Sometimes anxiety gets so bad that you just don’t know what to do with yourself.
I’ve found myself in this situation quite a few times, and to be completely honest I’m not sure if there are any convenient ‘magic pills’ that can make these unpleasant feelings go away…
…and if you do find something that works it’ll likely end up coming back and biting you in the backside (I’m thinking about strong medications e.g benzos – nasty stuff).
So… what are you supposed to do then?
Breathwork?
That never worked for me, I would just freak out even more by sitting still and trying to control my breathing.
In fact most of the advice recommended for panic attacks never did anything for me.
Here’s what helped me the most:
Go Outside and Look At (or Hug) Trees!
At times when I literally thought I was going to go insane from anxiety/OCD/depression, the only thing that sort of helped was to go outside into a forest and look up at the treetops.
Of course I was still a complete mess and felt really awful.
However it did provide some sort of relief when I just couldn’t cope with my intrusive thoughts and horrible anxiety.
Perhaps this could be helpful for you as well when things get overwhelming.
If you feel like it you can even go and hug a tree!
Surrounded by big trees you may get a sense that your problems perhaps aren’t as important… and there’s just something very calming/ground being out in nature – it feels right.
Trees don’t have problems that they worry and fret about.
They are perfectly content with just standing in stillness, it’s natural for them.
We humans get into all sorts of trouble because we have these big brains of ours.
Typically we’re either a) stuck in our heads worrying about the future or b) regretting things done in the past.
If you are stuck in your mind wrestling with negative thoughts, all you see is darkness.
You’re not really seeing what is in front of you.
I’d say this is anything but natural.
Try being more like a tree, or a dog, or a horse, by being present and focusing your attention of what is right in front of you! The things in your surroundings that you can see, smell and hear.
(Your cat doesn’t worry about past mistakes… so why should you?!)
Again a very good way of being present is to go outside and look at nature. Nature is just full of wonderful things, such as trees, that can pull your attention away from the activity of the ‘monkey mind’.
This stuff takes a LOT of practice.
I still find myself thinking about stupid stuff all the time and I’m not perfect by any means.
Anytime you get lost in thought, gently bring back your attention to what is real, here and now.
That’s all I wanted to say, I hope you find this advice useful 🙂