Tathiana Nogueira.

@introvertsnation

If you know you know @introvertsnation

Honestly, these days we probably aren't the best people to ask. It's been a while since we really experienced regularly disruptive dissociation and like... we had a LITTLE bit of anxiety today and it was enough to be a "damn okay lemme grab my coping skills out of the bag"; so take that context as a bit of a disclaimer that we are sharing some of this as someone who doesn't have much anxiety anymore

With that said...

The first thing I tend to like to check in is "are my physical needs met"; cause if you are dehydrated, hungry, sleepy, forgot to take your meds, etc, it is usually immensely helpful to address any of those needs as much as you realistically can with your current mental state since those sorts of things tend to play a role in symptoms.

I really like the "You Feel Like Shit" website to just go through a few check ins since I tend to forget them in the moment.

After that, assuming you can notice / be aware / acknowledge that you are anxious, it's probably a good opportunity to try to take a step back from your thoughts; You are in an anxious spiral / falling into an anxious spiral / having unhelpful anxious feelings / thoughts. Thats okay and normal, but its good that you noticed it. Since you noticed it, I'm assuming you probably don't feel like its helping you right now and/or would like to reduce it, so lets mentally take a step back.

Easier said then done, but largely this is where the skills therapists and mental health people always talk about regarding mindfullness and grounding comes in handy. There are a number of grounding techniques that can be used and I suggest trying a few to see which work the best. A lot of people like the 5-4-3 sensory check in, box breathing, taking 10 deep breaths, open recall of some favorite thing you know a lot about (I sometimes do naming birds or the first 151 pokemon), or just literally sitting down outside. The goal is to 1) make a bit of a break in the spiral so that you can simply observe your own thoughts and feelings in a more neutral and less overwhelmed state and 2) to try to reconnect and activate your frontal lobe (as the frontal lobe tends to shut off when individuals are out of their window of tolerance / having high anxiety)

If you can acknowledge you are feeling anxious in a way that is not helpful and take a step back, you can kind of look at the anxiety a bit more clearly to see the best way to try to help yourself.

In a more short term lens, I think it's partially important to kind of understand what KIND of anxiety it is and how its presenting; I tend to find there are kind of two main "types" of presentations I see (not official, just how I kind of mentally organize / conceptualize it generally) - Shutdown Anxiety and Energizing / Escalating Anxiety.

Shutdown Anxiety I tend to generally understand as anxiety that makes you mentally shutdown, unable to act, extremely avoidant, and / or makes you depressed; overall anxiety that makes you fall out of your window of tolerance and into a hypoarousal response.

Energizing / Escalating Anxiety I tend to generally understand as anxiety that makes you more active, makes you more irritable or workaholic or stimulus seeking, and makes you NEED to do something / move / stay busy; overall anxiety that makes you fall out of your window of tolerance and into a hyperarousal response.

Of course, it's not black and white and there is a lot of grey, but I think it helps to kind of first start by kind of trying to acknowledge where you are on the scale of hypoarousal to hyperarousal as it can help in navigating potential ways to help manage said anxiety.

I personally tend to find myself hyperaroused like... 90% of the time I experience anxiety so a lot of the coping mechanisms I use the most would be ones in response to the more hyperaroused end.

If you are experiencing hypoarousal with your anxiety, (I have a lot less personal experience with it but) distracting, redirecting, and grounding tend to be things that can be helpful; finding things to help you get a little out of your head can go a good distance, so finding a friend to talk to (about the anxiety or something entirely different), finding a game to play, finding something sensory to play or fidget with, finding something to look at, etc. It helps to try to engage with the world around you and focus on what you do have around you rather than getting lost in your head.

If you are experiencing hyperarousal with your anxiety, I tend to find that its incredibly important to try to slow yourself down, sit down, look around and take a breather. Finding something relaxing that you can do (especially if it helps fill the need to Do Something) can be great; for me, playing a management game / farm game or going for a run tend to help a lot.

A bit of a theme here is "opposite action"; if you are anxious and you feel a NEED to do things, you probably would benefit from slowing down and doing less; if you are anxious and feel a NEED to shutdown and do nothing, engaging in something small will probably help you out.

Overall, it can generally be helpful to try to find some self care / kindness activities can help reduce it some. It doesn't have to be anything big or necessarily related to the anxiety, but if you are generally in a place where you are doing unhelpful coping mechanisms that aren't making you feel better, it can be helpful to sort of try to place yourself in a situation where you can engage in a more meaningful and helpful hobby / self care / coping mechanism (playing video games, art, music).

In the more long term lens, it can be helpful to generally practice a lot of different coping skills, grounding skills, and overall developing both a better awareness of when you are feeling anxious / having unhelpful anxious thoughts. I find its often more helpful to try practicing these and exploring these when you are LESS anxious since its easier to do them then and the more you do them, the easier it will be to do them in the future when you are having extreme anxiety.