8 Ways to Calm When When Anxiety Attacks

Your nerves start shaking, your palms are sweating, and your heart is racing. You don’t always have to suffer through anxiety when it decides to overwhelm you. Take charge of it, and be productive.

Anxiety is nothing new to me. I’ve always put so much pressure on myself, and life has been very overwhelming. I remember when I was in high school, I was sitting in my science class and my boyfriend at the time laughed because I got a B+ on a test. I didn’t find it amusing. I started crying in the middle of class because I had put so much pressure on myself to achieve perfection, that being even slightly off mark made my nerves twitch.

After my brother passed away, I had more and more difficulty concentrating in school and I became more and more rebellious. It came to a point where I completely withdrew from my social circles. After my best friend Jacob passed away, I remember being at home and suddenly freaking out. My boyfriend at the time was on Skype and didn’t know what to do. So I got my mom on the phone and she called for an ambulance to come check on me. They took me into the clinic via ambulance and it came down to me having an anxiety attack. Those happen often. My breath gets knocked out of my chest, and my lungs seem to shrivel up to the a size of an infant’s. Beads of sweat start dripping down my face and my back. My hands get cold and clammy. Tunnel vision in full effect as my head gets dizzy. Anxiety attacks are never fun - but you don’t have to get to that point! Here are some tips that I’ve learned over the years to help prevent an attack once you start getting that aura.

Find peace in chaos

1. Deep breathing and muscle relaxation (AKA Meditation!) - The first thing that Sean usually makes me do is breathe with him. When he’s with me, he places my hand on his chest so I can feel him breathing slowly and I try to match it. When he isn’t there to do that with me, I use my watch to help queue my breathing. Another helpful app that I’ve used is Headspace! You can choose the length, and I only have the initial free version and it works just fine for me. When I was working with my mental health specialist, she taught me to contract parts of my body one at a time, and then release after a deep breath. This helps the body feel naturally relaxed because you’re tensing up. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s always worth a try.

2. Working out - Instead of relaxing your muscles, you can go and get a good pump in! This is my number one, sure fire anxiety attack prevention. I know it seems butt-backwards to take a scoop of pre-workout and pumpers while trying to prevent an anxiety attack, but once I get into the gym and start lifting, my focus is unbreakable. It’s the only place where I have a one track mind. This helps your body release natural endorphins that make you happy!

3. Go-All-Out Bubble Baths with a nice glass of wine - Traveling in the opposite direction again towards relaxing. I love it when Sean and I go to Lush and buy bath bombs. I don’t take very many bubble baths, but I always go all out when I do. I pour a glass of red wine, play chill music, and let the bubbles eat away at my troubles. Sitting in the warmth just helps to relax any kind of tension in my body, and I always feel like I can take a nap afterwards!

4. Using your phone-a-friend token - When I get really overwhelmed, I always cash in my phone-a-friend token, and it’s usually to my girlfriend Susanna or my hombre Stacy. Sometimes you just need someone to listen to you and help talk you through it. There’s nothing better than feeling like someone is there for you even when you’re in your lowest moments. The biggest thing to remember is that you don’t have to carry the weight on your own.

5. Having a 10-minute dance party to your favorite throwback jams - This is definitely self-explanatory. Screw that 10-second dance party crap from Grey’s Anatomy! Throw on your favorite throwback album, jam out. Do your 1-2 step, get crunk, shake ya’ tailfeather girl, I see you over there!

6. Going out to a café with a good book or your headphones and enjoying a cup of coffee - I find that I’m always calm when I can sit in a café with my headphones on, a caramel macchiato, and my laptop just browsing other blogs. There’s something comforting about being surrounded by people but not knowing anyone. Everyone is there just minding their own business, but they’re all participating in the same activity of sitting in that café. I could sit in a café for hours if I could.

7. Animal therapy - Like I said in my first blog post, my anxiety seems to dissipate the second that I touch my dog Okami. Read my blog here about how Okami helped me out so well. It’s the most comforting thing to know that she will give me unconditional love. No matter how long I am gone, no matter what I look like, no matter how I do at work, she will always love me for who I am. Animals seem to understand us more than we give them credit for.

8. Get out and TRAVEL! - This may be an expensive way to get away from your anxiety, but it definitely works for me. Every time I feel like I have a lot of built up stress, I find a cheap ticket to a place I’ve never been before and I emerge myself in another culture. Traveling doesn’t always have to be expensive either, it can be to the next city over for a daytrip. I guess this only works if being in an unfamiliar place isn’t something that makes you anxious though.

There are so many things that you can do to relieve your stress. Some people love to be loud and boisterous to get their nerves shaken up, others like to be calm and quiet. Some people can knit for hours, and others play video games. As long as it works for you, keep doing what you do. Just remember you aren’t ever alone, though you may feel that way now.

Love, Jaclyn & Co.

Why is this world full of creepers, and how can we protect our girls from them?

  The fact that this has to be a topic of discussion on my blog disturbs me.  I had the opportunity to volunteer at Seoul American High School for their end of the year Olympic events.  I love volunteering for these field days because you get to interact with the kids and encourage healthy lifestyles.  As fun as today was, there were some heavy questions being asked by some of the moms that were also there as volunteers.  And it just so happened that later in the evening, it happened to me.

  Bad things happen to girls and boys that “aren’t careful.”  It’s a shame that we say that people need to be careful so nothing bad happens to them.  Now even though I speak from the point of view of being a female, I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen to males, because it does.  But for my post’s sake, I will only be speaking from my own point of view.

“Do these things really happen to girls? Sexual harassment?”

  It’s not that it hasn’t happened before.  There are definitely stories that have come to light where girls have been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted in the past.  It’s just now there is more awareness since the world is more connected through social media.  This darkness has been brought to the light by the internet and it isn’t pretty.  I am constantly scrolling passed posts that talk about teaching our girls how to defend themselves, telling them not to walk home alone at night, not to wear certain clothing, and to be careful with their alcohol intake when going out.  Because the world isn’t full of good people.  There are some monsters out there that could care less about the wellbeing of our girls, and that’s the ugly truth.

“How do I send my daughter off to college knowing things like this happen?”

  Everyone wants to protect their daughters, sisters, or even just friends, but we can’t always be there for them 24/7.  My biggest advice to this mom was to raise her daughter to be self-aware and to be smart.  Be open to talking to her about things that make you uncomfortable, like drugs and sex.  The more aware children are about these things, the less likely they are to partake if they know something negative could happen from it.  Like drinking and driving, unprotected sex, or harder drugs can lead to life changing events.

  When I was in college, I had to learn the hard way that not everyone you met could be trusted.  There were people who were out on a mission, on a hunt, to find someone to take home at night.  If I hadn’t had my friends, I would’ve ended up being in a lot of really bad positions.  It’s not a joke.  These things happen, and you have to have those uncomfortable conversations.  Make sure you can trust who you go out with, and make sure there’s always a codeword that you can use if you feel uncomfortable.  It’s so sad that this has to be a thing that we do…

My experience in the gym today definitely verified that there are creeps out there

  One of the things I told the mom’s to do is to get their daughters active in sports or physical activity.  Making sure that they’re living an active lifestyle helps keep them on track toward a healthy lifestyle.  One of the mom’s stated that she enrolled her daughter in martial arts because she wants to make sure her daughter knows how to defend herself if anything were to happen.  This mom asked me if I had experienced any type of sexual harassment or assault, and sadly, I have.

  Much worse has happened to me in the past, but today, after talking to these mom’s, I’ve realized that even on post I’m surrounded by creepers.  I was minding my own business in the gym today.  I normally go in the evenings because there’s less people there since it’s after the post-work rush, but today I decided to go in a little earlier.  The gym was packed full, so I found myself a little corner in the mat room and continued my workout there.  About halfway into my workout, I heard a camera shutter.  In Korea, cellphones make shutter noises because it’s illegal to take photos of people in public without their permission.  That’s why there’s a shutter sound.

  This man was standing behind me in the mirror room while I was doing Romanian deadlifts, and he took my photo.  The angle that he had his phone at definitely showed that he wasn’t taking a selfie of himself, and even though the mirror was in front of us, I was in front of him.  I confronted him about the shutter sound and he looked like he was confused.  I had asked him if he had taken a photo of me and he denied it.  I went to a staff member to report him, and they asked to see his last photo – which was indeed, a photo of my ass.  Shit happens. I dealt with it.  They kicked him out and revoked his membership.

So what do we do about it as females?

  First, we stop tearing each other apart.  Second, we look out for each other instead.  Mentor younger girls to be smart, strong, and confident.  Fix each other’s crowns when they’re crooked.  Save a girl when you see that she’s in need of help because she’s being harassed.  It starts with you.  YOU can make a difference when you see a sister in need, so be that difference.  GUIDE. Love. Heal. PROTECT.

Guest Post: An ongoing battle with an eating disorder in today's world

  I remember it vividly.  I was at my friend’s birthday party and decided I wasn’t going to eat meat anymore. A small decision that would have a huge impact on my life. Most of my childhood, I was the bigger kid in class and so one day I decided to change. It started with cutting out meat, then that led to cutting out chocolate and then anything that wasn’t too sugary or didn’t have a nutrition label. At the time I was 14 and food seemed like the one thing I could control in my life. I stopped letting my mom make me breakfast, used smaller utensils and dishes to eat less and kept up with my exercise routine. My eighth grade year was awful, I remember bringing a yogurt and pineapple to school everyday and isolating myself at lunch so people wouldn’t see me eat.

 Getting through high school and learning how to binge

  Flash forward to the middle of ninth grade, I had lost probably 20 pounds, but I still wasn’t happy. During soccer practice one day, I made myself throw up so I could go home. Everyone thought I was sick but in reality my brain was the only part of me that was sick. Once I realized that I could make myself throw up, the year and a half of starving myself caught up with me in a big way. I started binging on anything and everything I could, waiting until my parents went to sleep to begin devouring everything in sight. After stuffing myself so full, the only thing I wanted to do was make that feeling go away.  So I would make myself sick. This went on most of high school, and I continuously lost more and more weight, but it was never enough. By sophomore year in college, I was 113 pounds, binging daily on anything that I wouldn’t normally eat and running 5+ miles a day to ensure I didn’t gain weight (mind you, I started my “weight loss” at 168 pounds).

 Finally reaching out for help

  That year I finally opened up to my mom and told her that I had a problem, my family gave me the ultimatum to go get help or to be cut off. I chose to go to therapy and worked with a therapist throughout the next two years of college. By the end of college I had gotten my shit somewhat together, however I was still so unhappy with my body. I had gained weight (approximately 20 pounds) and was trying to navigate how to eat normally again. For so long, I had no hunger cues and felt perpetually hungry.  

 How it has effected my adult life

In 2016, I had just started my career in the Army and told myself, yet again that I would be this disease once and for all. I got up to my highest weight but was still so disgusted by the body in the mirror. For 9 months in 2017, I had my longest streak of sobriety, but as soon as life felt out of control again I was right back where I started.  The last three years have felt like a flash, and I’m still here fighting but each day I get a little stronger.

  Having an eating disorder is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Unlike other addictions, you have to eat to live, it’s not just something you can avoid. During every social event, holiday, night out, breakfast, lunch and dinner I have to make the decision to eat, to not restrict and no matter how guilty I feel after, I have to make the decision to not make myself sick.  Getting help is something I wish I had done sooner because even now at 26, I struggle daily to make healthy decisions for myself. The control and the pain I cause myself are the addictive parts of this disorder, it’s never just about the food. Throughout the last 13 years, I was never “sick enough.” I didn’t fit the stereotypical look of the skinny girl that looked like the wind could blow her over.

 Taking the steps to a “normal”, healthy life

  I have had to take my recovery day by day for over 3 years and I have slipped up more times than I care to admit.  But my experience goes to show that no matter how someone appears, they might be hiding behind a mask distracting the world from ever really knowing what mental struggles they battle in their head on a daily basis. I am complicated, emotional, and generally all over the place, but every day I’m working towards getting my life back. I don’t know if I will ever be completely free, but I do know that I will continue to fight this war inside my mind every day. Deciding to cut out meat, turned into anorexia, which turned into bulimia and changed the course of my life forever.

  For 13 years bulimia has plagued my life, and although it is a big part of me, it is not who I am or who I want to be. My eating disorder took some many things from me and continues to do so today. Isolation, anger, depression, anxiety, and a forever sinking feeling consumed me. I lost my menstrual cycle for 7 years, causing who knows how much damage to my reproductive system. Knowing that you may never have children because of what you did to yourself is probably the hardest pill to swallow. With that being said, each New Years I tell myself that I’m done with bulimia and every birthday I start over again.

 Eating disorders in today’s society

  In today’s world, getting help is something that most people struggle to do because of the stigma surrounding mental illnesses and eating disorders. Those people who desperately need help suffer in silence because they’ve been conditioned to believe that asking for help makes a person weak. The symptoms listed in the DSM that allow doctors to make diagnoses for patients are incredibly outdated and only chip away at the tip of the iceberg. There are so many types of eating disorders: bulimia, orthorexia, anorexia, binge eating disorder and many others that I don’t know off the top of my head but the worst part is this disease not discriminate based on gender, age or weight.

Notes from Okami & Co.

It’s difficult struggling with something as important as food. As Sara stated, you need food to live, so it’s not something you can just fix overnight. Having struggled with body image dysmorphia, I can relate to Sara’s journey of long nights of starvation, binging and purging, and excessively working out. It’s tough on your mental game, and it does require therapy to get through it. Just because someone looks “normal,” doesn’t mean they aren’t struggling. The biggest hurdle people may have that look normal is convincing someone they have a problem that they need help with. If you have any concern with your eating patterns and nutrition, please reach out for help.

About our Guest Author

Sara C. is a friend from high school, whom I’ve had the opportunity of attending military training with back in college. We reconnected through Facebook, and I reached out to her to share her story. She advocates for mental health through her Instagram showing her mental health journey and fitness journey. She is an officer in the United States Military. She is continuously striving to find balance in her mental and physical health while cheering on others to do the same. Follow her journey on her blog www.saraswayforward.com.

Guest Post: Talking about Mental Health with ‘Traditional’ Parents

“As long as I am working and able to send money back home, I am fine”, my mom said. She is a first-generation immigrant who has been living in Canada for over 30 years. This was her response to talking about recent life stressors including money, family and work. Like other parental figures, my mother has this one traditional-like belief about mental wellness. Namely, “If you are physically okay, you don’t need to get checked”

I do not think that this mindset always comes from an uncaring individual. I think there is so much more to this statement than what there is at face value.

For some, I think about the places where people were brought up. In some countries, privatization makes healthcare inaccessible. This is true for those who are not able to pay out of pocket. So, for treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy or a cocktail of anti-psychotics, these are not readily available options for the marginalized.

Even if they were, some cultures teach how mental illnesses are evil spirits to be removed by a ceremony. Or there is also the understanding that a ‘physical’ problem must be treated with a ‘physical’ treatment and the same goes for a mental illness. Therefore, a tumor in the breast can be treated with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. However, with a mental illness, medications like antidepressants or mood stabilizers are not readily accepted. If parents such as mine were open to talking about mental health treatments, they would be looking more at psychotherapy or support groups.

There is also the perception of mental illnesses being easily treated – by just changing a mindset. It goes back to the idea that if a person is not bringing harm to others, nor are they at risk of anything, they are ‘okay’. I know that when I was in elementary and secondary school from the early 2000s, mental illnesses were never discussed. There was little to no education about what they were and how you could support others who are diagnosed with one. It is only recently, where there are more awareness campaigns and initiatives to legitimatize the perception of mental illnesses.

Unfortunately, with ‘positive’ publicity also comes ‘negative’ ones. Often, my parents and I see stories in the social media of violent acts of murder and suicide. When there is word of mental illness, there comes misguided generalizations. Some prejudice statements I have heard include ALL people with mental illness(es) are violent, manipulative, attention-seeking and overly emotional human beings. In fact, I have also heard people say that if you talk about suicide with others, they are more likely to kill themselves. The reasoning for this statement was that you had ‘planted’ the idea in their mind, otherwise they would have never thought of it.

Talking about mental illnesses within families, are difficult. Though there are times where I wish my mom would be able to understand how I see mental illnesses, I know there are a lot of barriers to her understanding it. Even when I persist in talking about them with her, there are a few things I try to keep in mind.

1. The goal is not to change how they think about mental illness. If you do happen to accomplish this, think of it as a bonus. Strive to have them accept and respect your own perception of mental illness. They do not have to agree with you, but keeping them aware of what you are going through will hopefully help minimize the risk of distancing.

2. Focus on how you feel about the situation, NOT on how they are reacting. Sometimes it is easier for a person to support another when they feel like they are not being blamed or put at fault for something beyond their control.

3. Accept that not everyone is open-minded. My mom will probably never think of depression or anxiety as family issues we should be concerned with. She will probably still call suicide as one having a ‘crazy idea’. The most we can do is just look out for one another and respect that we are different.

Having the conversation about mental illness is not something comfortable to talk about – especially with parents like my mom. But it is better to have one, whenever it may be, than to be silent about it.