About 2 years back, I had a very weird feeling with my heart. I had been working late, and had a lot of soda pop that night. While I felt alright, I just felt real uneasy for some reason while laying down in bed.

Since I felt something weird with my heart I wanted to see what my heart rate looked like on my phone, while it initially looked normal, it just jumped out of nowhere and immediately I went into what felt like was a heart attack. I had never experienced something like this before, and I called 911 immediately. Luckily, my place wasn’t far from the hospital and the ambulance was able to arrive within minutes.

While I was having a racing heart beat and shivery, the paramedics assessed me and informed me that what I was going through was a panic attack. Before, this happened, I had never even heard of that term. I was taken to the hospital and my blood report and electrocardiogram looked normal. After monitoring for a few hours at the hospital, I was released and told that I should check with my family doctor if anything else needs to be done.

While the racing heart beat and shivering had gone before I left the hospital, I felt like my whole body had messed up, for some strange reason it just seemed like it was hard to breath and I had to really focus to keep breathing while trying to sleep. I felt slightly better after waking up.

I thought it was a one-time event, but it started to happen often and since my blood report came alright, I couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Whenever I would start to feel anxious, I would try to drink water and go for a walk and that seemed to help a bit. The issue started to bother me a lot since it was happening everyday.

Always Consult A Doctor
I consulted my family doctor who informed me that panic attacks are quite common and it can take a while for your body to heal. Also he mentioned that it takes some time to stop thinking about going into another panic attack. The blood reports appeared normal to him as well so no prescription medication or additional tests were advised for me.

Stop Having Caffeine Based Products
I started to monitor what I was eating, and doing, and then I realized that there was a pattern. I noticed that whenever I took Dr Pepper (soda pop), I would feel anxious and think that I might go into a panic attack. I looked up online and turns out caffeine in drinks was responsible for causing panic attacks. To test this out, I stopped drinking soda for a couple of days during which I felt better and then tried to get back on drinking soda, which seemed to bring anxiety back.

Before this I loved caffeinated drinks and chocolates. But now I can’t have a single piece of chocolate or a sip of drink. I have tried to get back on such products but everytime I have tried, it has brought my anxiety back.

Cutting off caffeine, really helped bring my symptoms a lot under control. Even though I still feel my stress/anxiety go up, it was a lot worse when I took caffeine based products.

Try Out Meditation For Sleeping
It was really hard to sleep for the first few months, with my mind thinking sometimes that I will go under another panic attack. So I started to listen to meditation music which helped me take my attention away from what was going on my mind and helped me to sleep.

Try Stress Relief Supplements – Ashwagandha and Vitamin B Complex
I started to look into products that might potentially help me reduce my stress. I didn’t think that they would work initially but I noticed that my anxiety reduced significantly once I started taking Ashwagandha and Vitamin B Complex on a daily basis. Now my stress/anxiety issues don’t impact me on a day-to-day basis.

I have tried some other anti-anxiety supplements however the most that have benefit me were Ashwagandha and Vitamin B complex.

Exercise Might Reduce Stress
Personally I have noticed that the days when I exercise, I feel I have less anxiety compared to other days when I have not exercised. I don’t know exactly about how the body works but exercise seems to help me feel a bit better.

Aromatherapy With Essential Oils Might Benefit
It’s a little hard for me to measure how much impact this has had but I have just felt a little nice whenever I have my diffuser on with essential oils. It might be worth trying aromatherapy and see if you feel better yourself as well.

Avoid Thrill Seeking
From time to time, I have felt that if I tried to accelerate fast, honk while driving it can cause me to get anxious. So I try not to do that anymore. Also I realized that sitting on a speed boat can cause me to get anxious as well. If you have felt the same, then it’s time to put a break to your thrills.

It took me a while to figure out what works for me and what doesn’t. Also what worked for me, might not work for you. This list is also not comprehensive I am sure that there are many other things that you could try out to keep your stress and anxiety under control. I was surprised to see that there are stress relief shoes available in the market these days, while I haven’t tried them out yet, I am really interested in getting a pair and see if they would work for me.