by Sage Schneider
I’ve always been an anxious person. As a child, I vacillated between nightmares fueled by an overactive imagination and increasing bouts of emetophobia (fear of vomiting). Through therapy, I learned that being in a therapist’s office made me feel calm, but I never learned how to use the relaxation techniques we discussed during real moments of anxiety. As I grew older, I gained more control over my imagination and my phobia began to slip away. Anxiety became just another undercurrent to my existence, a nervous whisper in the back of my mind.
Then came junior year of college. Three years into a psychology degree, I realized that I disliked research in an academic setting and was miserable slaving away on an honors thesis I had no passion for. I began to have nausea attacks every night and soon found myself in the ASU counseling office. We talked about family drama and my gut-churning career goals, or lack thereof, and they taught me techniques to gain control over my emotions.
For the first time, I began using those techniques. 4-7-8 breathing (inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight) became my go-to method, pulling me out of an anxiety spiral before I could self-destruct. I developed my own mantra and created positive affirmations specifically for my insecurities. I repeated them in the morning, at night as my anxiety began to rise, or any time when that nervous energy bubbled up inside me. Things began to smooth out. The nausea attacks abated. I felt almost confident.
Then I went on a summer study abroad that spiked my anxiety to levels I didn’t know I could reach. Recent revelations in therapy, the terror of traveling alone, the loneliness of being trapped in a foreign country with students I’d never met before—I spent the first week crying in my room, crushed under the pressure of the closest thing to a mental breakdown I’ve ever experienced.
Once I came back, everything changed. Having a stress-induced meltdown clarified things for me, and I realized I didn’t want to be unhappy anymore. I quit my honors thesis and added a writing certificate to my degree. Instead of a future in grad school drowning in data analysis and decades of battling colleagues for grants, I decided to embrace my passion for writing and curiosity for science and become a science writer. My new honors thesis is a book proposal. The topic? Alternative solutions for anxiety.
Breathing, mantras, and affirmations are now my weapons of choice against ever-looming anxiety, but I love options like CalmCircle because they add extra dimensions to the fight. For someone with anxiety, just knowing that I have support systems in place was half the battle. Knowing that I can breathe a certain way, or repeat certain words, or even go on my computer and listen to some calming videos—each opportunity for peace and relaxation lets me believe that I am in control of myself. The fact that this program exists means someone acknowledges my anxiety is real. Having power over my fear puts life in a new perspective because, though I occasionally have anxiety, it doesn’t define me. I am not an anxious person anymore and never will be again.
Sage Schneider is a senior at Arizona State University, majoring in psychology with a writing certificate, with plans to become a science writer. Currently, she lives in Arizona with her lovably neurotic Australian Shepherd, Studley.