How to Bring Yourself Down When Anxiety Takes Over

We’ve all been there. Something happens - a thought, something someone says, an email landing in your inbox - and suddenly you’re hooked. Your nervous system takes a walk on the wild side. All you can think about is that one thing. It’s like it’s glued to your hands and you simply cannot put it down, no matter how hard you shake it.

Your body is buzzing. Your chest feels tight. Part of you urgently wants to do something - reply, explain, defend, fix.

When something triggers us, the brain narrows its focus. It becomes highly tuned to threat. This is your stress response doing exactly what it evolved to do - scanning for danger, prioritising survival, and sidelining nuance. In this state, your prefrontal cortex - the part of your brain responsible for perspective, impulse control, and decision-making - goes partially offline. Your nervous system takes over. Everything feels urgent. Your thinking turns black-and-white. Small things feel enormous.

Anxiety and alcohol both dampen prefrontal cortex functioning. In decision-making terms, being highly anxious is a bit like being tipsy. And most of us don’t make our best decisions tipsy.

This is the worst possible moment to react. To pick up your phone. To send the email. To say “the thing”.

This is the sympathetic nervous system in charge - fast, reactive, and designed for emergencies, not emails or relationship conversations. This is why trying to think your way out of anxiety rarely works. You can’t reason with a brain that thinks it’s being chased.

The first job isn’t to fix the problem. It’s to bring your nervous system down enough for your thinking brain to come back online. Regulation first. Decisions second.

These steps work because they help your parasympathetic nervous system come back online - the part of your system that signals safety rather than threat. As it kicks in, your body settles and your thinking brain can rejoin the conversation.

This is a grounding sequence I use a lot in my practice to help clients come down from the ceiling. You don’t need to do it perfectly. Just stay with it.

Set a timer for 3 minutes and do these steps in order.

This is for the moment before you reply.
Before you confront.
Before you spiral.

1. Breathe: 4 in, 6 out

Breathe in gently through your nose for 4.
Breathe out slowly through your mouth for 6.
Longer exhales signal safety. You’re telling your nervous system: we’re not running.

2. Gentle arm squeezes

Starting at your shoulders, gently squeeze down your arms towards your elbows, then forearms, then hands.
Alternate arms or do both at once.
Slow, firm pressure helps your body register where it is in space. Think grounding, not force.

3. Peripheral vision scan

Without moving your head, scan the edges of your visual field. Notice the corners of the room.

Imagine a cave person standing at the mouth of a cave, scanning the horizon. Once nothing appears, the body can stand down. Your nervous system works in much the same way. This tells your brain there’s no immediate threat.

4. Stay with it for the full 3 minutes

Your nervous system needs repetition, not speed.
Keep breathing, squeezing, and scanning until the timer ends.

This isn’t about calming down perfectly or making the feeling disappear. It’s about lowering the intensity enough for your thinking brain to come back online.

When your nervous system settles, even slightly, your prefrontal cortex can re-engage. That’s when you can think more clearly, feel less trapped, and make decisions you’re more likely to stand by later.

If you often find yourself up on the ceiling, it’s not a personal failing. It usually means your system learned, somewhere along the way, to stay on high alert. And you don’t have to wait until you’re falling apart to need support.

These tools help in the moment. Therapy helps you understand why your system gets there so fast and gradually turn the volume down at the source.

For now, start here.
Three minutes.
No fixing.
Just bringing yourself back into the room.

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