Anxiety attacks from repetitive work? What’s the connection and how do I stay mentally healthy?

Question by cleverdevil76: Anxiety attacks from repetitive work? What’s the connection and how do I stay mentally healthy?
First, let me say that my job is boring and repetitive. I’m an order picker for a major food warehouse. Shit work, but the pay is….steller. What I do is ride around the warehouse on a power-jack with a head set on that tells me where to go and how many to put on my pallet. Now, the thing about getting paid well to do such mundane work is that you’ve gotta move your ass. There’s a percentage to keep and I usually spend my day running to catch it. With me so far? Okay. So, I work to live. I don’t live to work. I say no to overtime if I don’t want it. I show up, do my hours and go home. But every couple of months I run this stretch where I’ll get the worst anxiety attacks. Sometimes it’s prompted by a call to the supervisor’s office and I’m almost hyperventilating; other times it’ll hit while I’m work. My adrenaline is already going because of the work, but I can feel my hands trembling as I’m actually lifting boxes. My knees go weak…uncoordinated.

Just lately I decided to ask around if anyone else has these anxiety attacks while they’re working and the most unexpected people are saying yes. I was happy to realize that the anxiety was a side effect of the job, and less of a dysfunction in my mind…with my mental chemical processes.

So right off, anti-depressants are out. We’re not even discussing their merits or my history with them. I know this is something I can over come myself, but I was hoping someone might offer some guidance. Meditation maybe? Is that the only suggestion?

I look forward to any responses and advice. Thank you in advance.

Best answer:

Answer by Male 23
I have to say from reading your post you definitely have a strong mind, thats good. There are quite a few things you can do try and keep the anxiety attacks at bay.

Some of these may sound stupid or obvious but if you find one helpful then good.

1) Make sure you take 30 minutes per day to do something other that your daily routine.

2) You already do exercise with your job, but how about fun exercise, like going for a long walk or playing tennis?

3) Music. The mind responds to many different external stimuli. Relaxing music can be very helpful.

4) Tai Chi, this can be very helpful as it trains your muscles to relax allowing your body to recharge.

5) Meditation also ties in with the above

6) Blood sugar – did you know that the symptoms of low blood sugar are the same as an anxiety attack? You dont have to be diabetic to have low blood sugar, try something sugary like a chocolate bar.

7) Breathing, this is a very important one for anxiety. The aim is to do a breathing ratio of 2:3. So if you breath in for 10 seconds, make sure you breath out for 15. If you can do this for 5 whole minutes per day you should find it helpful.
Distraction, its hard to do but I was once told that you need to pretend you are an actor and act out the things you would normally do – not sure if that makes total sense.

9) Support groups, im talking about websites and forums. There is a very good one called nomorepanic. Im on there (uk23 is my username). There are a lot of people on there who would be able to relate and offer some very good advice.

Hope you found at least 1 of those helpful

What do you think? Answer below!

Technorati Tags: anxiety, attacks, connection, from, Healthy, mentally, repetitive, Stay, What's, work