Lauren,

One thing you can practice daily, and at any moment of the day is mindfulness. By doing so, you are training to let go of your thoughts and feelings and just simply accepting and acknowledging “what is”. First thing is to be aware of your breathing. If you ever catch your mind drifting into panic and worry zone, just close your eyes and take a huge inhale and exhale. This will bring you right into the here and now and will put your mind at ease. If it keeps going back to that trigger that escalates your sympathetic nervous system, just take a huge breath in and out and reground yourself.

Mindfulness is huge when overcoming anxiety. By shutting off your mind and taking that deep breath, you lose focus on what’s going on internally and shift your focus externally. I would use to get anxious a lot when introducing myself to new people (resulting to a stutter) and my mind would always be self-sabotaging me, and as a result I would have a huge block in saying my name. One thing I realized was that when I didn’t focus my mind on my speech impediment, I would be very fluent and would say my name with ease.

Retrain your mind so you’re not living in your thoughts. Practice deep breathing and mindfulness, and you’ll be a success story.

All the best to you Lauren,

Spidey