Common Anxiety Tips & “Hacks” to Avoid (and what I recommend instead)

In the age of social media, within a culture that seems obsessed with instant gratification, it seems as though everywhere you turn someone has a life-changing “hack” to share with you. Lifestyle issues? Just do this. Money problems? Try this. And it’s so frustrating because we commonly see this when talking about mental health issues, which can flood your feed with never-ending, quick and simple solutions; for ironically complex problems.

In this episode of A Healthy Push podcast, we’ll discuss some of these commonly circulated anxiety hacks, reasons to avoid them, and alternative (healthier) approaches to dealing with your anxiety!

1. Using Ice Cubes, Cold Water, or Sour Candies in Moments of Anxiety or Panic

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as I typed this out, just like I do with every social media post I see where this hack is recommended. But, before I get into the issues I have with it, let's first better understand the scientific/biological reasoning behind why this is recommended in the first place.

When you feel a cold or sour sensation, whether taste or touch, you quickly stimulate your vagus nerve. I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll make this short and sweet! Essentially, we have two vagus nerves, one on each side of the body. These nerves are a major part of your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for involuntarily controlling the body's “rest and digest” functions. This includes mood, taste, immune response, skin sensation, breathing, and heart rate. When this part of your nervous system is stimulated (by an ice cube or sour candy for example), it can help calm you down in moments of distress, especially in situations where your “fight or flight” response (controlled by your sympathetic nervous system) is overactive or being triggered by something, common when experiencing anxiety or panic. 

So, let me say this: I’m not arguing against whether or not this response exists or “works.” Systemically, this commonly used hack does in fact work for a lot of people … briefly. Which is where my biggest issue lies.

Short-term relief is the enemy of long-term growth and healing. Sure, splashing cold water on your face or putting an ice cube on your neck can help lessen your anxiety symptoms for a moment, but is it helping address the real issue? To make matters worse, if you do find short-term relief with one of these applications, you’re now creating a dependence on them, which in turn will create even more anxiety over time. And let’s be real, always carrying something with you, especially cold items, isn’t really practical.

And I get it, at times the feelings can be so overwhelming and uncomfortable that you’ll do whatever it takes to silence or dull them, I’ve been there many times. But if you’re habitually escaping and hiding from the symptoms and feelings, how are you supposed to get to the root of your problems and form a healthy relationship with anxiety? Take small steps to practice allowing yourself to feel the anxiety, and you’ll slowly build self-trust and learn that you’re capable of handling it on your own.

So, I’m saying this in a very non-judgmental, non-shaming way… But please, put down the ice cubes and sour patch kids, and start on your journey to long-term healing!

2. Using CBD for Long-Term Relief

I was just talking about forming dependencies… CBD: if you haven’t heard of it by now, well, maybe you haven’t been down the Google rabbit holes (which is a good thing!). But since the mass legalization of marijuana and other hemp-derived products, CBD is seemingly inescapable. Gas stations, health stores, grocery stores; you name it, you can purchase CBD products. It’s touted as a miracle supplement, meant to get rid of all of your symptoms and give you immediate relief. Inflammation, depression, anxiety, sleep, or pain; there’s a CBD product for you. And while these gummies and oils may bring some in-the-moment (short-term) relief, is that really the type of relief you’re after? 

If you’re constantly creating dependencies and short-term coping mechanisms to deal with your symptoms, you’re going to feel stuck running in place. Instead of making real progress in your relationship with your anxiety, you’re honestly putting a daily band-aid on it, and in this case, the band-aid is CBD and related products.

But I want to say, if these products help you on a supplemental basis, use them! I’m not here to judge you or make you feel any shame, tell you what you can or can’t take, and what may or may not be helpful for you. Just don’t let CBD become a singular approach to dealing with your anxiety issues! 

3. Challenging Your Anxious Thoughts  

If you’ve ever been to therapy or researched different ways to deal with anxiety, you may be familiar with the idea of “challenging” your thoughts. 

This approach is most commonly applied by attempting to introduce logic and rationale to combat anxious thoughts. Or trying to “replace” your negative thoughts with positive ones. Your therapist or someone close to you may say, “Well, what is the likelihood of these things happening?”, referring to the anxious thoughts and feelings you’re currently having about something. This can be extremely frustrating, because if we could simply think our way out of having anxious thoughts, would we be seeking help in the first place? Anyone that deals with anxiety knows, it’s not that simple. Anxiety doesn’t really acknowledge logic and or rationale, especially when you’re in the midst of an anxiety or panic attack. Most of us are aware of this, and know the irritation ignited by someone suggesting something like “just think positively” or “you shouldn’t worry about that”. Additionally, these comments and approaches can start making you feel guilty and or ridiculous for having these anxious thoughts in the first place, making things even worse! 

Instead of “challenging” your anxiety, let’s work on creating a healthier approach. Allow yourself to feel and experience your anxious thoughts and feelings, acknowledging them completely. As time goes on, and your relationship with anxiety improves, you can learn to reframe your anxious thoughts, allowing you to deal with them more effectively. 

4. Journaling Your Anxious Thoughts and Feelings

A majority of anxiety sufferers are critical, deep thinkers, and have a hard time turning their mind “off” in general. Any thoughts we have, big or small, positive or negative, are subject to overthinking. And if these thoughts are upsetting, and our anxiety or panic symptoms start occurring, it can throw gasoline on the fire of our already overactive mind. So, when we take a step back, do we really want to write down and fixate on all of our thoughts, specifically our negative, anxiety-ridden ones? 

The idea behind journaling your anxious thoughts, or your thoughts in general is pretty simple: write them down, acknowledge and analyze them, and clear them from your mind (yeahh, right). Again, this approach may work for some people, but for those with anxiety, it can actually have the opposite effect. If you’re incessantly writing down your thoughts, specifically thoughts that have caused feelings of anxiety or panic, you will naturally start overthinking and negatively fixating on them, making matters worse. 

This is not a dismissal of journaling in general, and in certain formats, journaling can be a really helpful and healthy practice. But rather than writing down your anxious thoughts or experiences in a negative context, try reframing it. Instead of reliving an anxious thought or feeling you’ve experienced, focus on how you’ve dealt with it. For example: Today I had an anxiety attack, it was uncomfortable, but I allowed myself to experience and work through the negative feelings, and it eventually subsided. This way, your journal isn’t filled with reminders of all the terrible, anxious thoughts or attacks you’ve experienced; it’s instead focused on the progress you’re making in addressing it, building the confidence needed to deal with your anxious thoughts and feelings moving forward. You got this! 

Journaling with purpose is something we discuss in-depth in my Panic to Peace program, be sure to check it out! 

5. Distracting Yourself When You Feel Anxious

I don’t know why this would ever be a tip but it often is! The advice that tells you to distract yourself by scrolling on your phone, calling someone, or playing a game can actually be harmful because… you guessed it! You aren’t letting yourself feel the anxiety. And the truth is, if you’re always finding yourself trying to distract yourself from feeling, you’re going to keep feeling the things you don’t want to feel.

And yes, of course, we all distract ourselves at times. This is natural, healthy, and perfectly okay. But I’m talking about the type of distraction that you might be doing where you never let yourself be with the uncomfortable feelings and you’re always seeking an escape.

So instead of immediately jumping to distract yourself the next time you’re feeling anxious, see if you can slow down and just give yourself 10-15 seconds to see if you can let yourself be with the discomfort. It won’t be pleasant, but this is the stuff that leads to long-term healing.

Takeaways...

With the common hacks we’ve discussed, and with anxiety tips in general, I want you to consider one thing: Is this going to lead to short-term relief or long-term healing? 

More often than not, you’ll find that mostly all of these approaches offer fleeting relief of your symptoms. Which, in some extreme instances, may be necessary. But looking through a big-picture lens, these hacks and tips are encouraging short-term dependency and distraction, impeding your growth and healing. Instead of becoming fixated on instant, short-term relief, it’ll be helpful to shift your intentions toward understanding the cause of your anxiety, and how you can improve your relationship with it moving forward.

For lots of support, tips, and tools that will help you to create a healthy relationship with anxiety and experience true, long-term healing, check out my classes here.

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Feeling like you've tried everything but you're still struggling with lots of anxious thoughts, symptoms, panic attacks, and fears? Take my FREE 60-minute masterclass today and learn 5 shifts that will actually help you to overcome anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. And I promise, you won't hear any of the usual stuff from me - like doing breathing exercises, grounding practices, cutting out caffeine, and doing more exposures. Let's get you the peace and freedom you deserve without it being so hard!

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Transcript

Alright, let’s chat about some anxiety tips, tools, and hacks I personally don’t like or recommend. And I have to say, you might be surprised by some of these. But don’t worry, I’ll explain why I don’t like or recommend these things so that you have an understanding as to why, which I think will help to give you some ah-ha moments.

So I have to say it… There’s lots of terrible anxiety advice on social media and the internet. Like, really bad. And it’s often the really bad advice that goes viral and you see get repeated over and over. If I had a dollar for every time I see someone suggesting ice cubes for panic attacks… Major eye roll. I’m sure you’ve seen some of these videos with just really bad advice, and maybe even tried some of this advice. And there’s no shame in that! If social media was what it is today back when I was struggling, I’m pretty sure I would have tried any and all of it.

I think this is one of the reasons why it’s so hard for me to see this advice getting in front of so many people because it’s just selling people on this idea that you can do these quick things and get rid of anxiety, which just isn’t the case. And of course, people are trying all of the things, because they’re suffering and they just desperately want to feel better.

And, too, sometimes there are good tips or tools being suggested but there’s no real context to what’s being shared. This is another unfortunate part of social media; it’s a lot of short-form content without a whole lot of explanation, which just leaves people trying things out of desperation to get relief without really understanding why it’s being recommended, or how to use it in a way that’s actually helpful. So people end up trying these things, not getting any relief, and then feeling bad and beating themselves up and convincing themselves that they’re the problem or they’re broken when the things aren’t helpful, which it really has nothing to do with them, and instead has everything to do with the terrible advice they’re being given.

Anyway! Enough of me ranting about social media and the internet. Let’s get into it and talk about some tips, tools, and hacks I personally don’t like or recommend.

This first one really drives me nuts so I figure it’s the best place to start! Drumroll please… Using ice cubes, cold water, sour candies, or similar things in moments of anxiety or panic. I have so many problems with this one, and I’m sure you might be able to guess why but let’s talk about it!

So the basic idea is that by using something cold or sour, you’ll quickly stimulate your vagus nerve which can help reduce anxiety in the moment because your vagus nerve activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for calming the body. And if you’ve ever tried this, I’m sure you’ve seen it can “work.” It essentially pulls your attention away from the sensations and symptoms and averts your attention elsewhere. But let’s talk about why this doesn’t actually work…

So my two big issues with this “hack” is this… 

1) You can quickly find yourself compulsively using ice cubes, cold packs, cold water, or sour items whenever you feel anxious and find yourself pretty dependent on these items. And let’s be real, it’s just kind of silly because carrying these things with you is not really practical. And when you can’t carry them with you, or you forget them, you can experience anxiety surrounding that. It’s like this full-on dependence. And being dependent on something outside of yourself is not how long-term healing happens. In fact, being dependent on things outside of yourself chips away at your self-trust and confidence, which is what we don’t want.

2) And the next issue that I have with this hack is that you might find that using them gives you short-term relief, but the anxiety keeps popping up. This is because you’re not getting to the root of why you’re experiencing anxiety and working to create a healthy relationship with it, which that relationship hugely happens when you allow anxiety in and let yourself feel it. So using these things is causing you to just play offense and is preventing you from feeling what you’re feeling (aka the anxiety). Which we know, the more you try to push away certain feelings the more you’re going to feel them. It’s so important to let yourself see that you can feel anxious and you’re capable of handling the feelings.

Honestly, I wish I could delete all of the ice cube videos on social media and the internet, but that’s just not possible. So! Here’s my advice. Rather than using ice cubes, cold packs, or candies, I’d love to encourage you to practice letting yourself feel anxious without reaching for all of the things to try to make the feelings go away. And you might be thinking… Well, Shannon, how the heck do I just let myself feel? What does this look like… practically? And this is something that I teach in all of my courses and in my Panic to Peace program.

Alright, the next anxiety tip I don’t love is challenging your anxious thoughts. This can be done in different ways so I’ll give a couple of examples.

Maybe someone has done an exercise with you to assist you in challenging your thoughts. This can look like taking a fear you have and you asking yourself (or someone asking you)… What’s the likelihood of it happening? And if you’ve been to therapy, I’m sure you’ve experienced this. I’ve been there! Sitting on a couch, feeling so frustrated because I knew where the exercise was going. It was trying to get me to see that what I feared was unlikely to happen, or even if it did happen, the worst-case scenario wouldn’t be so bad. But the problem with this exercise is that it’s trying to talk logic into anxiety, and we know that anxiety doesn’t exactly speak in logic, right?

You can know something is highly unlikely to happen and even believe it, but when you’re feeling anxious and panicky, all of that logic goes right out the window (as it’s designed to). Anxiety is mostly based on the future… for things that haven’t yet happened. It’s often coming up with all of the what ifs, coulds, or mights… And so when you try to challenge your way out of your anxious thinking, you tend to just drive yourself nuts because no amount of logic makes the anxiety dissipate. It’s like… just believe it, you know it won’t happen. But your brain is still like… Yeahhh… but what if? Right? So challenging your thoughts in this way is not only silly, it can honestly make you feel ridiculous for having the fears you do and just heighten them.

Another way challenging your thoughts is approached is by replacing “bad” anxious thoughts with positive thoughts. And you can probably assume why I don’t like this… at all. It’s emphasizing that your anxious thoughts are problematic or bad, which really isn’t the case. They’re just thoughts, like all of your other thoughts. The problem is that you’re giving the anxious thoughts so much special attention. You’re making them more important than they are. So, I don’t recommend challenging your thoughts in this way either. Replacing thoughts is not what we want to do.

So in general, probably the biggest reason why I don’t like challenging your thoughts is because we tend to just feed the thoughts and give anxiety even more attention, which is the opposite of what we want to be doing. Rather than try to challenge your thoughts, I instead teach you how to respond to them in healthy ways - like acknowleging them, allowing them to just be, and reframing your thoughts. This is way more helpful than trying to use logic or replace your thoughts.

Okay, the next one! And you probably won’t be surprised by this one. I really don’t like the advice that tells you to just use CBD, gummies, oils, or other related products. Here’s the thing, we all want an easy and quick fix to feel better. Trust me, I get it! Back when I was struggling, I bought these “calming” gummies that promised quick anxiety relief. This was even back before CBD products were really a thing. I honestly don’t think the gummies had anything in them besides sugar and gelatin but I was so hopeful that they’d actually help. Spoiler alert, I ate a lot of them and they never did a dang thing. I even remember taking a few of them before walking into therapy one day and thinking… What the hell am I doing? It’s kind of funny now but it wasn’t at the time.

So here’s my take… CBD, gummies, oils, these things can be supportive in some way, and maybe they are to you, but they can’t fix your relationship with yourself or your relationship with anxiety. So if you’re using these things but you’re not doing the deeper work, you’re not going to experience the long-term healing you so desperately want. Also like ice cubes and sour candies, you can develop a dependence on these things and be convinced that you need them and they’re helping… but are they really? Because if you aren’t getting at the root of the problem and truly creating a healthy relationship with anxiety, they’re not doing nearly as much as you might think they are.

So instead of desperately seeking out and trying all of the quick and easy fixes, really invest in some of the self-care basics that will help you a ton - things like slowing down, moving your body, eating nourishing foods, setting boundaries, asking for and receiving help. And instead of using these things in moments of anxiety to try to make anxiety go away, practice making space for the anxious feelings and letting yourself be with them.

Alright, the next one is… Journaling your anxious thoughts and feelings. And I just have to throw this disclaimer here, I’m not hating on journaling as a whole, I actually like some forms of journaling. But journaling anxious thoughts and feelings has never been my jam and it’s not something I recommend and I’ll tell you why! So the idea is to get the anxious thoughts out of your head and on paper right? Like, let’s write them down, get them out, and get rid of them. If it only worked that way…

Lots and lots of people who struggle with anxiety disorders are thinkers, oftentimes deep thinkers. They are analyzers, problem solvers, and creatives… Maybe I’m speaking to you right now. Don’t worry, you’re not alone, I’m in this boat, too. So when you tell someone who is already very much in their head a lot of the time to write down their thoughts and feelings (or even experiences) on a regular basis, they can become even more fixated on their thoughts and feelings. They become even more stuck on them and even scared by them.

They find themselves analyzing their thoughts and feelings, trying to figure them out, and also shaming themselves for the thoughts they’re having. Simply put, journaling your anxious thoughts and feelings can cause you to be even more in your head, which is kinda what we don’t want, right? And we don’t want to be so focused on anxiety and giving it so much attention.

So something I like rather than journaling your anxious thoughts is to journal your wins - aka when you’re out there, facing anxiety and willingly taking it with you, capture those moments. Capture the moments you push yourself. Capture the progress. And let yourself truly acknowledge these moments, celebrate them, and celebrate yourself. And then on the hard days, you can go back, look, and say… Nope, we’re not going there. I’m actually making progress, I got this. Journaling in this will be much more helpful and motivating! This is another thing we do in my Panic to Peace program and I teach you how to do this in a way that’s fun and helpful. 

And the last one… Distracting yourself when you feel anxious. I don’t know why this would ever be a tip but it often is! The advice that tells you to distract yourself by scrolling on your phone, or by calling someone, or playing a game can actually be harmful because… you guessed it! You aren’t letting yourself feel the anxiety. And the truth is, if you’re always finding yourself trying to distract yourself from feeling, you’re going to keep feeling the things you don’t want to feel.

And yes, of course, we all distract ourselves at times. This is natural, healthy, and perfectly okay. But I’m talking about the type of distraction that you might be doing where you never let yourself be with the uncomfortable feelings and you’re always seeking an escape. So instead of immediately jumping to distract yourself the next time you’re feeling anxious, see if you can slow down and just give yourself 10-15 seconds to see if you can let yourself be with the discomfort. It won’t be pleasant, but this is the stuff that leads to long-term healing.

And this is a big point I wanted to get across to you in this episode. You want long-term healing, not short-term relief. And a lot of the anxiety recovery advice out there is just selling you on this idea that short-term relief is the answer. Trust me, I know how frustrating, defeating, and hard the recovery journey is, but you’ll make things so much harder on yourself if you keep chasing after short-term relief. This is a huge reason why I struggled for so long.

So I want you to ask yourself and be honest with yourself when you’re out there, viewing content, reading things, and trying things and ask yourself … Is this going to lead to long-term healing or is this just another short-term relief tip? Because oftentimes when you get honest with yourself, you know what you’re trying or investing your time in isn’t actually helpful.

Alright… until next time my friend, keep taking healthy action.