One of the hardest things to do when you are having a panic attack is to regain focus. There is a very simple trick you can do to trick your mind to focus. Focus = the ability to obtain rational thought and in an bout of anxiety rational thought is the path back. Basically, you just observe your surroundings and start describing things—in your head—in increasing detail.
For example:
There’s a chair.
It has four legs.
The legs are wooden.
The cushion is embroidered.
The embroidery is blue and white.
It has white stitching.
This technique requires you to focus which is one of the hardest -tricks- to pull off when you have an anxiety attack. By describing things in increasing detail makes you focus on the item you are describing. For many of us anxiety is accompanied by invasive thoughts that are the real culprit to our emotional response. Its not the fender bender that rattles you, its all the thoughts that come flooding in once it happens. (to use a bad example )
I haven’t used this trick, but to be honest I have had a good couple of months. Maybe this sounds silly but give it a shot. The next time you are being invaded by anxiety pick something and start describing in increasing detail. Say it out loud, if you need to but the point of this blog is to be a source of information on anxiety and anxiety relief.
Maybe this will be the tool that helps you deal with the next situation. Really isn’t that the whole point? One day at a time, one episode at a time just living with and coping with our anxiety issues. Everyone has a different threshold of course; my anxiety is different then yours. This might not work for you, it might not work for me but its one more thing in our tool box we can try.
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