Tips To Relax

[KPietersen]

Does anyone have any good tips on how to relax... it feels as if constantly my mind is going at 100 miles an hour!

[user38]

Are you having anxious thoughts all day?
You want to find something that you enjoy doing which will also relax you and your mind...hobby, sport, activity etc.
My outlet is sports, I cycle, work out, swim, run to relax. It will get your mind of anxious thoughts and make you concentrate on something you enjoy rather then worry.
Good luck.

[1970]

I think the key to it is to change your thought patterns or distract yourself, think of something you really enjoy or try counting backwards from 50 or so, try deep breathing but concentrating on it at the same time

I find sometimes if i can change my thought patterns the attack does lessen, i doesnt work for me all the time but it does help.

I know myself i always do it, as soon as i feel any symptoms coming on straight away i say to myself here comes an anxiety attack which brings it on as your brain over time has associated these feelings with an attack and next thing your having a full blown attack, where as instead of when i get a hot flush just saying to myself i feel a bit warm now, i automatically say heres the start of an attack and then it snow balls from there, we really have to try to learn as soon as we feel a symptom not to think heres comes an attack, yes i know its easy to say but hard to put into practice

What we really need to be saying to ourselves instead is ok i feel a bit anxious im not going to die from it, i have survived it before ( we all survive our panic attacks every time other wise we wouldnt be here reading this now, so in the rational world we know they wont kill us )just let it go concentrate on breathing

Its like our symptoms before an attack are a trigger, its how our brain decides what to do and being so used to bringing on an attack 9 / 10 times it will, unless we can stop ourselves or train our thoughts to go no further than the trigger

It all sounds easy in theory yes, but as a sufferer i know its not, sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt, its trying to find the best thing that works for each individual

[RammerJammer21]

One tip that people use when their minds are constantly filled with racing thoughts (anxious or not) is to write them down. Even if what you write is gibberish, just start putting it on paper.

This acts as kind of a purging to get those thoughts out. It's a tip that a counselor suggested to me when I was having racing thoughts that were keeping me awake at night.

Honestly, I have never tried it because my sleep issues got better shortly after that, but it makes sense.