How to stop/cope with racing thoughts?

[Avasmummy_x]

I'm going through a real bad time of my anxiety right now. I'm in the state of not wanting to leave my house/be alone ect. I'm constantly having racing thoughts. Mainly worrying over going Crazy as the racing thoughts make me feel that way. Most of the time I don't even know what the thoughts are though I just feel my mind is going 100mph and makes me feel like I'm going mad. It's all stemmed from my health anxiety as I've been lightheaded for months and still have no answers.

I've been on anti ds and all have failed currently on diazepam to chill me out for a week but still getting the thoughts just not as bad and not had intrusive thoughts. X

[Frankie123]

Not had the racing thoughts but when my health anxiety is at its worse I like you do not want to go out and crave not to be alone as that makes me even worse. I was on citalopram and after a few weeks it did help a lot and I managed to calm down and began to get my life back again.

[jonjones]

Hey,

try to stay in the moment!

Your mind is racing because you are in a heightened state of arousal. Your body is in fight or flgith mode. adrenaline is being released throughout your body.

Try to become aware of any tension you feel in your body and let it drop, or feel heavy, take deep breaths, exhale slowly and sag.

There is nothing you need to think of, or analyze, just deal with yourself, one breath at a time! And focus on releasing the tension you have by sagging!

Best,

Jon

[MyNameIsTerry]

This is really common in those of us with GAD as well, we just can't turn it off and you often see people raising threads about whether they could be losing their minds. Have a read what people discuss as it will help you.

For me, Mindfulness greatly helped me with this as it did with my OCD. It teaches you to allow thoughts & sensations to pass without judgement so you stop associating them with anxiety or anything bad. It also teaches you how to focus properly and has methods of showing you how to achieve this. The more you practice this, the more instinctive it becomes. Lack of focus is a big problem for anxiety disorder sufferers so this cna really help.

[Avasmummy_x]

Thanks everyone glad to hear it's common. I genuinely think I'm going mad sometimes. Like waiting for the moment I'll hear voices as my mind is just constantly at 100mph. I mess with my ears a lot even sometimes cover them in comfort. I've been refferred to a physiatrist what's mindfullness? IS it like therapy and is it self refferal?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi AM,

Sorry, I'm really having issues accessing threads on here at the moment so I couldn't respond yesterday after posting!

Mindfulness is basically a practice from Buddhism that can be practiced in meditation, when eating, in halding objects, in movement and exists in various other movement based practices such as Tai Chi & QiGong.

It teaches you to control your thoughts, be able to focus more (a real struggle in anxiety disorders as I'm sure you have found), teaches acceptance of thoughts & sensations and to look at them without judgement which starts to retrain your subconscious as well as make you more resilient at a conscious level.

Its been studied in neuroscience and shown to access the compassionate side of the brain. This is important because the other part of the section of the brain I am referring to (the left is the compassion side and right amydala) is more fear is engaged more in anxiety disorders. This also means that it creates new neural pathways and allows your brain to stop using older ones that serve no purpose anymore, which are the ones that were created in developing anxiety disorders. It all fits into neuroplasticity and how we can learn new behaviours, good and bad, throughout life.

There are more modern forms that have been blended with CBT, such as Jon Kabat-Zinn's MBSR from the US and the later MBCT from Professor Mark Williams of Oxford univerisities pyschology dept, a leading centre in the UK, which is based on the works of Kabat-Zinn. MBCT has been clinically studied and is recommended by NICE for recurrent depression at this stage in the UK, but its always extremely helpful in anxiety and I expect it will receive recommedation for this in the future.

Both these guys have books out and Professor Williams has most of his meditations in the free resources section on his Frantic World website. These programmes are based on an 8 week model. If you look in the media contact section on this website, you will see a couple of universities asking members on here to join their programmes so you can see its a well respected form of therapy.

There are courses, many from therapists but you can start with a book, from downloads or apps such as Headspace which people on here say is good.

It really does help with racing thoughts. I have GAD & OCD and this has helped me more than anything. Thoughts are a bit problem in OCD and HA shares common ground with it due to the obsessional element so I reckon it would have a similiar impact for you.

You can try the 8 week programmes, just do meditations from free resources or even both. Something I have learned is that meditation is a good starting point so you learn from guidance but you really need to do the non meditative forms to truly benefit from it because these help you incorporate it into everyday life. You will find it can take time to see the benefits, but at a minimum meditation is relaxing, and you will find yourself doing it automatically as time goes by.

[Avasmummy_x]

Thanks terry for the insight. I've picked up some books from my library actually. Overcoming anxiety, overcoming ocd, mindfullness, keeping calm. There just some. And I've also downloaded some apps. I think my problem is I can't focus enough to read or listen to them I'm too hyped up and nervous. I'm in this state all day long and have been for about a fortnight never ever had it this bad.

I'm obsessed over the fear of having something more than anxiety which causes the thoughts all day long which makes me anxious which then leads to the sensitive ears which is when I fear most I'll hear things that aren't there. That's like my daily routine atm. There still there when I try to distract myself and keep busy which is also very frustrating. I have a 2yr old and I fear I'm failing her and that I'll just be admitted to hospital and have her took off me as I'm not particularly 'coping' well right now so I'm just catastrophising every thought. I had to take two diazepam yesterday just to get to a level where I could sleep and do things.

I feel like I just need reassurance I'm not mad I think. So I'm really holding out on the physcistrist spot. I can't remember the last time I just sat on the sofa chilled out. Very annoying x

[Primula]

Hi Avasmummy, I promise you, you are not mad, you are just anxious and exhausted. Persevere with the mindfullness and relaxation, they won't work straight away. It's like all new things, you have to keep working at it to get the benefit. Maybe just try 5 mins a day, and gradually make it longer until you are up to 20 mins. Also don't think it's not working if you don't feel relaxed, it's not an overnight cure. You need to give it time, and then more time.

[Avasmummy_x]

Thanks primula. I wish the ear sensation would quit it I think that's whats making me anxious I'll hear things. The only way I can describe it is that awful feeling you get in your tummy when your nervous I'm getting the same feel sensation in my ears! There so sensitive x

---------- Post added at 18:00 ---------- Previous post was at 17:07 ----------

Just had to take another diazepam my minds in overdrive hate having to rely on a tablet to calm me down :'(

[MyNameIsTerry]

Believe me AV, I know how you feel. I don't have HA but as a GAD & OCD sufferer my own issues were going 24/7 and I never thought I would get better, but I did.

I found Mindfulness really hard at first but any good resource will tell you that this is to be expected. At first, failure to do it properly is very normal. The more you do it, the more it works on its own. I promise you, it does get easier.

I thought I was going mad, I couldn't get through a room with a load of image & touching rituals. I couldn't walk anywhere outside without reading rituals.

Mindfulness helped me more with this than CBT did or anything else. I taught me how to focus more and be more calm. It takes practice, but it comes.

I would start with guided meditation, its easier to listen to someone telling you what to do and how to feel. You will use inductions and if your focus cannot be controlled, you do them again. These inductions are often monitoring breathing or muscle movements around the lungs. They act a bit like distraction techniques.

Once you feel more comfortable with it, progress because I found without progressive it could get a bit boring. Using Mindful eating, object handling and movement works well for moving forward as it teaches you different skills and they all end up reinforcing each other.

[Avasmummy_x]

Thank you terry it's allways warming to know someone who's been through it severe has got through it. As I just feel like this is it now I'm stuck like it forever as I just can't seem to stop or slow down my mind I need a breather. I've then made matters worse by googling for reassurance and it says constant racing thoughts like I'm having are a sign of bi polar aswell as anxiety and that's my big fear as my mum has it 😭 so it's made me and the thoughts worse. The only break I get is when I'm asleep and even then I wake up in the night. My daughters just woke me up now and within two minutes the minds in overdrive again. Im beginning to get depressed id say with it tbh because I just have no hope it's gonna go or get better because it's constant and I've always been so weak minded and want a quick fix and with this I know that's not gonna happen I just want the old anxiety back where I just over worried in situations thought a bit of back pain was cancer. It was unpleasant but it wasn't constant and I still was able to work and get by my day to day activities. How I'm feeling and reacting is putting my relationship on the line to my partner is so stressed over how I'm acting an constantly says I want the old you back and I'm just like I don't if I'll ever get her back again I think I'm stuck in this constant fear forever :( sorry for the long depressing post I just really needed to get all that off my chest as I often struggle to explain it and this morning I just feel the need to open up as its all getting a bit too much. X

[Retsgard]

I have found that distraction helps me if my mind is racing, I sit and read a book on my kindle for a few minutes. I've started using mindfulness on my iPhone, I downloaded the Prof Mark Williams one using an app called 'Audible' :)

[MyNameIsTerry]

I have found that distraction helps me if my mind is racing, I sit and read a book on my kindle for a few minutes. I've started using mindfulness on my iPhone, I downloaded the Prof Mark Williams one using an app called 'Audible' :)

If you type in Mark Williams Frantic World into Google you will see his Frantic World website. There is a resources section on there which has all the guided meditations from his book of the same name. There are further ones written in the book though and its worth a purchase as it explains a lot about our bias towards unhealthy behaviours & depleting activities and what we can do about them.

---------- Post added at 02:57 ---------- Previous post was at 02:45 ----------

Thats ok AV, I'm sure everyone on here knows how it feels when it gets into a cycle like that.

I was the same, I didn't think change was possible. It ruled my life completely.

I've still got lots to do to recover in my opinion, but I am well past that stage. I can't even remember how it felt really, and from speaking to fellow anxiety disorder sufferers at the charity walk-in groups I used to attend, they said the same.

Dr Claire Weekes called these stages 'layers'. You have to pass through them on the journey to recovery. Some are quicker than others, some seem like setbacks, but they pass.

It sounds like in your case you have taken a bit of a step back or your anxiety has changed. Anxiety disorders oftne do change, I had GAD 4-5 years before the OCD started but through talking to my therapist I could see that I had some minor signs of OCD back into my teenage years. But why didn't it hit me when the GAD came? I think the answer may be that my relapse was more intense and it encouraged this out of me.

So, don't feel that a change in anxiety focus is another sinister, it happens. I've seen other talk about it on here. What it does tend to do is scare us because its new. It rakes up a load of 'what if's' and we catastrophize.

So, you need to understand it and accept that its another change in your anxiety but also rationalise it. Rationalise it that others on here understand for start. If you read threads on the GAD and OCD boards you will see this discussed.

Don't entertain your anxieties by letting them think you are losing your mind or developing something else because its not true.

Bipolar sufferers, as I bet your know from your mum, experience anxiety and often terrible depression. They are judged on a scale of normality which therapists also view us on, its just that they swing far further than we do, we are unipolar. At the moment you are experiencing the downside, but we also get that with anxiety & depression so you need to consider whether you swing and experience the mania too.

I find my mood swings and I have found that my anxiety/depression occurs in cycles. This lef me to think about bipolar but I just don't fit the description because I don't experience mania. As you propably know, there are 2 forms of bipolar, and the lesser known one is characterised by less severe swings but the mania aspect still occurs.

So, perhaps you need to rationalise it on that basis e.g. can you be bipolar if you don't experience the mania as well? Remember that racing thoughts are also a symptom of anxiety and if its constant and not specific, it also fits in to the GAD category and if its ritual based, magical or intrusive thought related it may fit into the OCD category.

[Avasmummy_x]

i seem to go through relapses a lot at first my anxiety started as panic disorder id have regular bad panic attacks about going school as I was badly bullied then it calmed down when I left school. Then I fell pregnant at 18 and became very unwell causing me to have fits and almost a stroke and having my daughter early. I was then left with high blood pressure caused by pregnancy and have never been right since. That's when the health anxiety began. I'd obsess for months over symptoms until they were ruled out via scans. Cancer, dvt, heart problems ect. So I guess in the way when they diagnosed me with gad at cbt it should of been ocd too as I go through bouts of obsessing over illnesses. Now it seems I'm obsessing over mental illness as I've started with physcological effects of anxiety and intrusive thoughts. I have symptoms I've never experienced before and even bouts of depression because I've had enough of how I'm feeling at the mo and just can't see me getting better. I think I need to 'man up' in a way. Because I know something's not right which is always a good sign I'm too much in touch with reality where as if I was crazy id think non the less how I was feeling was normally. Instead I'm in so much fear and dread each day.
I look at people and just think you take it so much for granted how well you are. You walk in to a shop buy your bits and go home chill and watch tv where as me I can't go to the shop alone im too scared I get stressed in the shop and nervous and the thought of just chilling on the sofa? Ha! It's like a marching band is in my head and can't switch off x

[MargaretHale]

I get this at night. I find that putting earphones in and listening to either music or (for me) Thunderstorms that I downloaded for free. (weird as I'm frightened of real thunderstorms haha) I also downloaded 'Headspace' which is teaching me mindfulness....I see it as being on the road and my thoughts keep veering off and mindfulness is teaching me that it's ok to veer off a little but it's bringing your thoughts back onto a calmer, less bumpy road.

xx

[Avasmummy_x]

Thanks for all your tips taking them on board. It's all just getting a bit too much it is literally constant driving me mad.

[MyNameIsTerry]

i seem to go through relapses a lot at first my anxiety started as panic disorder id have regular bad panic attacks about going school as I was badly bullied then it calmed down when I left school. Then I fell pregnant at 18 and became very unwell causing me to have fits and almost a stroke and having my daughter early. I was then left with high blood pressure caused by pregnancy and have never been right since. That's when the health anxiety began. I'd obsess for months over symptoms until they were ruled out via scans. Cancer, dvt, heart problems ect. So I guess in the way when they diagnosed me with gad at cbt it should of been ocd too as I go through bouts of obsessing over illnesses. Now it seems I'm obsessing over mental illness as I've started with physcological effects of anxiety and intrusive thoughts. I have symptoms I've never experienced before and even bouts of depression because I've had enough of how I'm feeling at the mo and just can't see me getting better. I think I need to 'man up' in a way. Because I know something's not right which is always a good sign I'm too much in touch with reality where as if I was crazy id think non the less how I was feeling was normally. Instead I'm in so much fear and dread each day.
I look at people and just think you take it so much for granted how well you are. You walk in to a shop buy your bits and go home chill and watch tv where as me I can't go to the shop alone im too scared I get stressed in the shop and nervous and the thought of just chilling on the sofa? Ha! It's like a marching band is in my head and can't switch off x

OCD is similiar to HA but there are differences. OCD is more about rituals that are aimed at prevention, cancellation or resolving which isn't the same for HA because your Googling style rituals make you even worse. In OCD, the rituals can make you feel worse but its more from frustration and a lack of the ability to control your own mind.

Did you have GAD thought or was it more HA? If it were GAD it would be very general, you could be anxious all day long for nothing but you seem more anxious about health issues. With GAD you can be very symptom focussed, I was, so maybe they are intertwined? It seems you have issues going into shops, so that could either be social anxiety disorder or GAD. GAD can overlap into them all but I have found that the overlaps tend to be less severe than the underlying issue of the main GAD. For instance, I have suffered agoraphobia and social anxiety disorder but I don't consider myself part of that group, I consider it as GAD, because these were much easier to resolve through exposure and I don't think people with those anxiety disorders would respond as quickly.

Honestly, don't worry about 'man up' and wanting an easy route out...everyone who has ever suffered from anxiety would want the easy route out. So, don't yourself up over that because it will make things worse. Honestly, I have felt an incredible weak & pointless person and I still have bouts of it. You don't feel in control of the most basic of things that others take for granted. At my worst I was struggling washing, brushing my teeth and all the daily stuff...it was horrible.

[Avasmummy_x]

I really appreciate all the replies. I Was diagnosed with gad and panic disorder by cbt and my doctor has just diagnosed ocd waiting on a referal for a more intense physciatrist therapy. I keep having wierd habits too like rubbing my shoulder against my ear or pulling on my ears when I'm nervous.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Do you do that because you believe something may happen if you don't, possibly to yourself or a loved one?

For OCD, its worth raising a thread on the OCD board (I think you had one a while back didn't you?) as some of the guys on there might be able to help you with it. There are few people on there who have conquered it or are being successful in doing so.

[Avasmummy_x]

Yeah I have posted on ocd the day I was diagnosed! I think I got one reply. Unfortunate thing is this seems to be the only thread that gets a lot of views and replies! I've got my routine follow up appt with my doc today since being diagnosed with ocd and given a short course of diazepam to help me cope so I will find out a more long term approach today x

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, the other boards don't as much traffic as the HA one. If you need to know anything specific about OCD, have a second thread on there I suppose and see what responses you get, most threads get some sort of response.

Take care AV x hope you get some direction today.