Lived Experience Forum

[EmHibby]

I have been doing more exercise and meditation and stuff to help with my anxiety during this 2nd pregnancy. So far it’s been ok, but as the birth of the baby getting closer, I have been have anxiety attack more often. The heavy chest, shortness of breathe, headache etc. I just wondering how do to handle it when you are in that spiralling mood... 

i have been avoiding news and social media because I find a lot of the time my trigger is putting myself into those horrible situations/scenario I see online like robbery, car crashes, the child is diagnose with something, husband cheat etc. (nothing related to my current life, my brain just keeps thinking for the worst. 

I find day to day no problem at all and overall I feel happy most days. but when something triggers it, my brain will just grab onto that thought or immediately think of the worst case scenario. I will feel so terrible to a point where i wonder if that’s a panic attack or am I having a heart attach and if I should call an ambulance... (it does calm down after a little while) 

Please let me know if you have some ways to calm your anxiety. Thanks 

[Pato]

Hi @EmHibby 

Nice to meet you. I have issues with anxious moments sometime and I've had a couple of panic attacks. My situation is a bit different but what I try and do is called 'grounding'. 

What happens when an anxious attack starts, is our body goes into fight/flight/freeze type mode. That means that the logical brain gets switched off and our emotional brain is in charge. 

To switch our logical brain back on, what we can do is 'grounding techniques that get us back into thinking logically. I do this by stimulating my senses. I smell some aromatherapy orange scent, I taste a minty lolly or eat an ice pole, I look at pictures of my family or friends, I touch something soft or pet my dog, and i listen to a song on my headphones.

This stuff only takes a minute or two to do all of them and i find that they soothe me enough to stop becoming overwhelmed and I'm good. It doesn't work for everyone and we are all different but hope that might help you.

Thanks,

Pato 😁

[wellwellwellnez]

I'm a big fan of the classic C.B.T. trick, mindful walking.

I used to do it very neutrally. Now I also do mindful silly walking. There's really no wrong way to do it, which is the elegant beauty of mindful walking. Mindful anything, really.