How to quickly stop anxiety when you are at work.
Heart racing, overwhelm, sweating hands, shallow nervous breathing are all signs of Anxiety and feeling anxious.
The freakiest thing about anxiety is it seems to come out of nowhere sometimes.
Other times it feels like it has been brewing up for a while and because it feels yuck we have chosen not to look at it.
This article is for the time when it side-swoops you, with no inkling that is was coming leaving you baffled and frightened and shaken.
Say you are at work, in a meeting, out with colleagues for lunch and you feel the sudden onset of anxiety.
Step 1.
Immediately excuse yourself as normally as possible, head straight to the nearest bathroom and sit down on the toilet. Once seated say to yourself everything is ok because it will be.
Step 2.
Now in order to calm your nervous system down that has just jumped into extreme overdrive you will need to put your hand over your forehead (firm but not hard touch) and hold it there for at least 90 seconds.
This will draw all the blood from the back of your brain (survival part) to the front, which looks after concrete reasoning, thinking clearly and logic.
Step 3.
Tricking the nervous system into feeling relaxed by breathing properly, keep holding your forehead and take 5 breaths.
How to breath properly: breath in counting to 4, hold breath count 4, release breath counting 4, then FURTHER release breath for 4. (Pushing out any stale trapped air in the deepest part of your lungs)
Print these steps out and keep in your handbag.
After these 3 steps you should feel immediate relief, enough to be able to re-group and decide you next move. You can repeat the 3 steps as much as necessary.
Summary
- Get yourself to a bathroom and sit on toilet.
- Hold your forehead for 90 seconds
- Breath 5 times
For more permanent relief you will need to look at the emotional patterns that are causing you to feel anxious. There are always two parts to stress and anxiety – the emotional and the physical.
Good-luck.