Does anyone feel like your anxiety has made you less intelligent?

i dont really like to consider my self "intelligent", but i do have good grades and my peers tell me i'm smart. i completely get the feeling of being trapped inside my head, overthinking, and being too aware of other people's response. so yes, i am one of these people who have experienced and is experiencing what you're going through.

i'm trying to fix the constant whirling of thoughts, and i'll put down a list of my tips with a note that just because it works for me, doesn't mean it's going to work for you. also, some of these tips came from other people's posts and the credit goes to them.

1) less planning

planning might work for some people, but for me, it just triggers my overthinking. so i try to plan only what i really have to plan. for me, it's deadlines for school assignments.

2) be aware of your brain's CPU usage (i.e. ask yourself if you're overthinking right now)

to prevent overthinking, you first have to notice that you are overthinking. but don't do this too much, as you might fall into the trap of overthinking about overthinking.

3) if you are overthinking, get some physical exercise

exercise can be anything from chewing gum to going to the gym.

i personally like to go out for a walk, or if it's raining, i'll do some bodyweight workouts. my take on this is that the body movement partially replaces the movement in your head.

4) getting outside of your house

i realized that staying too long inside makes me claustrophobic-ish and tends to trigger panic attacks and/or overthinking. so i go outside, where there's more to pay attention to other than what's going inside my mind. i have agoraphobic tendencies as well, so i listen to podcasts when i'm outside.

5) stop taking mental notes (kinda ironic but)

telling yourself that you have to do xy and z after i get home/finish this assignment is bad for my already busy brain. makes me overwhelmed.

6) find a way to "wind down"

i'm still struggling with this one. yesterday i took too many anti-anxiety pills in the hopes of getting in some state of relaxation. aside from the obvious unhealthiness of OD-ing, it didn't work, so don't do this :P the healthy option for me is to go to sit down by a river nearby. somehow trees don't work for me; water is what calms me down.

okay, i think the list has gotten to long by this point, so i'll stop here. hope you'll find something that works for you from this. :)

/r/Anxiety Thread