Safe Havens and Panic Buttons

I know, the title sounds like a pop punk band's debut track. However, what I want to talk about on this blog post today is a topic I touched upon briefly on previously. I've spoken about my anxiety and how it's affected me at work in the beginning, and through my academics. But I've never spoken about day to day life. How some days I can barely get out the door without my hands going shaky, how some days even getting that far is a complete miracle. I'm going to talk about coping mechanisms for those days where you wake up and feel the heavy weight of anxiety, or morph, in my case, sitting on your chest. 

As the title suggests, there are two main ways that I have learnt to manage my anxiety. Safe havens, having an environment where you feel your anxiety cannot touch you or that makes you feel safe; what to do when you're out in a public place, school or work and you've been triggered, you want to get out of the area but maybe you can't, so you're left fighting the war inside your own head. Hopefully, my dear readers, I can provide you with some mental arms to help take your anxiety down a peg.

Let's start close to home, or in my case, literally in my home.

Safe havens:

What do I mean by safe haven? I mean an area where you feel calm, where anxious thoughts and feelings don't cross your mind but if they do, they don't last long. My safe haven is my family home, anywhere in my home I know is safe but my particular favourite is the kitchen/dining room area we have. For a few reasons. (Did you really think you got away with one of my blog posts NOT having a list?!)

1) The kettle and teabags are always near: A hot drink, for me it's green tea always centres me again and just the feeling of warmth is very comforting. Even the act of making the cup of tea or coffee forces you to think about what you're doing.

2) Water bottles in the fridge:  In the middle of an anxiety attack, one of the best things you can do is drink water, this is because water will trigger the "dive reflex" from your body, which slows your heart rate down and in turn can combat the increased heart rate and reduce some feeling of panic. Plus, if you've been crying you can rehydrate yourself too.

3) There's usually always someone around:

This is relatively self-explanatory, my parents are usually in the kitchen, they could be on their iPads or cooking or watching TV but just knowing there's someone in the room to talk too, to have a hug from or just generally have some company; is wonderful.

At University right now I'm struggling to create my uni room into a safe haven because I associate it so much with my study space but I'm slowly getting there, I've bought a new throw to put over my bed, some new cushions, some battery operated candles and I'll probably get a lavender reed diffuser so I can make it more relaxing and cosy. I'm also taking my yoga mat back to uni so I can do yoga and meditate in my room. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Panic Buttons:

Panic buttons? What are you on about, Rebecca? I hear you cry! Okay, maybe not... But! What I mean by panic buttons is what to do (or what I've done) in certain situations where you can feel an anxiety attack coming on. Because this attack is predominantly happening in my mind, I imagine myself in my mind's eye hitting a panic button and going through the stages of my "panic plan" in my head. Pixar beat me too it on the idea of personified emotions running around in your head, unfortunately!

So I've hit the panic button, what do I do?

Say for example I'm at work, something's triggered me, it might be a comment from a customer, doing something new on a department I'm not familiar with or before an exam or test at university. 

Stage 1) Grounding

My mind has run away with me and I can forget where I am or what I'm doing. So I have to find 5 things around me. 

1) Something I can see

2) Something I can smell (I tend to focus on my perfume)

3) Something I can feel (temperature is always good)

4) Something I can touch

5) Something I can hear (the radio is usually on at work so that helps but any conversation you might hear is good too.)

Stage 2) Breathing

Okay, so I'm not disoriented any more but my breathing hasn't slowed down. I have two methods for dealing with this, one is grabbing my water bottle and chugging it down to trigger the dive response which I spoke about above. But if I can't do that I draw a little square on my leg with my finger; when the lines are going horizontal, I breathe in, when they're vertical I breathe out. This square gets bigger and bigger, forcing me to take deeper breaths until my breathing is quite relaxed and calm.

Stage 3) Feeling positive again

I've calmed down, I'm aware of what's around me but how do I get back to feeling somewhat better again? I carry on with my breathing, almost in a meditative state, focus on something that makes me happy, I usually keep photos on my phone of me and my best friend, partner or family to look at, or maybe a joke or funny picture someone has sent me. Even better, look up cat videos on YouTube, thank you to Conor Mcgloin my old sociology teacher for that method! Anything that could make you smile and mentally prepare yourself if you've got to go back out and face people again, if not, go to your safe haven, have a hot drink and practice some

Self-care! Which is something I'm looking at writing about over the next coming weeks.

I hope this blog post helps even a few people reading, if you suffer with anxiety I cannot stress enough how important it is to talk to your loved ones or a GP to get help, these methods focus on what to do when you're alone but with support, it can make things one heck of a lot easier. Please, share this so we can reach out to more people who may be struggling.

If you want someone to talk too please don't hesitate to contact me on Twitter @RebeccaByTheSea or e-mail

rebecca.j.a.goodwin@gmail.com 

God bless and Stay safe. <3