I’m sure I’m not the only one who experiences this, but when I’m doing something later on in the day I’ll get very anxious. The added problem is that I feel this in my body, particularly in the fact that I will constantly need to poop. Apologies in advance for all the mentions of poop.

My morning goes like this if I have something coming up: Wake up, really need to poop, have a normal poop fine. Feel ok after. Then over the next half and hour or so my anxiety will start to climb again and then I’ll need to poop again, this time less normal. The feeling before will feel so intense. More often than not this happens in the middle of breakfast and I can’t eat any more. Then for the rest of the day I feel uncomfortable and nauseous, often going to the toilet several more times. This often happens before I’ve even had much of a chance to feel anxious mentally. It’s like my body just knows what’s coming.

The big problem is that this anticipatory anxiety often makes the thing I’m feeling the anxiety about even worse, like there’s this added layer of feeling nauseous and needing to poo which often means I end up feeling more anxious and sometimes cancel my plan. My physical symptoms trap me into a cycle of anxiety, so it’s really different to break it. Not helped by the fact my anxiety is caused mostly by emetophobia.

I have been prescribed propranolol, but I decided with my therapist that over time this has become a safety behaviour, so I’ve been trying my best to reduce the usage and only use it for really dire moments of anxiety.

Does anyone have any advice on how to reduce the physical symptoms of anxiety? A the moment it feels like the biggest hurdle in overcoming my anxiety for good.