How to Temporarily Combat Anxiety

It's not a permanent solution, but it tends to work for a bit.

I, like many people, have anxiety. Diagnosed, un-diagnosed, self-diagnosed; we've all dealt with anxiety in one way or another.

And in all the years I've had anxiety, I've found one way to temporarily defeat it.

I'm not talking about conquering full blown panic attacks. That requires some deep breathing exercises I have not quite yet perfected.

The type of anxiety I've found a brief loophole to is social anxiety.

Say you're at a restaurant and you get your food, only to realize that you don't have any cutlery. Well, you don't want to bother the waiter again, they look busy. Also, it would call attention to yourself and you don't want that. But it's not that big of a deal, right? You can eat spaghetti with your hands...It's fine...

Or, you have a very important e-mail to compose to one of your higher-ups at work. What if you format it wrong? What if you say the wrong thing? What if the e-mail is so bad that it reflects badly on your entire office?? Let's just put this off until the last possible minute...

Or maybe you get pulled into a kiosk vendors spiel at the mall. Maybe you didn't have the courage to ignore them, or say "no", and end up sitting through their 1 hours spiel, getting your hair done, and buying a $150 hair straightener because it was the only logical thing you could think of to get out of the situation. (This ACTUALLY happened to me. I managed to have the balls to say "no" a few times, but those kiosk people are pushy. So I ended up buying $200 worth of stuff just so they would shut up and leave me alone. I did't know how else to get out of it...)

But here's how you defeat that social anxiety: Bring someone that has more social anxiety than you. Then: Mom Mode Activated.

You're out to dinner and your friend doesn't have cutlery? How fast are you going to get that waiter back? SO FAST. No friend of mine is going to have spaghetti hands...

That important e-mail? You know you'd help your friend through that e-mail. Talking them through it, giving them encouragement and helpful tips. We'll get this e-mail done TODAY, my friend.

Those kiosks? I would immediately start a conversation with my friend to distract them, or just straight up say "no" and keep going, or ignore them. Anything other than BUYING A $150 HAIR STRAIGHTENER THAT YOU DIDN'T NEED AND GOING INTO A FOREVER 21 CHANGING ROOM TO PANIC AND DECOMPRESS FROM THAT SITUATION. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS, CHYNNA...THERE ARE OTHER WAYS...

*ahem* Anyway...

There's a general consensus between my friends and I that when an anxious person encounters a friend that has more anxiety about a situation than you, you immediately put on you "I GOT THIS" pants and get the job done.

It's not a permanent solution, like I said. But it works for a bit.