How do you cope with anxiety?

It depends on what the root cause of the anxiety is. For me it was more so low self esteem in regards to my appearance that led to me not doing so well around others. In order to overcome that I worked on making my appearance more to my liking so that I’d finally be at least okay with the way that I looked. That involved doing a lot of cardio, ab work, and weight training to drop a lot of fat and put on a lot of muscle. Once the self confidence went up as a result, I found myself being a lot more at ease in social situations.

There’s also someone who I know who’s been diagnosed with social anxiety and so she takes medication for that. Obviously that required a clinical diagnosis and serves as a way to mitigate the symptoms but still.

As for just general ways to calm down, I find exercise is the best way to blow off a lot of steam quickly. Just keep lifting weights or running until you can’t anymore. You get to the point where you’re too tired to really care about anything. Other things that I found to be helpful are drawing and reading since they’ll at least keep your mind busy. If it’s a situation that I actually had to pay attention for, I’d mindlessly shuffle cards. The noise irritated my teachers but the fidgeting kept my hands busy which I found helpful.

It really depends on the thing that causes anxiety, there are smaller and bigger causes of it. As said above, our brain has certain situations where it reacts to certain events harder than it should. Our body overall is susceptible to impulses that sometimes happen without us actually thinking what to do, it just happens suddenly.

About anxiety overall, it has its pros and cons - when you're anxious over something, you'll most likely be a lot more careful when trying to do something, however on the other hand it may cause some issues, for example if you have social anxiety, you may not trust them very easily and you'd most likely be way more careful about their attitude or what they're actually doing. Unfortunately it may also cause a lot of issues when you're trying to socialize with people, or when you're trying to look for friends, etc. It's not the worst thing but it definitely has a lot of downsides.

I myself feel more and more anxious as I grow up because I've more responsibilities and tasks to do as an adult. I'm currently in the process of looking for a job, and it also increases anxiety because as you know, job interviews, interacting with new people, etc. It's all stressful at first but maybe once I get one, I may get used to everything and I'll feel more comfortable with myself. Starting everything is always hard, but as it goes on, it gets less and less stressful.

Listen to music, it always helps even on the worst of days.

My second suggestion is to cram hardcore nearer to exams, telling yourself that you have plenty of time to fuck around afterwards. It requires a ton of willpower, but it’ll help you develop some self-control and resilience. If you feel like you can’t cope, go for extra classes or tuition early, don’t wait until you flunk a test. That’s pretty much my advice after a pretty bad first semester for me. Most of the time, I get anxious when I feel overwhelmed by my load, so the best way to deal with it is not to put yourself in such a circumstance to begin with.

I don't experience much social anxiety but when I spend money on anything I get super anxious and scared. It mainly happens when going to restaurants to I usually don't buy desert or I don't get a second drink just so I can feel a little better about spending money before. Besides that I just try to be alone until I calm down. At school I try to make moments where Im alone so I can calm down if Im feeling anxious.

I kind of have social anxiety.
I'm afraid of being talked bad at and tend to think everyone secretly hates me. As well as think my very minor actions have a huge consequence and now everyone hates me for that one reason.

Recently, Ive come across some veeeery open friends and they're one of the reason I'm doing better

Thanks for contributing