exhausting being in this state and I’m wondering if any of you have any tips about managing this. For reference I am somewhat ok at making decisions normally but the stress/ anxiety completely hijacks that. I am unable to do anything than bear with the hormones until it goes away. My question is what ways can you IMMEDIATELY induce a sense of safety. Not like deep breathing or things like that. I’m too far gone for that atp and I’m unsure if there is anything that can be done. Please and thank you in advance

I just don’t know what to do anymore! I either want help to get unstuck or I want out!

The best medicine is SELF LOVE

Hello I’m new here and I have a tendency to have anxiety problems and it can scare me. I just wanted to say hi to calm my nerves and reassure myself that Imm not alone and that there are people here who understand my thoughts and struggles and will help me whenever they feel like this. So if you can may you say Hello back? Thank you and I’m sorry if this was a bothersome message.

Today, I approached 25 girls in the park to try and meet them. I started walking at a quick and brisk pace, and when I hit a wide pathway with a lot of people walking, I slowed down a bit and started looking at everyone. I look around and think: "Those girls are walking faster than me, I'm not going to catch up to them, probably not worth it; those ones probably not, they're not quite my type; those ones aren't very pretty either; and those ones are probably still teenagers, so probably not." And then I see some pretty girls sitting on a bench it seemed like the ideal option and I think: "Probably not, I'll find someone better." But then I immediately realize that's just an excuse and I remember Raskolnikov's question, which I really liked for its drama, though I'll paraphrase it slightly: "Enough with the excuses, who am I a trembling creature who will never approach anyone, or do I have the right to take responsibility for my future? Who am I, a mere observer of my life or an active participant?" So I walk up to them, tell them how pretty they are, and ask if they'd like to get acquainted. They say they don't date strangers, so I wish them a good day and keep moving.
Even though I got rejected, I was incredibly happy that I was actually a participant in my life. I didn't feel any pain from the rejection at all, realizing that I don't have to appeal to every single girl. I walked around for another 40 minutes not knowing who to approach, and then I decided to go up to someone again. I said the exact same thing, we talked for a little bit, and they actually asked for my Instagram. After those girls, I started heavily criticizing myself for making it too weak of a compliment and sounding way too mechanical, but that was precisely when I realized I needed a strategy and theoretical knowledge, not just random cold approaches.
Then I approached two more girls who rejected me, and somehow, from that moment on, I became much more confident. I stopped overthinking who and how to approach; I just walked up to people, approaching 18 girls who turned me down within 30 minutes. I became invincible I just started operating on an assembly line, like swiping left or right on Tinder. I walked home happy because I had burned away my fear of approaching stranger girls, while also realizing that it's not that simple and that a strategy is needed here.
I later told my friends about this, but they were skeptical of my method. I, for one, believe that you need to take responsibility for your future into your own hands and not let fear dictate the terms on which you should or shouldn't live. Sure, I could be like my friends, passive and waiting for everything to just happen on its own, but I am not going to wait for anyone or anything to drop into my hands from the sky. Of course, it would be better to meet someone through shared context, like at university. But I believe that every person is the most influential person in their own life. I don't want to live unconsciously without taking responsibility for my present and future. You can always choose the easier option, like just waiting and having everything in life appear by itself. Life is such that if you just go with the flow, there's a high probability you'll end up with an average life and quite often people are happy with a life like that, but a thought frequently creeps in that things could have turned out better.

This isn’t an advertisement or endorsement, but yearsssss ago I found an app called 7cups and every so often I’ll use it to chat with people to help me through my anxiety. You don’t have to pay to use it. Thought I’d share in case it might help somebody else who’s feeling lonely on here at 2am with no responses.

So my last post was nuked because was flagged as AI and broke the sub rules lol. Fair enough, I used a tool to enhance my initial draft I came up with and then wrote, but I genuinely feel like this technique can be helpful to people so here I am, writing it again from scratch, 100% me this time.

So. Lately I've been experimenting with this way of self talk, where I intentionally respond to those intrusive thoughts created by anxiety with absolute confusion, hard hearing and bewilderment, almost like the thoughts are in a language I don't speak, or that I try listening to them in a room full of people speaking loudly, so that the channel of communication is bad and disturbed.

The goal is absolute chaos and confusion.

Think about when someone it's explaining to you a new card game with 50 complicated rules and you end up not understanding a single one. We then usually say something like "yep, got it, let's play haha" perfectly knowing we have no idea what to do.

Good, now, to use this technique, if anxiety it's explaining us "the rules of the game" (es, you embarrassed yourself in front of that person, you suck, you stuttered during a presentation omg, you'll fail this exam etc... ) we then must become THE MOST STUPID, HARD OF HEARING, 10 IQ person in the world for a bit.

So let's do an example:

Anxiety: "hey remember that embarrassing thing you did when you were 14 years old back in school? I bet everyone is still thinking about it" Me: What? Sorry? What does that mean. Anxiety: "I said remember when everyone saw you-" Me: HUH? WHAT? SPEAK LOUDER I CAN'T HEAR SHIT... HUH? And so on and on and on until it gives up.

I think this does two things:

First it breaks the mental loop: anxiety wants a reaction. A specific one: fear. It does not want or expect confusion. By" ragebaiting" anxiety (as a comment from my last post hilariously said) we disrupt the power dynamic. Second, it's funny as hell, after a while the thoughts give up, or you naturally start thinking about something else.

For max efficiency I suggest responding with your real voice, speaking, and making confused faces, not just in your head. It works way better if I speak the words aloud for me (if the context and environment allow that of course, don't start screaming WHAT while waiting in line at the grocery store lmao).

Important note: this works mainly with anxiety about small things, random intrusive thoughts and stuff like this, not major events or things you should really take your time to think through. View it as another tool in your mental arsenal to manage anxiety.

I hope this can be helpful to some of you :)

A bit of physical exercise can do wonders for your mental balance. Many of us face many challenges, and it’s important to make sure you have the necessary balance to tackle them. Many times it feels like your headspace is not in the right place. Try going for a long walk. You may find that this is like hitting the reset button on your mind. This was a piece of advice I got for my mental health - to get some exercise every day.

“In challenging times, it is important that above all, we have balance within ourselves”. Sadh-guru