Confronting Anxiety

Last night I didn't take anxiety or sleeping medication. I had a few anxiety attacks in the evening, and I handled them using the steps I found here: http://www.anxietycoach.com/overcoming-panic-attacks.html

I couldn't remember them all, but I did remember the first A: acknowledge and accept. I'm finding that just verbalizing the fear internally is incredibly helpful for me. I can't push the fears away, because they will keep coming back. "I'm feeling afraid that I might not be able to handle my job." That sort of thing.

And I turned off the TV by 9:00 and listened to calm music. I chatted with my friend when she came home from a work get together, and when she brought up topics that would be worry triggers, I said that I don't want to talk about that.

I fell asleep without a whole lot of problems.

I woke up early in the morning (didn't look at the clock but guessing around 2:00?) and fell asleep within 15-20 minutes. I woke up again at 4:30 and fell asleep after about an hour. The first time I had one chest-tightening moment, and the second time I had a few. But they were brief when I used the acknowledge and accept thing. It also helped to remind myself that it would pass. The more I used the tools I had read about, the quicker the anxiety did pass. It really worked!

I had anxiety pop up a few times during church, and I used the techniques--each anxiety event lasted less only a minute or so.

I'm so glad that I decided to work on this myself. I didn't realize how often anxiety was hitting me. Now I feel like this is something that I can handle. I still want to see a shrink, but I'm happy that I can help myself.