This is me talking about my mental health.
I had a rare panic attack or extended anxiety attack on Thursday night into Friday morning. I feel that it all stemmed from a variety of factors combining to create the worst emotional state I have been in perhaps ever. I was on day five of Covid so all my sinuses were blocked leaving me with blocked ears and I had no sense of smell or taste. At certain points during the last few perimenopausal years, I have had anxiety and it is caused by really low estrogen levels. I had also eaten a Burger King lunch and MSG can make anxiety worse. The last thing that was a possible trigger was making the decision to stay home and not attend our Thomas family gathering in Kamsack due to my Covid symptoms persisiting.
During this anxiety episode, I managed to look at every person in my extended family and find something to worry about for them. Jobs, end of life, retirement…EVERYTHING. My mind was racing and no matter how I tried to change the course of my thinking, it all kept circling.
As sleep kept eluding me, I decided to hunt up tried and true methods of dealing with the anxiety.
- 5-4-3-2-1 method where you name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste. (those last three were a bit promblematic for me)
- Deep breathing. One hand on stomach and one hand on chest. Either five count in five count out OR breathe in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8. Continue till calmer or asleep. Usually this works for me to fall asleep but not that night.
- Yoga. I did a series of different yoga stretches/poses.
- Drink calming tea. Cammomile and peppermint were at the top of the list. Perhaps one needs to be able to smell for this to work? I had two mugs of tea through the night.
- Exercise. I was still awake so I did some speed walking around inside the garage. Eventually my body reminded me I had Covid and I started coughing.
- Counting sheep or goats or counting backwards from 100 by 7’s. Anything to draw your focus anywhere else but on your swirling thoughts.
- Repeating a mantra or prayer. I tried both.
- Write down your thoughts. I was able to write a lot but once done my brain started up again..
- Get outside in nature. It was VERY dark out so I did not try this.
- Clean the house. While it probably needed it, I didn’t want to wake my husband
- Clapping,, stamping or patting the body repeatedly can break repetitive thoughts. A little noisy and my husband was sleeping so again…
- I didn’t see this one anywhere and, maybe by this point I was very tired, but I started humming a basic tune over and over in my head. Somehow this worked to get me to sleep.
I did initially get to sleep around 9pm but woke up about midnight. I was probably up for a good five hours trying all this stuff and managed to fall asleep from 5am-7:30am. The anxious thoughts were still present when I woke up but the sun was out and there were things to do so I was able to distract myself.
Note: here I am five days later, my period arrived and my hormones have leveled out so I feel pretty much back to my normal self aside from lingering Covid symptoms.
They say people should talk about how they are feeling, share it with others.
Maybe one of the methods above will help someone else the next time they feel anxious.
I am curious what other methods any of you may have used in the past for yourself.
Thank you for sharing this Corinne. I agree with you that talking about mental health is important. I, too, deal with anxiety and panic attacks, so here’s a few things I do:
– square breathing – in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. I use four, but whatever number works for you. The conscious thinking about the count helps break the swirling.
– On really bad days, I use a hypnosis app to go to sleep. The one I use is specifically for Anxiety Relief and is from SurfCity apps.
– scare myself out of the state of mind. I get Mark to change my state by jumping out at me or sneaking up behind me. The startle is enough to stop the swirl.
Anytime you want to chat, let me know. Know that you’re not the only one dealing with this and that you’re strong and can learn how to live with it.
So sorry to hear you went through this. I’ve had several anxiety attacks (at least that’s how I think of them) where I find myself curled up in bed, overcome by irrational fear. Sleep and time help me. I look back and wonder how I went down the emotional rabbit hole. These rare episodes (maybe a handful over many years) have inspired me to always make choices based on avoiding stress. Or, another way of thinking of it is to make decisions based on what feels like as opposed to what feels heavy.
I too, had many of those through menopause, and since but not as frequent.
One thing I found to try and then, was to count my blessings, clean water, furnace, house, etc. Anything positive I could think of. ….and thank the Lord above all for each day. ❤️
Thankful for your sharing! You are so right about peri menopause! My gynecologist prescribed something helpful to me. I also use « grounding » going through your five senses in the moment (what do I see, hear, smell, taste touch now), as well as changing your temperature can help like holding an ice cube!