Taking a Deep Breath - How to Tackle an Anxiety Attack
There are a lot of things that can overwhelm us. Students are intimidated non-stop by expectations from their parents or teachers to excel in school. Friends and peers expect us to be social and dedicate time to them. Professors expect us to come to every class attentive and excited to learn - we all know that these things might not be possible all the time. On top of all this, student-athletes have intense, sometimes impossible to explain expectations from their teammates and coaches, often from dawn to dusk.
All of this noise, obligation, responsibility, stress, and feeling like you have to keep your best face on for everyone all the time, can really mess with your head. Sometimes to the point where it gets hard to breathe, hard to see, and hard to think. Maybe you start to sweat and overheat a little bit. If these symptoms sound familiar to you, then you’ve probably had an anxiety attack. You can take a look at HelpGuide's description of anxiety and anxiety attacks to learn more.
A lot of people get anxious just from knowing that they feel anxious. When this happens, there is a list of steps you can take to help ground yourself again.
The 5-things Technique
Grounding yourself during an anxiety attack means that you are trying to bring yourself back to reality. In order to do this, you can recognize:
5 things that you can see.
Try looking out a window or see what color your shirt is.
4 things that you can touch around you.
Touch materials of chairs, arm hair, or any object nearby that you can physically touch.
3 things that you can hear.
What kind of background noise surrounds you? Can you make your own noise?
2 things you can smell.
Are you outside or indoors? What kind of smells can you identify?
1 thing you can taste.
This may seem odd, but maybe you just had a coffee or a sandwich. Or, maybe you just popped a piece of gum in your mouth. What kind of flavors do you notice?
This technique of grounding involves distracting yourself from the current anxious feelings, in order to regain your mental balance. By taking ourselves out of our heads and establishing consciousness in the physical world, the overwhelming feelings start to dissolve.
