Playing the Chess Game With Anxiety: How to Keep it in Check

DISCLAIMER: The advice presented here about anxiety represents my personal experience and is not intended as medical advice. Please seek the care of a physician or psychologist as it pertains to your individual circumstance. 

Lately it seems that anxiety is on the rise for one reason or another. Or maybe it’s always just there. We are all dealing with something. Ever get “white coat syndrome” at the doctors when your blood pressure goes up because you don’t like being there? Maybe you didn’t get the job you wanted or you are burnt out at work. Or, if you are a federal employee like me, there is a real possibility of losing our jobs right now.

Interestingly, if you look up careers that are expected to thrive as society pushes further into the world of artificial intelligence, mental health professionals rank near the top. Not sure what that says about AI, but what it says about the Human Constant (see what I did there), is that humans will continue to have unmet needs..

The following story is deeply personal to me, but I’m sharing it in the hopes of helping someone out there who might need it.

The First Time I Recognized What Anxiety Truly Was

For much of my childhood and early adult life, I didn’t really have what I would consider to be a high level of anxiety. Sure, I had heard of it and thought I knew what it was, but I was blissfully unaware of the mental and physical effects it can have on both the mind and body.

At some point in my late 20’s, unbeknownst to me, I contracted an infection that gradually became worse. I started noticing small dizzy spells, and some irregularities with my heartbeat. The kind of thing you shrug off if it happens once or twice and just keep going. Except I did that for about two months before getting it checked out. Not good. If you notice something is off, go get it checked out!

Just before I was about to leave town with my wife for a long road trip to visit family over Christmas, I had my worst episode yet and decided it time to go see what was up. To my surprise, my blood pressure and heart rate were extremely high, and I started spiking a fever. Long story short, what I thought would be a quick checkup turned into an emergency room visit and a 48-hour stay in the hospital.

While they never really could give me a true diagnosis, the infection was gradually controlled and I was able to go home. Little did I know that my journey with anxiety was just beginning.

Understanding the Opponent: What Is Anxiety?

Once the initial relief of being home began to wear off, I went back to work. I couldn’t shake the sense that something still seemed off. I started feeling light-headed, my heart would occasionally skip beats, and once again I was getting dizzy spells. This time it was slightly different, however. Not quite what I was experiencing before, but in the same neighborhood.

Naturally, I began to think that the infection wasn’t completely taken care of, and I went back to the doctor. While my tests were slightly off, the doctor assured me that the levels were nothing to be concerned about and probably lingering effects of my body settling back to normal. Skeptical, I left unconvinced. Something was amiss.

Opening Moves: Recognizing Early Signs of Anxiety

Back at work again, I started to notice a pattern but didn’t quite put two and two together. These episodes of light-headedness only seemed to occur at work, especially early in the day. Mentally, I felt like I wouldn’t make it through the day and it became harder and harder to concentrate and hold conversations with people.

I continued going through the motions of life, while my mind remained fixated on the problem at hand. On the outside, for the most part, people couldn’t see that anything was wrong. On the inside, something was surely about to happen, and I was going to catch it when it did. My internal microphone was on full blast.

The Turning Point

One day, I was so sure something was happening to me physically, that I had my wife drive me to the emergency room convinced I wouldn’t make it if I drove myself. The doctors noted my pulse was high, but nothing on an echocardiogram was wrong. Everything checked out normal.

The ER doc mentioned anxiety as a possible contributor and offered to give me some medication to help a bit with that. Skeptical, I took it, and 45 minutes later it was like nothing ever happened. Interesting.

I had experienced my first panic attack.

After getting a prescription for “take as needed”, I went through a few more panic attacks as what I now know to be the stress hormone cortisol shot through my body. Each time I took the medication, I felt like a new person a half an hour later. Finally, I figured out that if something was truly wrong with me physically, it would not all of a sudden disappear because I had taken an anxiety medication.

What to do though? I didn’t want to take medicine forever and in doing my research found that some of it could be addictive. Along the way though, I found a lot of other tips for managing anxiety naturally. These included talking to others who had experienced it, getting help from a therapist, and reading medical advice from reliable sources such as the Mayo Clinic. I’d also be negligent if I didn’t point you in the direction of cats against anxiety.

When to Call a Time-Out: Seeking Professional Help

It’s important to recognize that while it took an impactful event in my life to realize what anxiety was. It is not an on/off switch. Anxiety manifests on a spectrum and all of us reside somewhere on that spectrum at any given time. The first key to figuring out what to do next is to figure out where you currently are on that spectrum.

Those early days after the first couple of panic attacks, it was clear to me that I was going to need some help in order to combat what I was dealing with. I couldn’t fight it alone. Working with my doctor and going to a therapist for the first time in my life was the absolute most important thing for me to do to come up with a plan for that moment.

My goals were to reduce the anxiety to a point where I could come off of the medication. At home, my wife was the support system I needed to keep moving forward. There were wins, and there were massive setbacks. Putting in the work day after day finally led to a point where almost a year after that first panic attack, I was able to rid myself of the medication and manage anxiety on my own.

Below are some anxiety coping mechanisms I used in order to overcome being controlled by anxiety. I still experience anxiety of course, but now I have many tools in my toolbox to deal with it.

Strategizing Your Game: Practical Techniques to Manage Anxiety

Checkmating Negative Thoughts: Cognitive Behavioral Techniques

Widely recognized as one of the best ways to start to control anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy (or CBT) involves working with a therapist to help retrain your thoughts. Once you have these techniques, you can practice them on your own, and I did that religiously.

At first, I didn’t believe that they were working, but over time I could start to see the differences in how I was thinking. Constant “what if” worst case scenarios were replaced with more in the moment reality.  Getting a professional involved was the quickest way to start a path to being able to cope with anxiety.

Mindfulness as a Chessboard: Staying Present in the Moment

Mindfulness techniques involve being hyper present in the moment. This might be going for a walk down a trail and really paying attention to the things we usually overlook. The shade of red on a flower, the smell of the pine trees, or the sounds of birds on a spring day. Some of these principles are rooted in Zen Buddhism but it doesn’t have to be a complicated study of eastern religion. Anyone can start and you can do it immediately.

A great introduction to mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Wherever You Go, There You Are.” This is one of my favorite books. It helped me get started with a mindfulness practice to keep me grounded in the present. This is something I really struggle with.

If mindfulness isn’t your thing, practicing whatever faith you subscribe to can go a long way to conquering anxiety. As a Catholic, I found myself calling on my faith in these times as well as employing a mindfulness practice. Using both in tandem helped me push forward as different moments in my journey called for different tools.

If you aren’t religious that’s ok too. Think about those support systems you have in your life and call on them. A good friend can go a long way!

Mastering the Mindgame: Balancing Stress and Control

Obviously, lowering stress will help fight anxiety and I found some very good ways to do that. Physical activity was, and still is EXTREMELY important. I try to do something every other day at a minimum. Even if it is just 15 minutes of higher intensity exercise to get my heart rate up.

The real battle that I faced was trying to be in control of the situation 100% of the time. As soon as I felt like I was losing control, I ended up in a feedback loop that reinforced the anxiety instead of helping it go away. We have to understand that we are in control of far less in this world than we would like to be.

The amount of trust we put in others to accomplish our daily lives is astounding. Anyone who says they don’t trust people is blatantly lying to your face. Ever been on a road with cars coming the other way? Once we figure out how to let go of our need for control, we actually reduce one of the things that anxiety can hold over us. This was a massive part of my journey to better mental health.

Endgame Tactics: Long-Term Strategies for Anxiety Management

It is incredibly important to understand that your path to freedom from anxiety’s grip is at times a winding one. Give yourself the grace to celebrate the small wins. Let those incremental changes add up to larger, more sustainable victories.

Now many years removed from that first initial struggle with anxiety, I can recognize the steps in sequential order that usually lead to a panic attack. I won’t detail those here because anxiety plays out differently for everyone, but look for repeatable patterns. The earlier in the sequence you are able to recognize the pattern, the easier it is to reverse. An anxiety journal can help find your pattern.

If I feel a release of cortisol in my body, or I begin to feel light headed, I know I can immediately employ a deep breathing technique. I exhale for longer than I inhale for several minutes, and I can make the lightheadedness go away. Once the adrenaline is released, I know a good portion of my day is spent feeling anxious. By giving up the control of trying to stop it, I can manage it without it controlling me.

Anxiety is something that requires playing the long game if you are going to arrive at checkmate. If you have experienced bouts with anxiety then my story will resonate with you. It’s important to know that you aren’t alone. Until you experience it for yourself, you don’t realize how many others out there are also dealing with it. It’s not a community that anyone chooses to join, but we are all here for each other. There are steps that you can take to help overcome anxiety.

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