Yeah, a run.

Cherries or dried cherries are good for pain, but for anxiety, exhausting my body calms my mind.

If you are not able to run, sex helps or yin yoga poses. But not as much as cardio. Get worn out physically somehow.

Get OFF of the internet.

Mindfulness

There are herbal remedies to reduce anxiety. However I doubt you will have some on hand unless you specifically found them earlier. I would recommend skullcap, passionflower, St Johns Wort, Tulsi and poppy tinctures which are all nervines. I might when suggest some lemon balm or anise hyssop as well which taste better and can be commands consumed in larger quantities.

If this is something you are interested in learning more about I would recommend Rosemary Gladstar: Beginner Guide book. She’s amazing and has some great simple recipes

Cutting out caffeine made a huge difference when I was getting debilitating anxiety about my old cat’s health (despite her being pretty much fine). Honestly, doing that was more helpful than therapy (though I’m not sure that I had the right therapist)

Other than that, going for a walk while on the phone with someone also really helped, as it kept me from spiralling thoughts and had me active.

In a pinch some really sour candy can help to knock you out of an anxiety attack too. You might want to have some on hand.

Try fasting. Wake up, have coffee or whatever, water, but no food. Nothing all day. In the evening, eat a couple of raw carrots if you can. Next morning, have some yogurt, small lunch, small dinner.

I dunno why this works for me, but I suspect it draws unconscious, autonomic anxiety from the nebulous mass of all possible problems and focused on one simple, easy to solve problem - hungry.

Like how slamming your fingers in a door can make your knee pain go away for a bit.

Exercise, a cat and forced social interaction with your local community. This feeling of angst is growing more and more among the population. My own opinion is the dissonance between how we would normally live our lives versus the bullshit that has grown all around us, causes a certain amount of despair. All the best.

Exercise is supposed to help.

5 minutes of meditation. It won’t solve the anxiety, but it will insert just enough perspective and space to help you recognize a couple things:

• you are not your anxiety, it’s more like weather that you’re experiencing.
• the things that you’re worried about may be real, but your experience of them is warped by the anxiety.

My therapist gave me a really helpful metaphor. Anxiety is kind of like putting your hand right in front of your face. It blocks everything else out. It’s all you can see. It’s all you can experience. While this isn’t the desired state, you also can’t get rid of your hand without losing a real part of yourself. So instead, what if you focus on inserting space. Move your hand further from your face, and it becomes an element of the environment. It’s a thing you can observe. It’s still real, and it’s still there, but it’s now more in perspective.

That’s what meditation, even 5 minutes, can do. It pushes your anxiety into perspective. It won’t get rid of it, but it will help you see it as an element rather than your entire experience.

Apparently sour food helps.

I’m part of the autistic spectrum (originally diagnosed as Asperger’s, but apparently that term has possible roots in Nazism and “racial superiority”, yikes!), and I found that going outside and taking a walk outside always helped me calm down. I remember whenever I got upset as a child and overreacted, the teacher would take me for a walk around the school, and I always felt better afterwards. I also liked eating my favourite snack to calm down, though that might just be because I like snacks.

Just my two cents. I don’t experience too many of the negative “symptoms” of autism anymore nowadays, but I hope you (or somebody else) finds this helpful!

My therapist told me to start throwing a ball at the wall and catch it when I find myself in a downward thought spiral. It really works because apparently it’s hard to focus on a ball and have a mental breakdown at the same time.

Music that takes focused listening, or else the kind that zones you out.

I’m not sure about this myself. I too suffer anxiety. I use medical marijuana, which helps. I think depression is the bigger factor for me. The breathing techniques can help in the moment. Just big deep breathes if nothing else. It may only help momentarily; I don’t know what else lasts longer. Good luck to you!

Diet has a huge impact on the brain and mood.

There is lots of research coming out on the metabolic brain connection, basically try a well formulated ketogenic diet for a few weeks and see if you feel better, keep a daily mood journal!. Many, many, many people do, especially around anxiety symptoms. See the metabolic mind organization for the current research results.

One warning if your taking medication: changing your metabolism can make medicine much stronger then anticipated, so work with your doctor to modify prescriptions as needed.