Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

~ Charles Spurgeon

Although defeating anxiety is your primary goal, dealing with anxiety is nearly as important.

Whilst I could write 1,000 words about how you can successfully beat anxiety, accepting it as a part of your life (in the short term) is extremely important too.

I have stressed this before, but learning how to deal with anxiety will take time. And during that time, you want to retain a quality of life.

The Importance Of Mental Health

Overcoming anxiety must be your number one priority in life.

There should be nothing more valuable to you. The fact is, there are many things we can live without. Material possessions and go. But the healthy functioning of your brain is what makes you, you. Each and every one of us should embrace life fully, and we cannot do so if we are suffering from anxiety.

Anxiety Symptoms

There are a few different types of anxiety disorder, and they each have their own symptoms. For instance, social anxiety is characterized by your reaction to people who are close to you. Agoraphobia on the other hand is characterized by your reaction to the prospect of leaving the house.

Having said that, all anxiety can be treated with the same broad techniques. Dealing with anxiety does not have to be a hopeless task.

Stopping Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are like anxiety’s vicious little brother. Controlling them, or even stopping them, is very difficult. I say that from personal experience. But it is possible.

The best way to stop a panic attack is to accept its presence, acknowledge that it will lead you to rational thought patterns, and understand that if your brain chooses to move forwards with its process, you will be helpless to stop it.

But at the same time, you realize that going through a panic attack offers no physical threat. It is in your mind, and as such cannot hurt you. Over time, this attitude with hardwire your brain to react differently to situations that used to prompt panic attacks.

Dealing With Anxiety

I am afraid that there will be tough times head. But by embracing effective strategies and having a better understanding of your suffering, you will be well equipped to learn how to deal with anxiety.

Unfortunately, I do not have “5 easy steps” or any quick fix for you. It’s not so much a case of learning techniques. Such cures for anxiety attacks do not exist. But given time, you can learn to control anxiety. And if you can control it, you are just one step away from defeating it.

Overcoming Anxiety

There will never be a day when you wake up and realize that your anxiety woes are largely over. The process will likely be long, and there will be real low points for you. I’m not sure to sugarcoat that fact.

The sooner you accept the toughness that lays ahead, the better you can prepare yourself with the adequate determination to defeat your anxiety issues. Dealing with anxiety is possible, and the odds are stacked with you when you take a positive mental outset.

I have spent the last week or so trawling the web for the best anxiety and panic attack support forums. There are quite a lot out there, but to be totally honest with you, most of them are not particularly popular. There’s nothing worse than getting involved with a forum that no-one visits!

I did however find two forums that are not only busy, but full of extremely helpful and understanding people. People who know what you’re going through, because they’ve been in the same spot.

No More Panic

The first forum is called No More Panic. The forum actually covers various issues – from panic attacks, to anxiety, to O.C.D. However, you may well recognize that most of the topics are intrinsically linked.

At the time of writing, there are hundreds of people on the forum, which means that any message you leave will likely attract a lot of attention and help.

To get started, check out their “Introduce Yourself” section.

Social Anxiety Support

The Social Anxiety Support forum, as you might have gathered, is focused primarily on social anxiety. However, you can get a lot of help from the folks over there on a wide range of topics.

To be honest, I personally found my anxiety and panic attack issues were linked to social anxiety. Part of my fear was what people would think of me if I had a full blown panic attack in their presence. I think that is a fear that many people share. As such, the Social Anxiety Support forum can be a great resource for anyone that the above resonates with.

The Key To Overcoming Your Issues Is Support

I was stupid to not seek support when I was experiencing anxiety and panic attacks. Although I did go through cognitive behavioral therapy, I tried to hide my issues from family and friends. And I did so, pretty successfully.

Why? Because I feared ridicule and a lack of understanding. But let me make it simple for you – life is too short for that, and the value you can get out of the support of your loved ones is too much to pass up.

There is just one problem – although they may care a great deal, they may not understand, and they may not be able to help you beat your issues (although they can help you cope). But with the support of people who know exactly what you are going through, via the above forums, you can have the best of both worlds.

I’ve already defined panic attacks. To be quite honest with you, they can be pretty terrifying (the clue is in the name). In my experience, they are characterized by an overwhelming feel of a loss of control. That fact may make it very difficult to see how on earth you could possibly treat them. After all, how can you treat something that you are not in control of?

But it is possible – I promise you. I know this from personal experience. It is largely down one thing – attitude.

Attitude

You shouldn’t try to “beat” panic attacks. There isn’t a line you cross where you can consider to have “beaten” your panic attack. You may not understand what I am getting here, so I will try to make myself more clear.

Let’s say you feel a panic attack coming on. You may be in a situation which has triggered panic attacks in the past (and as such, the anxiety in expectation of a panic attack can be enough on its own to bring it on, but dealing with that is for another article). The familiar feelings to start to wash over you in seemingly uncontrollable waves. It is of course a highly unpleasant feeling. You may suffer from a number of symptoms during your attack – I personally was prone to extreme nausea (my biggest fear was throwing up in public due to my panic attacks). I would also have a near-uncontrollable urge to “get away” from my current situation.

In such a moment, what would you consider as “victory” over your panic attack? Would it be stopping it from happening? Or simply enduring it without any embarrassment? Or any other number of outcomes? Treatment of panic attacks, as they happen, is not a zero sum game. You don’t “win” or “lose”. It is all about what you are able to do in the circumstances. It is about wresting control over your panic attacks, over time.

Treatment

It is not the purpose of this article to talk about medication that can reduce the likelihood of panic attacks (although I personally used Citalopram, with a good outcome). Because at some point, you have to come off the medication (or you certainly should!), and the key is how you cope with panic attacks then. You need to get yourself into a position where you don’t need medication to handle your panic attacks.

How do you do that? With attitude - as I mentioned above.

Don’t try to “beat” your panic attacks. Just try to wrest control over them, bit by bit. Conquering your panic attacks is a war of attrition, not a quick skirmish that results in an outright winner.

When I suffered from panic attacks, I sought solace in the “little victories”. For instance, a common tactic I used to manage my panic attacks was to excuse myself and go to the toilet (usually when I didn’t actually need to go). This gave me a few precious moments to gather myself and try to control my intense feelings of panic. The problem was, when I returned to the table, I would inevitably have a fresh wave of panic over the fact that if I were to excuse myself again, it would seem most unusual.

So a success for me in that context would be not having to excuse myself at all. Yes, I might still experience a panic attack, and it might be a pretty horrible experience, but I was able to control it to an extent so that I didn’t have to rely upon the “crutch” of excusing myself. It was a small step, but if you take plenty of small steps, you will eventually go a long way.

Accept The Inevitable

When your tendency towards panic attacks are at their worst, it can be rather liberating to simply accept that they are going to happen. Treat them as an unwelcome visitor that you tolerate for the time being, whilst you figure out how you are going to get rid of him.

Think of the most irritating person you know. More often than not, such people feed upon the reactions of others. They act as they do in order to get a response. If they stop getting a response, they tend to lose interest. Panic attacks are similar in a way. If you simply accept their presence but don’t afford them your attention (as much as you can), their effects tend to be dampened over time. And eventually, they will slip away.

So please, don’t concentrate on “beating” your anxiety attacks. Focus instead on improving your reaction to them, bit by bit. Praise yourself for the little advancements you make, and recognize that you will lose battles, but you will not lose the war.

As a sufferer of anxiety, you need to be concerned with two things:

1. How to defeat it
2. How to live with it

Whilst I could write all day long about how you can go about fighting your anxiety, learning how to live with it is also very important. As I often stress, it takes time to defeat your anxiety issues. And during this time, you still want to experience as good a quality of life as possible.

So how do you go about living your life as normally as possible whilst you cope with anxiety? It is tough – no doubt about it. But there are things you can do to make your life easier.

Seek Support

There is nothing more potentially valuable to you than the support of your family and friends. I cannot overstate how much of a difference this can make. When my anxiety was at its very worst, I tried to keep it hidden from all of my friends and family. I kept my suffering to myself. I was stupid to do so.

There is still a certain taboo surrounding anxiety. Perhaps taboo is the wrong word - some people simply do not understand. This is often the case with conditions that aren’t ‘physical’. It is far more difficult for a person to empathize with something that they can’t really see. And unfortunately, some people ridicule and belittle sufferers of anxiety. Phrases such as “pull yourself together” and “get over it” are not uncommon.

People are wrong to have such an attitude, plain and simple. And I want to be very straight with you in saying that if any of your family or friends adopt such an attitude, you need to carefully consider whether or not they are a positive influence in your life.

Do not do what I did – do not suffer alone. Many of my family and friends now know what I went through, and most of them say, “Why on earth didn’t you say something?” And quite right they are. Support in such difficult times can help enormously in dealing with anxiety.

Stay Optimistic

This is of course easier said than done, but trying to keep a positive outlook is vitally important to dealing with anxiety. I fully expect some of you to roll your eyes at the thought of having a ‘positive outlook’ – I understand. It is very easy to look at something from the outside and tell someone that they should keep their chin up. But I have been where you are, and I do know how difficult it is.

Beating anxiety is a war – as long as you are winning the majority of the battles, you are heading in the right direction. Thinking of it in that way can help you to rationalize and make sense of your anxiety, and also better recognize the progress that you are making. The support of your family and friends tie in with all of this as well. It is much easier to keep a positive outlook when those around you are cheering you on.

Please take note – anxiety and depression can be closely linked. There is a difference between being unhappy and fed up with your situation, and being genuinely depressed. If you feel that your unhappiness is reaching lower depths than what you would consider ‘normal’, you should seek the advice of your physician. Depression is a crippling illness, and should be treated seriously.

Keep Fighting

Perhaps most importantly, you must never stop fighting. Giving up is your worst enemy.

I know this because for a period of time, I gave up. An acceptance of my situation had crept into my mind and threatened to take hold. Fortunately, I pulled myself out of my funk before it was too late. I made the decision that to live with my situation in the long-term was not acceptable.

So never stop fighting. Surround yourself with caring and supporting family and friends, and try to be optimistic. Then seek all the help that you can possibly get. Deal with anxiety.

Anxiety can be extremely debilitating, and its effects cannot be understated. It is something that can prevent you from living the life that you want to lead. I know this, because I have in the past suffered from chronic anxiety.

My main issue was in fact panic attacks, but I used to experience a great deal of anxiety in anticipating those attacks. It would stop me from doing things as simple as going to the hairdressers. Menial daily tasks became a struggle. When you find yourself in such a position, life becomes quite difficult to endure.

So if you are in that position, rest assured that I have a good idea of what you are going through. Know that you can beat your anxiety.

I have included below some tips that I have used myself, as well as advice as to where you can seek further help beyond this blog.

Therapy

The first thing I would recommend is that you seek therapy. I personally went through an extended course of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and it was a complete revelation. In time, I was able to understand and rationalize my thought processes, and alter them to provide me with ample weapons against my anxiety and panic attacks.

Once you have suffered from chronic anxiety and panic attacks, I do not think that you will ever get over them fully. But what you can do is equip yourself so that if anxiety raises its ugly head, you know exactly what to do to put it in its place. This is where CBT is so effective – it can ‘re-wire’ your ‘hard-wired’ reactions to events and give you fuller control over your impulses.

Mindset

Anxiety is in your head. Of course it is. It is not a physical thing. As such, it is not something that requires physical exertion to overcome. It is entirely conquerable with your mindset and your attitude.

You will be thinking, “yes, but that is easier said than done”. And you would be absolutely right. It is unlikely that you have ever let anxiety get the better of you without a fight. So you know that you often lose the struggle.

But do you? What is the struggle exactly? And at what point do you “lose”? Anxiety isn’t something that can be beaten. It is something that can be controlled. Anxiety is a natural human emotion and should be treated as an inevitability. It is how you deal with anxiety that defines you, not whether or not you “defeat” it.

So stop trying to “defeat” anxiety. Instead, focus on allowing it to exist as an emotion, but in a rational context. The sooner you accept anxiety as an inevitability in your life, the sooner you can learn to control it.

If you ever start feeling anxious about any situation, ask yourself if it is rational to feel anxious at that time. If you feel that it is, try to give yourself a clear explanation in your head as to why it is. If you have such an explanation, then take a long hard look at it, and try to objectively assess if it truly is a rational explanation.

This will do two things:

1. You may realize that the anxiety is not based upon rationality, in which case, you are far better-placed to control it.
2. In going through the thought process, you distract your brain and give you time to ‘breathe’. This in itself can help in controlling your anxiety.

If you do discover that your anxiety is based upon irrational fears, then you need to set out in telling yourself that. Over and over again. It may not feel like it is helping at times. But the more you do this, the more you will re-train your brain to understand the lack of logic behind your anxiety. In time, this will improve your ability to handle anxiety.

Medication

Depending upon the severity of your anxiety, you may wish to go on a course of medication to help bridge the gap between your anxiety and your healing. Medication does not have to be viewed as a crutch (nor should it be). It can be a useful tool to help you overcome your anxiety. When I suffered badly from anxiety and panic attacks, I was put on a course of Citalopram by my doctor. It was wonderfully effective in blunting my anxiety and panic attacks, but I could sense that the drug was masking the issue, rather than eradicating it.

It was in fact the therapy and personal efforts that led to my control over anxiety. The medication was simply a tool that I used to help me in my quest. You would do well to think of medication in the same way – as a tool, not the solution.

You’re Not Alone

There are so many people that can help you with your problem. I urge you to reveal your anxiety issue to your friends and family. This is something that I didn’t do. I hid it from almost everyone. That in itself was a huge struggle. Don’t make it harder for yourself than it has to be.

And please seek help in the form of CBT. Do not lie down and let anxiety beat you. Reach down inside of yourself and find the strength to do what is needed to conquer your anxiety and get on with your life.

No one should have to struggle with chronic anxiety. So make sure that you don’t let that happen.