I have been suffering from anxiety and panic practically constantly for the past 4 months, and most of the time it feels like I'm anxious for no apparent reason. I get so frustrated that I can't figure out the root cause, and I'm so desperate to know so that I might have a fighting chance of working through my problems to get some relief.

Anyways, sometimes I will just get a big ass Red Bull and chug it to give me even worse anxiety, and it's almost comforting in the sense that at least I know where it's coming from. I'm just going to be anxious anyway so what's the difference. Does anyone else do this? Or am I just off the deep end at this point?

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[–] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I've suffered from anxiety and panic attacks since I quit nicotine, quite some years ago (for some reason, nicotine appeared to completely keep it under control 90% of the time).

It's basically under control these days, but I have to do certain things to keep it under control, and it's not been a case of a "magic fix", but a number of permanent lifestyle changes, combined with a bit of "try everything that might work".

I had to cut out caffeine, pretty much. I can have 1 caffeinated cup of tea in the morning, if it's a physically active day, otherwise decaf only.

I had some sessions of free NHS "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy", which included things like "deliberately activating and testing your triggers" - not dissimilar to your "drink a red bull to force anxiety". This worked pretty well for "logic your way out of a panic attack" - but couldn't really stop the buildup of anxiety in the first place. Overall though, this was incredibly helpful in stopping anxiety spiralling into full dread/fear/going-to-die panic attacks.

For the general background anxiety-for-no-reason I tried quite a few things with mixed results:

Dietary changes (other than cutting out caffeine) didn't appear to do anything for me, but might in other people. A lot of anxiety can come from the gut, apparently, and can sometimes be caused by stuff like constipation.

Forcing myself to get enough sleep, even if it means my life is now boring and my days finish too soon, made quite a big positive difference. I just have to do fewer things, instead of running at 100% all the time.

Mediation, yoga, stretching and generally increasing exercise all gave positive results. I think the yoga, stretching and some basic breathing exercises were most effective - though difficult to fit in the time to do them properly. If things get worse, I make time to do them properly for a few days. Just stretching a bit showed how much tension was being stored in all my muscles - and easing this would also ease my brain's "irrational" anxiety.

With exercise, as well as generally a bit more where possible, I had good success with treating anxiety attacks as a "fight or flight response", and giving my body the chance to think it was "running away" - so, if at home or in a safe space to do so, then using an exercise bike or "jogging on the spot" worked pretty well - especially if I worked up to a sprint, then went as fast as I could for as long as I could - this seemed to pretty much reset the anxiety level to nothing, and it would stay that way for quite a few days. If you are somewhere where it's appropriate to do so, I'd imagine running/cycling very fast outside would do the same. A milder paced cycle/jog a few times a week seems to maintain the level nicely.

I guess basically, try everything you can that's listed in the comments here - some of it, in combination with some other if it, will definitely help. It probably won't remove it entirely, but it should help manage and control it a bit.

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