How can I calm down from anxiety?

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I know there's probably not a quick and easy way to permanently cure myself of anxiety but what I need in the short term is a way to calm down in the moment.

Today I had so much anxiety and at work I didn't even have a way to express myself. I wanted to tell people but I couldn't find the words. I felt like people wouldn't want to listen. I tried telling someone I felt like I'd have a heart attack if I got anymore stressed and she just dismissed it. It wasn't practically helpful to the conversation. I wanted to tell people that I felt totally worthless and that I was a complete failure and that I wanted to jump under a train but most people don't really react well to that type of thing. It's not a constructive office conversation. So I just carried on talking like normal. I felt like I was living a lie. I failed so much in my work but I kept talking like it was a normal day. Tomorrow morning they'll find out that I didn't get any work done today. Everyone else got work done today. Compared to them I'm such a failure.

The boss gave a speech about how today we have a minimum of four test cases but he expects more that that. You know how many I got done today? Zero!

The whole morning was taken up by one that had a snowball problem. One problem lead to another and so on. Then it was removed from scope. The whole afternoon was taken up by an extremely finicky one. The conditions had to be just perfect to trigger the scenario. I ran through it twice and didn't trigger it. By this time I felt reeeally tense because it was well into the afternoon and I hadn't accomplished anything. I got someone else to help me set it up. I tried to take notes so I could do it myself later but he went too fast for me to write it all down. He seemed so calm. Funny how he can get far more work done then me and yet be so calm all the time. True that this was a talk I'd never done before but once there was a first time for him to do this task and yet no one showed him. He just figured it out by himself because he's smart. I have to be walked through it step by step because I'm not smart.

So now I was ready to go through the test and the network went down. Sometimes this happens. The network goes down for everyone. We're used to it. Today the network went down for me only. I'm not used to this. So for the last 90 minutes of the day I really couldn't do anything. More anxiety.

Maybe if I hadn't been so tense during the hours when the network was up I could have gotten more work done. Sometimes I feel tired and apathetic and I feel like I need a lot of energy so I try to get psyched up. This increases my energy but it also increases my anxiety. It's like I can be calm with no energy or be anxious with energy. I need a way to be energetic and calm at the same time.

Maybe there's a cure for anxiety Medication or something. Valium or something. I hope the anti-anxiety medication doesn't make me less energetic or slower or less intelligent. Maybe it will work perfectly. If it does I'll feel terrible because I should have been taking it all my life. If it works I'll feel like all years before I started taking it were a waste and I could have achieved more in my teens and twenties if I was taking it back then. I'll regret not taking it from when I was a teenager. Then I'll feel stupid that I didn't get a doctor to prescribe it to me sooner. Then I'll feel bad that I only have a few productive decades left. A career cut short from the beginning.

I was getting so anxious today. I tried to calm myself down but I couldn't Then I felt like it was my fault I couldn't calm down and that gave me even more anxiety. Yet another thing I failed at. I went on talking to people in a normal voice like everything was fine but I was worried that one day they'll find out that I'm a failure. One day they'll find out how incompetent I am and fire me. I felt like such a liar pretending to be competent. Maybe I am competent but I just have low self-esteem. They told me that the reason they increased my hours last recently is because I met the ripenesses performance criteria.

I made mistakes. If I would have realised my test had been taken out of scope earlier I wouldn't have spent one or two hours trying to figure out a defunct test. If I hadn't taken an extra long lunch break because I was chatting to this lady old movies than then maybe I would have gotten more work done before the network failed for me at 4:00PM I don't mind staying back to make up time but it's embarrassing Other people see me staying back and they probably know it's because I was undisciplined.

Maybe if I had a way to calm down I would pay more attention and wouldn't make mistakes like not noticing my test had already been taken out of scope. I have to pay attention to a lot of things at once which is difficult for me because I have poor working memory. I saw the message but I misinterpreted it.

On days like today I got so tense that my whole body ached. I really need a way to calm down from that.

I Googled for how to cure anxiety on the train home. I got an article written by some guy who said he was a workaholic. He said he tried to make every moment productive so he could get a lot of work done. So do I. Except that I don't actually get much done. I'm sick of days when I work flat out and yet only get a quarter as much done as everyone else. Maybe it's because of my poor working memory. I can do simple tasks quickly but for complex tasks I can't keep track of it all. I'm not like the workaholic in the article. He at least gets stuff done. What do you call a workaholic who never gets any work done?

He said his cure was that he needed to devote time to play. I can't even do that right. I used to like video games but I stopped playing them. I realised that if I started one, then started the next and the next, I would never finish any of them so I started playing through them systematically, one at a time. But this made games feel like a chore so I stopped playing them. I felt like I was playing through them as a set task rather than for enjoyment. It's the same with TV series. Have to watch series one at a time I'll lose my place.

I feel like even my time after work and on the weekends has to serve a purpose. I feel like I must use my weekends studying. If I run out of material to study I must find more. Take a course to learn Java or something. I know some people study all weekend so how can I have fun? I must learn to be strong like them. Can't do anything fun. But then after the weekend has passed I realise I got very little study done yet I also didn't do anything recreational because of all the time I was trying to spend studying.

Even if I do do something recreational I end up making it like a chore. The fact that I have a limited amount of free time means I must try to figure out how to use it in the most efficient way possible, which makes it feel like a chore. The fact that free time should be used for exercise or study makes me feel guilty for using it for recreation.

If I start a video game I must finish before I can start a new one. It's like I can't just play for fun anymore. I can't just mess about in the game like I did when I was a kid. Games feel like work so I don't play games anymore. And if I ever have enough energy to play games, I should use that energy for studying or exercise instead. Yet perhaps the achievement would make me feel better. Getting small tasks done makes me feel happier.

If I only I could do tasks one at a time. There's a kind of zen to that. Juggling a lot tasks makes me feel miserable yet it's the nature of the job. I'm bad at multitasking yet I end up doing it even when I don't have to because my mind keeps on thinking of a lot of things I should be doing so I can't focus on just one thing.

I can't commit to a hobby or join a club because I'm worried the commitment would make it feel like work. Worried I'd end up forcing myself to go out of responsibility rather than looking forward to it because I enjoyed it. It might require too much of my energy. If only there was a club for people who just want to hang out.

I stood on the train. I wasn't the only one who looked stressed. There was a really stressed looking student standing next to me. Maybe she was stressed due to her heavy study load. It's ok if she's stressed because she's done a lot of work. Better than being stressed because I've done no work. She probably gets much better grades then I ever did. When I hear people say they're overworked I feel a sick jealousy because I want to be able to do that much work. Even if they say they're suffering it seems to me like it's noble suffering. Suffering for a noble purpose. But when I suffer to get nothing done that's not noble. It's not for a purpose.

Some people feel exhausted because they do too much work. I'd rather feel exhausted because I did too much work then feel exhausted because I tried and got nothing done.

I'd rather feel exhausted from my work then feel exhausted because I had 8 hours of increasing muscular tension. If I didn't devote so much energy to anxiety I'd have more energy for getting work done. If I didn't devote so much of my brain to thinking about how I'm a loser, I'd have more brain power for getting work done. I tried to stop being like that but I failed. That made me feel even more guilty. Even more anxiety.

I think some of my anxiety relates to low self esteem. Like when I make a mistake at work I feel so worried about when people will see it and realise how foolish I was. Or if the mistake slows me down I worry people will see the total amount of work I did that day was low.

That's the nature of the job. Not only do they have a program that automatically tracks how much work everyone did (and produces a bar chart that shows me with the shortest bar) but every morning we all stand in a circle and say how many test cases we did the previous day. I get so embarrassed when the number of test cases was about a quarter of what other people did.

So if I waste an hour due to a mistake I feel anxious about how it will look the next morning when I didn't get as many test cases done.

And when I'm not at work I self-loathing that may also result from anxiety. e.g. when I get anxiety about how people may view me as a loser because I don't have a degree or own my own house or how I was 27 before I got my first girlfriend and only work 40 hours per week when there are bankers and doctors who work 80 or more hours per week. I feel lazy compared to them. I know they suffer but it's for a noble purpose.

Is low self-esteem just a form of anxiety? Am I just anxious about my image? It's like I can't even enjoy listening to music because I just end up thinking about how little I've achieved compared to other people and how I don't deserve to enjoy anything.

Anxiety and low self esteem even affected my relationships. Like when I worried that people would think I was a loser because I was dating a fat girl. Anxiety and low self esteem effect my socializing When I talk to people I count their achievements. They've done so much more than me. Anxiety and low self esteem even effect my ability to watch a movie or read a book or read an article. They all have careers that I wasn't intelligent enough to get.

I don't know if I was born less intelligent or if I got that way from not trying hard enough. Sometimes I think intelligence is not an inborn trait but a continuous effort.

Sorry you had a rough day, buddy.

You're a bright guy, a very bright guy. You have an anxiety disorder, probably. You said you had a counselor. More sessions are in order.

You really shouldn't talk about this stuff with your coworkers. I wish you were in a conducive environment.

Medication doesn't make you dumb; it could make you apathetic. It might or might not aid in your productivity.

Again, sorry for the rough day, my friend.

I would just try to relax at home. It's summertime. Maybe a walk by a lake or something would do you good.

Or you could hang out on WP, and send us those funny memes.

You're a smart guy. Stop with this mediocrity stuff.

Breathe.

Google square breathing.

1) Try praying. I see nobody else has mentioned this. What have you got to lose?

2) Epsom salts ... take a bath with 2 cups of Epsom salts, for twenty minutes.

3) Enjoy your favorite meal every once in a while as a special treat.

4) Take a walk on a nature trail in the great outdoors.

5) If you have someone to talk to that can help, but I agree with those who say, best not to talk about work problems at work, because you may not be able to trust the people there to keep confidentiality.

Is there a special interest that you could do that is also somewhat productive, like learning a second language?
Engaging in a special interest typically reduces anxiety.

^qft. I adore square breathing. It is the best way for me to keep my heart rate in check when my body gets all out of whack. I can't even try to focus on calming my brain down until I get my breathing and heart calmed down. Frickin love square breathing... anyway...

Okay, I gotta ask... were you in the middle of a panic attack there? You didn't come out an say you were, right? Unless I missed that... but what you typed reads out like one, from where I'm sitting anyways. I don't get mental panic attack symptoms (mine are physical) but my spouse does. When he gets going like that his thoughts start playing connect the dots with any and every negative thing he can think to apply to himself... which in return fuels the panic and self hate until it's like that stuff will eat him up and swallow him whole. Anyway, I ask because if it is a panic attack, everything will seem at least a bit better once things have settled down. If nothing else, it should be easier to figure out how to tackle things like stress management once the worst of it is over.

Do you have a therapist or someone you talk to? I dunno if medication is the way to go for you or not. I was on klonopin for a few years and that stuff was great for helping me keep from shutting down while I was learning coping tips and tricks to apply to my life. It was great for sensory crap as well. I'm not still taking the stuff, but it was helpful for a few years there while I was trying to figure out how to adjust my life to be more comfortable in my own skin. For myself, I need to set and apply realistic boundaries to my reality (and then not get all critical of myself for applying those boundaries... that's huge for me). I also need to recognize when I have to remove myself from a situation so I do not go from bad to worse. I need to pace myself... I have a lot I need to do to maintain. If you do have a t they should be able to help you figure out some coping skills to implement in your life to let you be more comfy in your skin and environment. You shouldn't have to live with that kinda stuff happening to you. I wish you well in this.

Hey, anxiety in the form of Panic attacks can be 'cured', more generalised anxiety, not so easy. I had severe debilitating panic attacks for many months, i could do nothing at all. I read a book called 'self help for your nerves'. Its by Dr Clare Weeks. It was written in the 70's, it has a cheesy title, but the information is good, and has helped many people.
I take Valium sometimes to chill out, but docs don't give that out much, and also pregablin, which has been helpful for the feeling of being behind a glass wall, or cut off. The book though, if the advice is followed, will end panic attacks. They are not that complicated really.