Dealing with an anxiety spiral can make you feel overwhelmed, powerless, and even a little embarrassed. So before we get into a few grounding techniques to use when you’re anxious, let’s start with one (hopefully comforting) fact: At its core, anxiety is actually a normal reaction to stress and danger.
When you’re feeling anxious, your brain—specifically, the amygdala and hypothalamus—triggers your sympathetic nervous system into a “fight, flight, or freeze” response. As your body releases adrenaline and cortisol to help you respond to the threat you’re perceiving, your muscles tense, your heart starts racing, your breathing intensifies, and you start sweating (among other effects), according to the Mayo Clinic.
In many cases, including during the coronavirus pandemic, a little anxiety can help you make sound decisions (like choosing to social distance responsibly or wash your hands more attentively). But sometimes anxiety “just gets out of hand,” Neda Gould, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, tells SELF. Though Gould is careful to say that spiraling isn’t a clinical term and can mean different things to different people, the common experience is that “you might have some sort of trigger that escalates into catastrophic thinking and physical sensations.” It isn’t necessarily as severe as a panic attack, but the symptoms can be similar, Gould says. “Sometimes it can be so extreme that it interferes with our functioning.”
When faced with anxiety, your knee-jerk reaction might be to talk yourself out of it, but this isn’t always helpful, Mona Potter, M.D., medical director at the McLean Anxiety Mastery Program, tells SELF. “Our body is in such high-alert…mode that talking ourselves down is not going to be powerful enough,” she explains. “Physical coping mechanisms can help lower the intensity.”
Below, you’ll find eight grounding techniques to physically help you through an anxious spiral. Some of these are most useful when you practice them before anxiety strikes, and some of them might best work their magic when you’re in the middle of a spiral. Either way, we hope they help you out in this incredibly stressful time.
1. Try deep diaphragmatic breathing.
Typically, when anxiety strikes, your breathing hastens and becomes shallow, which can keep you feeling more anxious, Dr. Potter explains. When you take deep breaths, however, you are “turning on what people sometimes call the rest-and-digest system, or the parasympathetic system,” Gould says. This counters your sympathetic nervous system’s anxiety response so that you can feel calmer.
You can intentionally trigger your parasympathetic nervous system to kick in through diaphragmatic breathing, Dr. Potter explains. By targeting your diaphragm, the main muscle involved in breathing (it sits right under your lungs), you make it a point to breathe more deeply in a way that can help you escape an anxiety spiral. To try it out, place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach as you slowly breathe in and out through your nose. “Your hand on your chest should barely move,” Dr. Potter says. “Your hand on your belly is what should move.”
Dr. Potter also suggests paced breathing, which you can combine with diaphragmatic breathing. To do this, breathe in for three seconds, hold your breath for one, and exhale for about six seconds so that your exhale is longer than your inhale. Looking at a timer while practicing paced breathing can help you ground yourself as well, she says.
2. Dip your face in cold water.
If you’re feeling anxious, you can take a bowl of cold water and submerge your face for about 15 seconds, Dr. Potter says. Why? The temperature “helps to counter that sympathetic response to stress, and it helps bring your body down to a calmer place,” Dr. Potter says. It can also just be a good distraction, and if you feel like you’re overheating from anxiety, the cool sensation can be really helpful.
If submerging your face in cold water sounds more stressful than not, you can splash your face instead for a similar effect. (You might also try dipping your face in cold water when you’re calm to see if this is something you’d want to try when you’re anxious or if you think it’ll just annoy you.)
3. Touch something cold.
Much like dunking your face in cold water, Dr. Potter suggests putting something frozen on parts of your body like your cheeks or under your collarbone. (It can help to wrap it in something like a dish towel to avoid putting something too cold on your skin for too long.) She also suggests simply holding ice in your hand as an alternative.
4. Get moving outside if you can.
Going outside to exercise might help distract you from your spiraling thoughts, Gould says. This is thanks to both the change of scenery and the fact that physical activity can take up some of your brain space. But if you’re heading outside right now, make sure you’re doing it as safely as possible. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that you stay at least six feet away from others when you’re out, for example, so only work out outdoors if you can stick to that metric. Make sure you wear a mask too, and follow any specific guidelines in your area. Here are other tips for exercising outdoors right now.
Also, if you have symptoms of COVID-19, like fever, cough, or shortness of breath, you should definitely stay inside instead of venturing out unless a medical professional tells you otherwise.
5. Get moving indoors if you can’t go out.
Even if you can’t hit the pavement right now, rigorous exercise like running stairs, jogging in place, or doing jumping jacks or other exercises at home can help to “release that adrenaline if you’re feeling physically worked up,” Gould says. If you’re looking for a full-blown workout, try a routine that won’t disturb the people you’re sharing space with (like your neighbors, if you’re an apartment-dweller). Our 2020 Spring Challenge is also an option, FYI.
6. Tap into your senses.
Bringing attention to any of your senses might also help you manage anxious feelings. Gould suggests finding a few things you can touch while really focusing on how they feel, or you can try doing a 5-4-3-2-1 practice, which involves acknowledging five things you can see around you, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. “What happens when we drop into the sensations of the body, whether it’s the breath or other physical sensations, is that we distance ourselves from that narrative in the mind that can be really catastrophic,” Gould says.
7. Mow your lawn or do another physical chore.
Not everyone has a lawn, but the overarching takeaway is to do something physical and to do it with gusto. “The trick is to think, in advance, of something you’re willing to do,” Dr. Potter says, adding that planning will make it slightly easier to do the task when you’re anxious. If you don’t have a lawn, cleaning your shower or scrubbing your floors might also do the trick.
8. Try muscle relaxation exercises.
The most common grounding technique in this category might be progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tensing your muscles and relaxing them, Dr. Potter explains. You can start by scrunching your toes for 5 or 10 seconds and then releasing them. Then you’d move up to your calf muscles, your thigh muscles, and “keep progressing upward,” Dr. Potter says. If trying to clench and unclench your entire body isn’t ideal, just focus on your fists, or even stand in the doorway and push against the frame, Dr. Potter says.
Once your anxiety has passed, it’s important to give yourself permission to, well, relax now that this spell is behind you. “[Anxiety is] this sudden burst of adrenaline and energy, and you need some time to recover from that,” Gould says. “So bringing some kindness and compassion to yourself and taking a few moments to do something pleasant would be a good idea.” You can also keep track of which techniques are helpful (and which ones aren’t) so you can use them again in the future.
Ultimately, figuring out what you need when you’re anxious is an ongoing journey. A lot of people are in the same boat—this pandemic is doing a number on basically everyone’s mental health in different ways. If you need more help figuring out what might work for you, here are a few tips on making a panic attack a little more bearable, along with some ways to reframe anxious thoughts when they crop up. And if you’re still at a loss, try to chat with a mental health care provider about your concerns.
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