Stripes / Blue & White Living Room / Strawberry Caprese / Beach / Striped Dress / Flamingos

Yesterday at work, I had a flooding feeling of anxiety coming on but made a choice to nip it in the bud before it became a full-fledged anxiety attack. I literally stopped the panic attack in its tracks as it was coming on for the first time ever and I wanted to share with you how I did it!

It was a crazy busy day at work, and I was bouncing back and forth between 3 big projects that required very different skill-sets. At the same time, I was trying to coordinate a last-minute trip to Bermuda (next weekend, yay!), planning a few things for Italy in 2 weeks, and finalizing plans for my birthday party in July. All super exciting and fun things that should make me feel happy, right? Right… But instead of feeling excited, I felt overwhelmed and got that weird buzzing sensation that I get all over my body when I have extreme anxiety.

Today, only one day later, after I took the steps below, I’m OVER THE MOON excited for all of the awesome things coming my way and am so glad I took the time to get to this place.

Here is exactly what I did to squelch that mofo:

1. Stopped working, emailing, planning. Stood up and went for a 10 minute walk around the block. Not a novel idea but also not something that I ever do during the workday. I didn’t bring my phone, didn’t look at Instagram, just walked and breathed.

2. Per my 6 tips for overcoming anxiety, I came back and cleaned my desk aggressively. After those two things I already felt infinitely better.

3. I re-wrote my to do list for work, Lemon Stripes, and home and delegated a few things to my husband that I need help with (because he’s an angel and the best man on earth, he happily obliged).

4. I was finally calming down but still felt on-edge so I set a timer and allowed myself exactly 7 minutes on Pinterest (where I found all of these lovely images for you!)

All in all, this took 32 minutes. I don’t take lunch breaks very often during the day (we eat at our desks normally), but in this short time my mind felt reset, refreshed, and I went about the day like a normal happy person. My productivity went through the roof and I was able to not only complete all of my projects, but kick their ass!