HJ: One way that I deal with anxiety is something called an automatic thought record, which I think comes from cognitive behavioral therapy. And basically, what you do is if you notice you’re having some kind of distressing thought, you take a second, and you write down what triggered it, what that automatic thought was, what the distressing thought that you noticed, or how you’re feeling is. And then you challenge it.
I know I have a pattern of responding to this kind of thing in this way. My brain is just trying to keep an eye out for me, but the scale of this reaction is not very helpful. And a lot of the time I would use this strategy if I was, like, in lab, or otherwise trying to do something else and felt really overwhelmed with the anxiety I was feeling as sort of a way to reset and ground myself, like pay attention to the anxiety, give it its moment so that it could then move on, and try to get on with my day.