I also have severe anxiety and get impacts me every day. Some agoraphobia. Relationships and everything impacted.
What really helps me is processing information and thoughts. There's a lot of ways to do this. But I always feel better and more grounded after. You have to find what works for you. I can tell you what works for me:
- it's cliche, but going for a short walk really helps to process information. We are not made to sit with walls so close to our eyes and screens. Sitting inside alone with too much time indoors is really bad for us. Just do what you can and don't push yourself too hard. But we need to stretch our eyes long distances to feel more calm (we used to do this to scan our environment and feel safe as animals). There are studies that show looking out long distances for a period of time is really beneficial to mental health. Even if you're sitting on a park bench, it's good for you.
- having a task to focus on that does not require thinking too much in my head is really helpful with processing information. So it has to grab my attention for me to focus on it properly. Usually that's something like painting, playing a musical instrument, doing a class or workshop, playing a sport. Anything that you need to focus your mind on to give your inner thoughts a break. That's why art and music therapy exists because they help process information and a very grounding things to do. But it can be anything even if you are playing loud music and washing the dishes or cleaning your room - those things are all so good for processing information.
- expressing yourself helps process information. But not expressing yourself about negative things necessarily, although talking about problems can be beneficial sometimes. Expressing yourself authentically in positive ways is really beneficial for processing information and grounding yourself. It can look like anything from shouting and singing, laughing really hard in a genuine way with friends, talking about topics that really interest you in a positive way, or freely painting a picture and going crazy with the paint. Dancing. Anything that feels like it lines up with you authentically and makes you feel good to express yourself.
- I really like having something to do weekly. Something that I have to sign up for that keeps me accountable. Talk therapy is great, but it's not always helpful for me. I find ruminating over problems causes me to feel worse sometimes. It depends on the person and depends on whether the therapy is right for you. But having something weekly is really beneficial and it can be anything you like. For me I learn Spanish with a teacher on the Preply app. It's very cheap, they live in South America so they don't charge much but it's good money for them. So I can learn for cheap and help them too. It's really fun and I like progressing and feel proud for myself. And it gives me my mental break that I need and something to look forward to which lifts my mood.
There's a lot that you can do to help feel better with severe anxiety. But mostly you need to give your mind a rest so that you can recover. And that looks like taking the focus away from your internal thoughts and directing your focus outward onto actions that make you feel better. Do something that focuses on something else for a while and makes you feel good, productive, proud, or in tune with your identity and who you are.
