Bipolar Support Group

Therapist have always told me to breathe and meditate when feeling anxious or having racing thoughts. It's never worked. my meds zyprexa and ativan have been working. tonight not very well. Part of it probably is that my husband is working a night shift and won't be home until early tomorrow morning. Are there any suggestions on how to slow down racing thoughts?

Yell. Loud. This sort of does the whole breathe thing without you thinking about it, and it's the thinking about it thing that makes it challenging for me, And, when you're concentrating on yelling you're not really thinking about anything else which would be the whole idea of meditation, another thing I cannot do because I over think it.

Mind you, now that I'm thinking of it, you probably shouldn't yell if you live in an appartment building. Or an attached home of any sort. Your neighbors will get grouchy I suppose. But this also works in the car.

you're funny. ithink we should talk more. fortunately i live out in the country so yelling shouldn't be a problem i've never understood relaxation because my thoghts intrude too much

I woke up this morning in a state of panic and racing thoughts. I tried to talk it out but was inconsolable. I finally took some anti-anxiety meds and they eventually did their thing. The thing I learned is to not give any credence to those thoughts. It's hard at the moment, when they're happening and there's nothing scarier in my opinion than when our psyche plays tricks on us. We just have to remember to take a step back, get the meds going, and not to give them too much attention or credibility. I hope you felt better eventually.

Unfortunately I've never found a non medication way of slowing racing throughs - benzos offer fast acting relief in my experience. Loud music helps me.

I suppose one of the things you can do cognitively is to tell yourself this is will pass and not draw negative inferences from it - for example 'i'm so ill i'll always be so Ill'

Let us know how you get on