Anxiety often seems to pop out of nowhere. When you least expect it, BAM anxiety attack and you are left trying to pick up the pieces thinking, “what just happened?”

Did you know that usually there are anxiety triggers that alert you beforehand when your anxiety is going to hit? By being aware, you can help yourself to prevent and reduce the frequency of your attacks.

Step 1: Let’s look back at your most recent anxiety attack.

We are going to examine this in-depth to help you start to think about your anxiety’s role.

Let’s think about when your anxiety first hit. What was the situation? Think through your senses, like, what did it sound like around you or was there a certain smell in the air?

Step 2: Let’s look back at your history

Now when you are answering the questions with your sense’s, I want you to think back of all your memory’s and think about if there was another time in your life you remembered one of those senses. Do you have any other memories with those specific senses?

So if in step one you noted your anxiety attack occurred a little while after lighting a pumpkin scented candle you are going to think through that sense. Does the smell of pumpkins or thinking about pumpkins trigger any difficult memory involving pumpkins? If not, that is ok and continue digging deep and seeing what other memories pop up that are tied to this event. Although anxiety attacks are not always triggered by past memories related to those senses, it is important to evaluate if this was the case or not.

Step 3: Let’s journal!

Now I am not talking the Dear Diary… kind of journal. With this I want you to write out (or type) everything about this event. Just write things out as they come into your mind, it doesn’t need to be in any order. I want you to include when you first started noticing symptoms and what was going on then. I also want you to include what and where you were feeling the anxiety symptoms in your body. Did it start with nausea, or your heart beating fast?

As you are writing this out I want you to circle or highlight the symptoms you felt with this event and where you felt it in your body. These are key!

Step 4: Plan Alternative Responses

Was there a point you could have intervened for yourself in the situation, maybe messaged a friend, spoken up or removed yourself from the location? What did you need in that moment that you weren’t getting? Now, in your mind start to visualize yourself in this scenario, but you have what you need. What are your responses now?

Step 5: Repeat

You can either wait until your anxiety strikes again to do this exercise a second time, or you can utilize a different experience in the past. As you are thinking through and journaling these situations, notice any similarities between the experiences. Are there patterns? Certain people the same? Is it at a certain time of year?

The more you can think through your experiences (even if it is something that has happened years ago), the more you can recognize your personal anxiety triggers. As you know your anxiety triggers, you can learn strategies to help yourself cope and manage your anxiety to prevent or reduce the frequency or duration of anxiety attacks.

Please be aware that going through this exercise could be triggering in and of itself. If it is getting to be too much, stop. It is difficult to think through your triggers. Talk to your therapist to help you process this in a way that maintains your stability.