Sure....so first like I said it started in my 20s and I wanted to let you know I am now in my 50s and surviving! So the symptoms cannot hurt you they are just very very annoying. But I went for years allowing the negativity and anxiety to run my life instead of making a conscious decision to fight it and not let it ruin my life!
sorry this is so long there's just so much I want to tell you.
I'm a former nurse and I don't like taking medication for this because I don't want to depend on it, however in the beginning I did have a prescription for Xanax but only took like a quarter of it just to take the edge off the anxiety and symptoms. When it got really bad .
i'm not taking it anymore.
Also have patience because it can take a little while to get it under control but at least you'll be in the process of managing it. I use several techniques but you can use whatever seems to help you.
. After you have seen your doctor and got a clean bill of health which is what I did then:
1. what I did was first of all speak with a counselor. They see this on a daily basis and have the tools to help you manage this. Anxiety and stress is difficult to manage on our own and it really helps to talk to someone else. I keep going even when I start to feel better because it's like a lifeline for me. Find a counselor you feel comfortable with. Remember....FEAR stands for false evidence appearing real. Which means sometimes when we have symptoms we think they are related to some terrifying disease, when in reality the odds are much higher that they are not. Our minds will go to the negative if we let it, so we must be in control.
Don't let fear take you over! Be a fighter for yourself! BE Persistent!
2. Secondly, I go to Google or YouTube and look up meditative audios on anxiety or negativity. I put in my earbuds and lie down and listen to them. They completely calm down my brain and body to the point where I almost feel like I'm floating. This is such a great thing to do for your brain and overall health. I do this a couple times a day specially when I'm laying down to sleep. There are many to choose from just pick the ones that you like. When I go on my walks I listen to the ones about positive affirmations and they really help me a lot! There's many on YouTube just find the ones you like.
it will just calm everything down when you are having an acute anxiety attack
3. Stay active! The worst thing you can do is sit around and think too much about all this. It will bring on more anxiety. As well as the symptoms. When I exercise my body completely calms down and the symptoms often go completely away.
3. Stay social! This helps keep your mind off your worries. The less you are alone the better at least until you manage your anxiety. Just do things that you enjoy.
4. When feeling anxious or anytime you'd like, do deep breathing. Breathing through your nose for about five seconds and make sure your stomach rises. Then exhale through your lips as though you're blowing out a candle slowly for another five seconds. Do this as many times a day as you need to. It helps if you're lying down but you can also do it's sitting.
5. Eat healthy! Stay away from processed foods especially sugar. Sugar has an inflammatory response including in the brain. This will just increase your anxiety and can possibly bring on depression.
6. If I negative thought or anxiety comes into your mind, acknowledge it, then release it and imagine it floating away on a dark cloud or something like that. Don't try to fight it off or get anxious that will make everything worse.
As horrible as anxiety symptoms feel, THEY CANNOT kill you! I have had them for many many years on and off and now I pretty much ignore them but I do try to stay as healthy as possible and do those things I listed above.
The meditation audios really are excellent please try them and do them often
another thing that is very informative on this topic is the mindfulness meditation book. It really gives insight as to what causes anxiety and anxious thinking resulting in these awful symptoms. It shows us how to overcome all of it. There's also classes in mindfulness but they can be costly.
Remember…doctors can only do so much regarding anxiety because they can't see it or find it in a lab test or an x-ray. So a lot of them are not much help. That's why I highly recommend a good counselor . many of them use CBT which is cognitive behavioral therapy. This also teaches you how to manage the anxiety by helping us become aware of how we are thinking and how that can create anxiety. A lot of people have been helped by this.
You will be fine once you get this under a little control. You will have a long great life and you deserve peace and happiness. It takes work on our part and don't worry about little setbacks here and there because the more you practice these things the more control you have over the anxiety and symptoms and eventually they will become less and less.
I hope this helped you a little bit at least. I could go on to explain the physical reasons for the symptoms but you're probably trying to stay awake reading all of this ! 🤣