Sara Bareilles is emerging from a monthslong bought of acute anxiety.
The singer, songwriter and Broadway star has grappled with the condition for years. She had been doing well enough to stop taking Lexapro, an antidepressant, she said. Then a close friend died, and she began to spiral downward.
“The bottom dropped out and I couldn’t find the surface again,” Ms. Bareilles said onstage at the New York Times Well Festival in Brooklyn last week.
Ms. Bareilles was speaking on a panel about living with anxiety, alongside Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. It was moderated by Dan Harris, the host of the “10% Happier” podcast — who, as he told the audience, is perhaps best known for having had a “coke-fueled panic attack on ‘Good Morning America.’”
“If you Google ‘panic attack on television,’ you can see it for yourself,” he said. “It’s the No. 1 result.”
None of the panelists claimed to have conquered anxiety. But they shared some of the strategies that have helped them cope.
Focus on action.
Mr. Harris applauded Ms. Bareilles’s openness about her recent struggles. It’s good that our culture talks about anxiety more openly than ever before, he added.
“But one of my critiques is that we — especially in social media — tend to wallow in the suffering,” Mr. Harris said. He wanted people to turn to the “many, many things you can do about it.”
Ms. Bareilles agreed, noting that those with anxiety — herself included — can start to “wear” the diagnosis as a kind of identity.
It’s not easy or simple to move forward, the panelists agreed. Dr. Keltner described anxiety as “one of the hardest conditions to overcome.”
Still, as a guiding principle, Mr. Harris said he liked to remind himself: “Action absorbs anxiety.”
Be willing to experiment.
Different coping mechanisms work for different people. Ms. Bareilles said she relied on therapy, medication, meditation, exercise and “lots and lots and lots of human connection.” (An attempt to self-medicate with the drug MDMA was a fiasco, she said.)
Dr. Keltner, who said he had his first panic attack at age 30, has sought comfort in music, meditation, pickup basketball and time in nature.
“The single best thing you can do outside of social connection is get outdoors,” he said, adding that research shows: “Clouds and sky and light and the sound of water and the smell of spring get into your nervous system and calm it all down.”
Mr. Harris has been in talk therapy for years, he told the audience, and is using exposure therapy to manage the panic attacks he experiences on planes and in elevators. He and his therapist “go around New York City and try and find the most diabolically small elevators” and ride them together, he said.
“I really believe that people should do what works for them,” Mr. Harris said.
Cultivate mindfulness.
The speakers emphasized the roles of mindfulness and meditation in their own lives. It can help to start small, just doing a few minutes here and there, Mr. Harris said.
He has built a second career as an evangelist for meditation, but he acknowledged the practice might not resonate with everyone. Meditation might even serve to pile on the anxiety for some people.
“If you’re trying to alleviate or mitigate stress, adding a stressful item to your to-do list seems counterproductive,” Mr. Harris said.
So what should you do? Find something that can help you tap into a sense of calmness and awe, Dr. Keltner encouraged the audience.
Music, for instance, can offer a real sense of peace, he added. So can visual art.
Dr. Keltner recently tried a New York Times focus challenge, spending 10 minutes looking at van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” he said. He found himself tearing up as he took in the painting.
“There are many ways to meditate,” he told the audience.
Catherine Pearson is a Times reporter who writes about families and relationships.
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