While people with an underlying anxiety disorder may be experiencing a heightened sense of panic or dread during this pandemic, pretty much everyone is grappling with some amount of unease as life as we know it is unhinged or even uprooted. Many people are staying home, which can disrupt our markers of daily life and leave us feeling disoriented and discombobulated. And as of right now, there is no end in sight, adding to our sense of powerlessness and confusion. Here are some simple things one can do to help manage this anxiety.
One course of action to combat anxiety is to slow down one’s heartrate using various relaxation techniques. There are a variety of useful tools such as guided visualization and progressive muscle relaxation. However, the simplest anxiety management technique I teach my patients is deep breathing. Many people have picked up faulty habits and have adopted shallow breathing patterns. Such breathing can actually exacerbate anxiety and panic. I work with patients to retrain their natural breath so that they develop diaphragmatic breathing. This allows the individual to take in vastly more air and slows down the whole process from inhalation to exhalation.
Think of our chest and stomach cavity as a cylinder. Put one hand on your rib cage and the other on your stomach. On a count of three breathe in, first fill your belly, and then, when that is full, expand your chest. You can fill the entire cavity, all the way around the back. Do this in reverse for the exhale. On a count of three, first exhale the air from your chest, followed by your stomach. When you feel that you’ve exhaled all the air in your chest and stomach cavity, pull up from your groin to get the last of the air out. Repeat this cycle three to five times. Try this a few times during the day. This is easy to do because you can do it anywhere and it takes very little time. With practice, this can eventually retrain the way you breathe so that it will be there automatically when you are most anxious. Remember, this is like opening a parachute: you wouldn’t wait until you are in midair to learn how to open it. You need to practice it over and over so that it will be there when you need it. After enough practice, try increasing to a count of four or five for each inhale and exhale.
Slowing down one’s breathing may prove a useful way to manage anxiety, but some people prefer to accelerate their heartrate as another anxiety management skill. The thinking is that changing one’s heartrate is the key, whether that means slowing it down or speeding it up. Any type of cardio activity can work: running, jogging, biking, jumping rope, dancing, swimming, and other athletic activities.
Another activity I personally find helpful with managing anxiety is to engage in some repetitive motion. Cleaning is an excellent example of this. Try scouring a pan or cleaning a floor. Something about the physical movement and repetition lends itself to getting the anxiety out of the body. Besides, you can benefit from having a clean surrounding!
This is not one size fits all. Experiment with some of the suggestions here and see which work best for you. You might come up with ideas not mentioned. What’s most important is that you find things that help lessen your anxiety and that you are actually likely to do. And remember, we are all going through this together. You are not alone.