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Hey yall!

There's probably a thread/post already dedicated to this but since it's personally been a bit hectic for me as of late, I wanted to share some tips and tricks that personally help me cope with my anxiety. Of course feel free to share your own tips in the replies!

• Drinking Ice Cold Beverages - Drinking something really cold really helps calm down the butterflies in my chest. I am not 100% on the research behind this (since my mother (who's a psychologist) told me about this tip) but basically, ice or really cold drinks can potentially calm down the vagus nerve which in turn can reduce heart rate. I find water works best but an iced chocolate or a cold soft drink would also get the job done. So your able to bring your bev on the go, I highly recommend getting an insulated water bottle, the one I got is from Kmart is only $15 and it works really well!
  
  
• Move Your Body - A key part of anxiety (at least for me) is just stored up energy inside your body from your heart pumping, shallow breathing etc. So something that helps me is basically using up this energy through movement. Going to the gym or going for a walk is a good way to release this energy, however even just like flailing your arms around or running really fast on the spot can help. I even find just doing something that gets me standing and moving my body a little bit such as baking helps. It sounds silly but I find it works!
• Shifting Your Thinking - This tip is only applicable to certain situations but shifting your energy towards a different feeling really helps. For example, before an exam I always get typical anxiety symptoms and I start to ruminate thinking I'm not prepared and such. So instead of focusing on those thoughts, I shift my thinking and pretend I'm excited. This is another tip that sounds kinda silly but I shift my thinking in a way of like "I am so excited because I am one step closer to my degree!" You can even shift your thinking in a way where you feel more confident like "I can do this!" and get yourself pumped up and have a self-confidence moment. Obviously this tip would only work in specific situations but I thought I'd give it anyways.
• Track Your Anxiety - To find better coping skills for your anxiety, it's important to identify any triggers or patterns that leads up to it. This can be done in many ways such as keeping a mood journal where you write down how your feeling every day or even just writing down the day and time when you start feeling anxious. Doing this can also really help you find ways to prevent anxiety. For example, by tracking my anxiety I realised that it is mostly is sensory based, specifically with loud noises. So I bought some noise cancelling headphones and they have really decreased my anxiety episodes.

I know these tips are not a cure all to anxiety but I find they do help me at least a little. Cannot wait to hear all of your tips!