Anxiety is holding me back

JayP

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
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May 21, 2016
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42
Howdy gents. I'm hoping I can get finally get over my anxiety soon enough, or get some good advice here about it.

It's been with me my whole life, and recently, I've seen patterns of how it affects me at the gym, work, with friends, and even my family. I've become more hesitant in simple conversation, and when I finally say something, it's just something that doesn't add to the conversation.

What helped you finally get over that paralyzing mindset of not being able to formulate a statement because your head's too clouded? I'm tired of it holding me back from truly being happy.

I'm very thankful I found GC because I've learned a lot from here, and I really think I'm close to breaking the hold of my anxiety, but I just need something to give me that final push.

Thanks for any tips
 

lostnumber

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
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Aug 31, 2017
Messages
307
Pretend like you aren't anxious or nervous. It sounds dumb but its true, act the way a confident person would act no matter what you feel and you'll find your feelings start to change in synch.
 

Hue

Tribal Elder
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Sep 21, 2016
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JayP,

Plenty of things you can do about this.

First it's important to understand that anxiety is normal. It is not bad to feel anxious. In fact, anxiety can be helpful in that it may signal something's not right in a given situation, or push you towards getting something handled.

Everyone has anxiety about something or other. That said, it can be incredibly crippling, and hold you back from many things as you describe in social situations.

Personally, I would recommend meditation. There's plenty of articles that suggest meditating to deal with approach anxiety, and the same advice applies here. Somewhat recently I left a social situation, meditated for 20-30 minutes, came back and was on fire. Although consistent, everyday meditation is the way to go for long lasting effects.

You could also consult a counselor for your anxiety. They may use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or another type of face-to-face therapy to assist you, and/or prescribe anti-anxiety medication, usually an SSRI like Prozac. I've seen both work and both fail for others. It usually takes a while to figure out what's best for you personally.


I use to have TERRIBLE social anxiety but just continued to engage with others socially, and it's mostly gone now. And as lostnumber suggests, that did involve faking it till I made it and pretending I wasn't anxious.

Haha, I just gave a speech at a conference while on so much adderol my hand was tremoring, on top of the mad anxiety from talking to 100 people. I talked with someone who was observing afterwards and told them I was pretty nervous and was told "you were nervous? quite a poker face you got there!". Lesson being: sometimes the way you think you're presenting yourself is all in your head.

Hope this helps.
 

Parkour

Tool-Bearing Hominid
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Sep 10, 2014
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115
It depends on the anxiety and triggers but here’s some stuff:

Hypnosis - specifically some downloads from hypnosisdownloads.com like the one titled “Lighten up and see the funny side”. Anxiety often comes from getting too deep and ruminating.

Kava kava or Phenibut - the latter especially helped me
Ashwaganda, Theanine, Lithium Orotate - YMMV
MitoQ, Hydroxy B12, Methylfolate - helped me with energy levels

Working out, making gains but not overtraining,
body building arms, lats, side/mid delts, upper chest

Low pressure socializing, networking, with lots of humor

Lower caffeine, good sleep

Gratitude journal, meditation

A dog

Help some people

Skip news or other negative topics for a bit

Listening to lighter/less heavy people, talking about lighter things.

Also, if you do get bold, and scared, and succeed at something hard, you will get a bit of anxiety relief
 

JayP

Tool-Bearing Hominid
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May 21, 2016
Messages
42
Thanks guys. This does help.

lostnumber - Yeah, I've been trying that for a few days, and I've felt less of it. Good tip.

Hue - You're not the first person to mention meditation. I'll stop brushing it aside and give it a try. I'm in Toastmasters (public speaking club) and I'm quite comfortable on the stage. It's newer and small social circles for some reason that I get crippled in.

Parkour - Interesting. I didn't think about hypnosis before. And yeah, I try my best to avoid negative people or negative topics. I'll definitely look into the hypnosis.
 

Duke22

Space Monkey
space monkey
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Sep 26, 2017
Messages
44
lostnumber said:
Pretend like you aren't anxious or nervous. It sounds dumb but its true, act the way a confident person would act no matter what you feel and you'll find your feelings start to change in synch.

SOLID ADVICE.
 

Bboy100

Cro-Magnon Man
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Hey man, I've been struggling with anxiety my entire life. So I definitely feel you on this one. It's only within the past 3-4 years that I've been able to shed most of it and live a life that I enjoy. Here are a few things which have helped me:

If you've had it your whole life, there's probably no quick fix to this. The simplest and most effective route is to get a therapist. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is usually the quickest and most cost effective method (hopefully free if you have good insurance!). It's designed to get you feeling better within 6-8 sessions or so. If that doesn't get you to where you want to be, Psychodynamic Therapy can be useful as well. But definitely try CBT first.

Aside from that, here are some lifestyle considerations:

Sleep- When you go into counseling, one of the first conversations most therapists will have with you is about your sleep patterns. Fixing any sleeping deficiencies you might have is easiest way to fix anxiety. It will get you more bang for your buck than anything else BY FAR. So that means getting 8-9 hours per day. Plenty of people will go into therapy, do literally nothing except fix their sleep patterns, then feel better within a matter of weeks. I know this sounds like something your mother would say, but it's seriously not at all trivial. Stop staying up late and watching Netflix, go to bed early enough to get enough sleep.

Nutrition- I can't write up a detailed enough post on what good nutrition looks like (would take forever and I'm not super well versed in nutrition), but for starters, cut out as many processed foods as you can. So this means stick with mostly meats, veggies, fruits and some dairy (dairy is processed, but if consumed in moderation, is no big deal). The American "food pyramid" is a lie. If you're stuffing yourself with grains almost every day, you're going to be miserable. Grain is only slightly better than sugar. I would recommend looking into what healthy eating looks like and fixing your lifestyle from there.

Exercise- There have been plenty of studies which show a direct correlation between exercise and mood. So if you're anxious, exercising more will improve your mood. If you can't motivate yourself to consistently exercise, do it in a group so you're accountable your peers. So that means do stuff like Crossfit, Yoga, Intermural/Underdog sports leagues, dance classes, martial arts, pickup Basketball/Volleyball games etc. (BONUS: Most of these places are great ways to meet women. Also, being in shape will make you more attractive to said women.). Or get a personal trainer.

Socializing- If you're stuck at home playing videogames or watching Netflix every day, you will have more anxiety. We're social animals. So when we isolate ourselves, we start to feel shitty. Just by going out and hanging out with friends and loved ones as much as you can, your anxiety will decrease (Yes, I know it can be hard to motivate yourself to do this when you're anxious. But push through and do it anyways. You'll thank yourself later). If you don't have any close friends, its paramount that you find some (again...having friends will also help you get laid. So 2 birds here.)

These things take time, but if you get all 4 of those things handled (especially sleep!), you'll probably feel significantly better.

Also if you're a younger guy (college aged or younger), understand that this is a somewhat normal experience in our society. It's difficult to feel good about yourself before you've built up your confidence and found a place in the world. After you've had a few great girlfriends, have a steady career which brings meaning to your life, you feel like you understand the world better etc., you'll find that you're a more resilient to emotional highs and lows. You'll feel that there's more consistency in your life. But it's hard to do this if you're still super young and haven't really figured your shit out. As such, you become more susceptible to whatever your environment throws at you. And that's okay. Just accept it and keep striving for greatness :)
 

JayP

Tool-Bearing Hominid
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BBoy

Solid content as always. Yes, the sleep thing is something I've had some trouble with. I've recently been able to sleep more after not having to studying for a certification I'm going for. It feels good not being late to work every day either.

I've actually started crossfit recently, and yes, like you say there are cute girls there, some really cool guys too. I've hung out with them whenever I could, it's helped me; however, the anxiety was still really powerful, and I've made myself look antisocial enough times that it's kind of what I'm seen as, at least from my perception. Whatever the case, I'm feeling more motivated than before, and I'm just going to go in there not caring so much about it now. I've noticed that I was being selfish because I was so worried about how I could be helped and how good I could look by trying to be so social instead of really caring about those around me trying to help me.

My nutrition's improved greatly due to the crossfit as well, and I meal prep every week.

As far as socializing, that's still my biggest thing. I agree with you though; I've had it my whole life, this won't be fixed overnight. I'll enjoy the process that I should have had years ago when I noticed there really was a problem.

Do you still have occasions where it can come out of nowhere and almost shut down your energy for a night or some days?
 

Bboy100

Cro-Magnon Man
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the anxiety was still really powerful, and I've made myself look antisocial enough times that it's kind of what I'm seen as, at least from my perception.
I'd like to challenge or at least get an explanation for this. Specifically...what makes you think you look antisocial. Are you getting a certain reaction from the people around you? Or did you decide that you're being antisocial. The reason I ask this is that anxiety almost by definition means being overly self-critical of oneself. So if you just think you're being antisocial, but you're not getting very many cues from the outside world that this is the case, I'd like to bring to your conscious awareness that you probably just feel as though you're being antisocial. But in reality, you're being totally normal.

Conversely, if you are actually getting feedback from the world which suggests you're being antisocial, what is this feedback? How do you know that means you're being antisocial?

Do you still have occasions where it can come out of nowhere and almost shut down your energy for a night or some days?
Yes. The first thing to note is that anxiety is a normal experience. It would be very strange if you did NOT have any of it. When this does happen to me, I like to remind myself that it's okay. Because 1) I know that it will come to pass. It's just a feeling. Unless it starts to overwhelm me, I don't analyze it. I don't assign meaning to it. I just view it as an unpleasant sensation and nothing more 2) Even though I am anxious, I can usually get what I want out of life. I can still produce results. So it's okay!

This type of acceptance ironically enough, leads to me feeling less anxious. The more you fight it, the more you'll feel it. The more you accept it, the better you'll process it and in turn, reduce it.
 

JayP

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
May 21, 2016
Messages
42
I'd like to challenge or at least get an explanation for this. Specifically...what makes you think you look antisocial. Are you getting a certain reaction from the people around you? Or did you decide that you're being antisocial. The reason I ask this is that anxiety almost by definition means being overly self-critical of oneself. So if you just think you're being antisocial, but you're not getting very many cues from the outside world that this is the case, I'd like to bring to your conscious awareness that you probably just feel as though you're being antisocial. But in reality, you're being totally normal.

Conversely, if you are actually getting feedback from the world which suggests you're being antisocial, what is this feedback? How do you know that means you're being antisocial?

Yeah, a lot of times when I would be in a group conversation or one-to-one, it would be hard for me to join in and I would notice I haven't really said anything. I'd get nervous and say something just to feel like I'm participating, but I would get one word answers or people would simply continue as if I didn't say anything. It's happened a few times. I'd say it's both me thinking and actually being, although I didn't know that that was the actual definition of it. Makes sense. This happens occasionally at work too where I can hear some coworkers having great convo, but when I speak to them they're very short and don't even try to maintain convo with me, but I think this is because I come off as tryhard.

Yes. The first thing to note is that anxiety is a normal experience. It would be very strange if you did NOT have any of it. When this does happen to me, I like to remind myself that it's okay. Because 1) I know that it will come to pass. It's just a feeling. Unless it starts to overwhelm me, I don't analyze it. I don't assign meaning to it. I just view it as an unpleasant sensation and nothing more 2) Even though I am anxious, I can usually get what I want out of life. I can still produce results. So it's okay!

This type of acceptance ironically enough, leads to me feeling less anxious. The more you fight it, the more you'll feel it. The more you accept it, the better you'll process it and in turn, reduce it.

Funny how just telling myself it's okay to feel like this helped. I was with some people Saturday over a friend's house, and the anxiety was strong, but I was able to mingle around a bit, and telling myself it's okay helped me get through it.
 

BetaBoy

Space Monkey
space monkey
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Dec 21, 2017
Messages
85
You talk to a psychiatrist? They maybe able to prescribe you Xanax which helps people a lot with anxiety.
 
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