#[among stuff irl killing the mood and a bunch other stuff that has been getting in the way recently...]

[coollyinterferes]

Jonathan and Speedwagon chatting and laughing while walking into the room when...

ｂ ｏ ｎ ｋ

[alirhi]

Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.

[meanwhileinoz]

20+ Times Reddit Taught Me A Valuable Lesson About Anxiety

Having anxiety can seem truly scary and terrifying at times. When you’re in the waves of the panic attacks, the fear, and the mind-numbing thoughts we can’t shut off, we can sometimes feel pretty alone–especially if those around us don’t understand what we’re going through.

Luckily, there are several sites online where people support each other (sometimes better than our own family). Reddit, of course, is a place where users are always offering advice and support to people going through similar situations. After searching through forums and AskReddit questions, I learned a lot of different mechanisms for coping and dealing with anxiety–especially when it’s at its worst.

34.

Keeping busy. I notice my anxiety gets pretty bad when I don’t have a job (I’ve just left uni and am travelling now so haven’t had a steady career yet) or anything to keep me occupied. Exercise is great, as a lot of people have said, but having a solid routine is what keeps me settled.

–lanadeathray

33.

50mg Sertraline, no caffeine & no alcohol. Also, acceptance. Once I actually accepted I had a disease and saw my doctor for treatment, I felt so much better. You can make your anxiety so much worse by questioning why you have it, and even wondering if you’re making it up.

–Livishes

32.

Find ways to consciously control and slow your breathing, and cool yourself down. I associated my own anxiety attacks with uncontrollably increasing breathing and pulse along with hot flashes, so counteracting those were very helpful. I daresay it worked; the frequency of my attacks decreased over time and I’ve been about half a year now without incident. There are still times when I feel the potential for one to start, but I now have enough control where it hasn’t escalated to the point of actually being an anxiety attack.

–RocketTasker

31.

Meditation, even if it’s only for 5 minutes a day. Also, spend time visualizing what it is that you want to do. For example, if you’re nervous about going to a party, then spend time visualizing yourself being relaxed and comfortable at the party. The mind if a powerful tool, learn to make it work for you instead of against you.

–lusirius

30.

I have panic disorder. If I’m at home, watching a good TV show that isn’t too dark/tense often helps.

–Yerwun

29.

My breathing technique: 5 seconds in, hold 5 seconds, breathe out 5 seconds. I learned this trick in DBT, and while there are some variations that lower your heart rate even more (4-7-8 is good for getting to sleep), doing this 3-4 times in a row always gets more oxygen to my brain and helps me sort out my thoughts a little easier.

Prior to discovering this, I tried everything. I have about four anxiety disorders diagnosed and have experienced anxiety my entire life, so I like to think that if this works for me, it may work for most people.

–muchadance

28.

For me it depends on the situation. If I’m having a rough week I tangle up two necklaces and keep them in my pocket and when my anxiety picks up I take them out and detangle them. And repeat untill I’m just focusing on untangling the neclaces. Also if I’m sitting in class doodling helps me. It helps me focus on what the teacher is saying. And if it gets really bad like on the verge of panic attack and I don’t wanna leave I draw circles in the same spot over and over. Repetitive stuff works good.

–orangejuiceis2good

27.

when I’m alone I need to breathe fresh air outside because I feel trapped, counting your breaths helps, if someone’s with you I make them tell me a story something funny to get my mind off of it but hate being touched or talk about food. gum helps me a lot too if I’m in class I know highschool can be hard and you can’t just get up and leave keep gum and a type of cold drink so you can feel it when you drink it.

–picklesa

26.

Getting a dog. Funny thing is I didn’t even want to get one, I’m a cat guy and had a bad experience with a dog when I was younger. However my wife put up with my 2 cats for long enough so it wasn’t fair of me to refuse her when she wanted a dog, so here we are. Having something that both loves AND depends on me makes a huge difference – no offence to my wife or cats, but they’re pretty independent!

–beasty4k

25.

you need to maximize the amount of moments where you “lose yourself” and live so completely in the moment that you are no longer self-aware.

–SubzeroNYC

24.

For a period of time I try to reduce coffe and other stimulants.

–seeking-n-knowing

23.

Staying off social media seems to be overlooked but it helps me a lot. It’s not the total cure but a piece to the puzzle. You’re subconsciously comparing your life to a bunch of fake portrayals of other people’s happy lives which can make you feel down.

Also if you’re on it a lot you become way more productive when you delete it which lifts your mood.

–vemon_1

22.

Definitely exercise. If I get super anxious about something, I start to get very jittery and I feel like I just have way too much energy. Then when I go for a moderately strenuous bike ride, my mind feels so much calmer and I can think much more clearly.

–getsugablitz

21.

I’ve learned a lot of breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation. Square breathing is so simple but has helped me a lot. Seeing an excellent therapist and being on a low dose of an SSRI has also helped.

–latche

20.

Mindfulness meditation/Cognitive behavioral therapy. Realizing that you are still in control of what you consciously attend to, the thoughts and feelings that run through your mind do not have to consume your identity. Observe them without judgement, let them pass without indulging in them and they will fade away.

–UndecipherdMoonrunes

19.

For me getting a new kitten tugged me out of depression. I’m a huge cat person and this kitten just chose me like we got home and she came out of the cage straight to my lap to nap. Two years later her just being here loving me has made me a totally different person.

–Diddlydarnfuck

18.

I chose self meditation instead of self medication.

I pep talk myself in my head and control my breathing by saying over and over…

“It’s not life or death, you CAN do this.” “Take it one breath at a time, you GOT this.”

And I make no excuses for moving slow or eating slow or accomplishing tasks slow. I refuse to let anyone control me anymore or dictate to me how I should behave, including society.

There’s only one me, and I have to live with me, so only me can make or break — me.

One breath at a time.

–PookaShellTourGuide

17.

Alright, I work in politics so I pretty much have to give speeches and talk to random strangers on a weekly basis. I also anxiety problems and self-esteem issues that have plagued me since middle school. Most people are pretty shocked when I tell them that, so I guess the following ways of dealing with it are pretty (for me at least) effective.

But before we get there, here’s what you shouldn’t do if your anxious:

Drink: It’s guaranteed to bring you back to earth. Like its a depressant, it’s chemically ensured to do that. The problem is that it’s too good at bringing you down. You will become reliant on it when you feel like the problem is too insurmountable to fix, which most anxious people know is pretty much everything. It took me a long time to stop drinking guys, trust me don’t fall into this trap.

Spill Your Guts: For a while Hollywood convinced me that a sudden, expository and usually emotional reveal of information to the cause of your problem is the key to fixing your said problems. Just tell your boss that you’re super stressed out and your dog just died! Your tears will convince him to take pity! It might. Once or twice. But if you keep doing that when your anxious (which is all the time) you’re going to develop a reputation and the cool job assignments are going to magically start appearing on your co-workers desk. Anxiety makes you want to fix shit right the fuck now. Resist that, take a deep breath and do what I do:

1. Nature

Nature is not stressed out. Nature moves slow. No matter what small stuff is freaking you out (and in retrospect its all small), nature doesn’t give a shit. Unless your a rabbit being stalked by a wolf, nature will very rarely try and kill you. Even if you are a fat, monstrous blob, evolution has still deemed you the apex predator of your environment. So of all the places in the world you can hide and be safe, it’s the woods. I once had a pretty bad arguement with my boss on a Friday. I had an anxiety attack, packed a suitcase and took off to Maine for the weekend. By Monday I was ok. Why? Because I had enough alone time to realize we really didn’t have a relationship destroying argument and we could still have a positive relationship. It took time in complete stillness for me to really get that through my head. But sometimes being alone is the exact opposite of what you need, sometimes you need a-

2. Venting Friend

Find someone who understands you have anxiety and how you get when you are under that influence. Then, if you are on the verge of an attack, call said person and vent. Remember that “don’t spill your guts” rule I made up earlier? This is the one exception to that. Find someone who will listen to you and then just come back and tell you everything will be alright. Usually for me this is my girlfriend or when I’m single just a very close female friend. For you it doesn’t have to be. It could be anyone who will listen. I just find that when you get the thoughts out of your head and into reality via speech, they tend to become apparent to you that they are in fact ridiculous. Ok but say you live in New York and don’t really have access to great woodlands or you don’t have a friend who wants to listen to you bitch all the time? What if you do both and neither work?

3. Don’t be afraid to get help

I don’t see this so much on reddit, more irl. But whatever, I’ll say it anyway. There are those among you who think that seeing a therapist or a psychiatrist is akin to throwing your hands up and surrendering. Your brain will tell you that you are He-Man and whatever problems you probably don’t have can be solved with sheer force of will and a powerful mustache. To the brain that thinks that I say this: shut the fuck up. Listen, I’ve shook hands with presidents, I’ve been on TV for good reasons and I’ve seen double D’s in real life. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to admit that I had a medical issue I needed to see a doctor about. But I’m really glad I did.

I’m on meds now and honestly between that and therapy it’s really improved my quality of life. I’m not ashamed of it, and neither should you. Anxiety never really goes away, but it can definitely be controlled to make life easier.

–urgehal666

16.

This app called SAM. It has a bunch of cool features, like it tracks your anxiety levels, gives you different exercises and techniques to control your anxiety, has you think about the thing that causes your anxiety to raise your levels, then it helps you shift away the focus. My favorite part is it has a paragraph for you to slowly read while you’re having an anxiety/panic attack. It helps a bunch.

And if you’re currently in therapy, having it track your anxiety levels helps a ton so you can show your therapist exactly what happened to cause it, how bad your anxiety was, etc.

–Courier-6

15.

I drink water or tea. The time I spend doing that I focus on just doing that. Nothing else. It helps me regain my thoughts, and its a moment where I can’t speak.

–ShotekSaint

14.

I go to the library by myself. Turn off my phone, pop in my music and get a good book. Can stay there for hours.

–Pichus_Wrath

13.

Force yourself to do the thing you don’t want to do.

After you do it a few times the anxiety goes away, and it becomes routine.

There’s really no secret to this. At the end of the day, you just have to pick yourself up and do the thing. Whatever your reasoning, whatever your motivation, you still just have to do it.

–IlluminationRock

12.

Being active helped loads, along with eating right. Honestly, small and simple daily routines knock out most of my anxiety. Disorder is a huge trigger for me, so the more I keep to a schedule, the calmer and more rational I am.

–shazarava

11.

I bought an adult coloring book (“The Enchanted Forest”, I don’t remember who the author/artist is off the top of my head) and try to exercise regularly (I take spin classes at least 4x a week and I’m trying to go every morning). Honestly I think coloring and exercise are the only things keeping me sane anymore, and ever since I started doing both of these things, my anxiety has calmed down considerably.

–supermarketsweeps95

10.

I look back to the most stressful/worst time I have ever had before and say “if I can survive that,I can survive this.”

–cm4ever

9.

Working out and eating healthy. Friends dragged me into it. Changed my life.

–Preroyalty

8.

I usually just don’t… Overcome the anxiety. I end up channeling all that energy into what I need to do, ya know? I’ll get super jittery and nervous and I’ll tell myself “ya gotta do this ya gotta get it done c’mon lets go let’s go let’s go” and I’ll just fuckin.. Do it, I guess. It doesn’t always work, but it’s my go to strategy, especially because I feel a lot more releived when I’m done with the task(s).

–TexasSmashMyAss

7.

This will get buried but I have some solutions that no one has mentioned:

Avoid caffeine. Caffeine aggravates anxiety especially in people diagnosed with anxiety/panic disorders

If you are in the middle of an anxiety attack, eat something. When you eat, you signal to your body that you’re okay. This goes way back to our ancestors who ate only when they had hunted enough food and felt safe.

Your body is there to protect you. Most individuals who experience an anxiety attack have a sense of impending doom or just think they might be dying. But have you ever noticed that during an anxiety attack you always question your symptoms? Are they really that serious? No. Do you think you should go to the hospital? No. Chances are after thinking about it, you’ll realize that the symptoms you are experiencing are not that serious. This means you are not dying and you are okay.

–Obi-Wan_Cannoli

6.

Deep breathes expanding your tummy, not your chest. Expanding your chest can actually increase the feeling of tension.

–vaginadeathsquad

5.

My anxiety tends to start physically– it can be triggered by events or thoughts, but my first indication of an episode is generally felt in my gut. At this point, I tend to start filing through my mental rolodex of things I should worry about, and if I can’t find an immediate one, I’ll search through recent memory and see if I can’t figure out something I need to be freaking out about. Then I focus on that, and the vicious cycle starts.

So what I try to do, and it’s certainly helped me manage, is say to myself, “this is a physical event, and it will pass; don’t feed the troll.” While I’m still in an anxious state physically, I don’t allow that state to metastasize into a mental one. Therefore it passes much more quickly.

Sometimes I can even convince myself to redefine the state entirely; I’m not anxious, I’m excited! They feel the same physically, so why let your brain turn it into a negative? This doesn’t always work, but it’s certainly allowed me to perform better in social or professional/academic situations.

–HalfAGoonAndHalfAGod

4.

Daily yoga practice.

–RamenGirl13

3.

i have rare anxiety attacks, but when they happen. i put myself in a relaxing environment, breath deeply and calmly and tell myself, “although it feels differently, nobody ever died from an anxiety attack.”

–ukyah

2.

Watch a funny video on Youtube. Seriously.

Panic attack during lab?

Step out, go to the bathroom, watch a video on the toilet. Generally helps.

–AndrewFlash

1.

My therapist once taught me this extremely effective method that I still use to this day.

In your mind, or out loud name: 5 things you can see 5 things you can hear 5 things you can feel

It always instantly made me realize how physical my presence was and how my mind was not the only thing in the world happening. It helps you step back and see the bigger picture of the goings on around you. If you are ever overwhelmed, stressed, anxious or on the verge of a panic attack, try this method once and let me know what you thought. Really meditate on the 5 things you observe.

–sassypeanuts

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