racing thoughts causing anxiety

I now believe my anxiety is due to racing thoughts caused by being unable to only keep one thought in my mind at a time . . . this is why I relax once I become involved in a work problem and it consumes my total attention ( on site ) and why I become so over whelmed when I have time ( like before sleep or on waking ) ( or on way to and from a job) when multiple thoughts run thru my mind . . . keeping my mind limited to one though seems to really reduce anxiety and stress . . . I suppose this is like mindfulness but limited to one chain of thought only . . . meditation does not work for me due to my ringing ear and body pains that seem to over whelm me when I get very still and quite . . . this is also why xanex works so well for me . . as it “ turns “ my mind off . . .

I am now on Viibryd , trazodone , xanex (prn) and have started lamictal . . . has anyone found a way to stop the racing thoughts either by med or therapy . . .

I am on furlow this week from work and am using xanex and you tube to keep my mind busy and focused on that little laptop screen . . . I also need to learn how to just stop caring so much about all the little things of life . . . when I was young I buried myself in religion and paranoia ( carried a gun all the time) and these keep my mind busy and distracted , , , my stress started when I got over the paranoia and put the guns away and completely gave up on religion . . .

I am interested in anyone’s experience with ro dbt . . . .

Tigger

I have racing, anxious thoughts sometimes. There is no single thing that totally stops it. It seems to come and go for me . However, the following things do help:

--Limiting my time watching bad news (COVID-19 news, financial news and even PC posts because so many people on PC have endured tragedy and trauma). Though I do believe in viewing and reading some news.--we have to stay informed. We also have to get away from it and just rest and smell the roses. It is also good to stay in touch with the PC community and respond to people but IMO, when I was on PC constantly (in 2016, etc.), it got to be a compulsive, OCD-like thing. I was checking in too much which was not a wise use of my time.

--Relaxing long walks everyday. I love watching the birds in my neighborhood--especially the swallow tailed kites (the way they fly is magnificent) and the hawks (the smaller birds are always chasing them away from their nests).

--Limiting my caffeine intake to the first two cups of coffee everyday. I switch to decaf after that.

--Forcing myself to lay down and read or do nothing midday if I know I did not have sufficient sleep the night before. Sometimes I can even fall asleep now! Something I could rarely do before.

--Doing other physical things rather than sitting--housework and cooking also counts for me.

--Continuing to figure out adjustments to my medications. My psych and I figured out that my bupropion (welbutrin) dose was making me anxious. Now I only take 100 mg per day. Also, for me, and from what I have read, xanax is a med that we can build tolerance to, so if we use it daily, it can become less effective. I try to use it sparingly--only when I have not been sleeping for multiple nights in a row or if I find I am having racing thoughts at bedtime. I have also been prescribed 25 mg a day of Zoloft which also seems to be helpful. Most of the time, I fall asleep pretty easily and end up short on sleep due to getting up at one or two AM in the morning. However, due to following the previous things I just mentioned, it is not happening very much lately.

--In the past, when I have had a 40 hour a week or more job, it would get me wound up and on the days I worked the hardest, it would be hard to sleep. Fridays nights would be the hardest. I used to volunteer to do overtime--this was probably not wise given my tendency to become consumed with things. Figuring out a work/life balance is challenging but very important.