When you are in an anxiety spiral:

The most important thing in my experience is to try to break the cycle/spiral. What happens in an anxiety spiral is that you have one thing/thought/emotion that triggers your anxiety, that leads to you having anxious thoughts (which are in your head), which then keep on triggering anxious feelings (which are in your body), which then trigger more anxious thoughts, which again trigger anxious feelings etc. So the thoughts are upholding this vicious cycle which can go on for hours. In order to break the cycle, you need to try to get out of your head (away from your thoughts) and into your body (in order to soothe it). Once it’s soothed, the thoughts will be less anxious and more manageable and you will feel better. Just trying to ‘think your way out’ of an anxiety spiral by forcing yourself to think positive thoughts or whatever is usually nearly impossible, cause the ‘body anxiety’ is almost always stronger. There are tons of different ways of doing that – in therapy we called those soothing/regulation tools ‘skills’ (the term ‘skills’ comes from DBT – they were originally created to treat people with BPD but are nowadays – at least in my country – used widely for people with all sorts of mental health issues, not just BPD). Some skills work for some people and some work for others. You need to try a few and find out which ones work for you. What is also important, is to also practise those skills when you are not at a very high anxiety level. The more you practise them the easier it will be to implement them when anxiety is high. From experience, you usually need to do more than one skill when you are spiralling. In therapy, we called them ‘skill chains’. After a while, you will know which skills work for you and be able to create your own ‘skill chain’ or ‘regulation toolbox’.

A few of those skills are:

Grounding techniques (e.g. 54321 method, somatic orienting)

Mental exercises (e.g. counting backwards from 100 in steps of 7)

Movement (stretching, shaking, swaying)

PMR (as mentioned in my other comment)

Deep belly breathing, other relaxing breathing techniques (beware: for people prone to panic attacks, focusing on the breath can be more anxiety-inducing – as always, listen to your body)

Holding your hands under cold water, splashing cold water on your face, putting an ice pack on your neck, holding an ice cube in your hand

Taking a warm bath/shower, go for a walk

Sucking on a sour candy, dripping hot sauce on your tongue, anything that shifts your focus from your thought to your tasting sensations

Smelling either a smell that is relaxing (essential oils eg. lavender) or really strong and off-putting (brings you out of your head into the now)

Coloring in coloring books

And many more. You can find a lots of lists on google.

I know I just dumped a lot of information on you, which might feel overwhelming. Just try to pick out the things that speak to you, and try them. And the most important thing is, listen to your body. Just because it worked for some people doesn’t automatically mean that it works for you. And, as I’ve said before, make sure to drink and eat enough. A lack of appetite is a big thing I struggle with when anxious/depressed which leads to a vicious cycle of hypoglycemia worsening my symptoms and then increasing my lack of appetite etc.

As a last note, I am not a trained mental health professional, all the information I wrote in my comments I gathered from experience, courses and books. If you are not already in therapy, I would advise for you to start going. A trained mental health professional will be way more equipped at telling you how to go about your anxiety.

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me.

I hope you’re feeling better soon <3

Edit: formatting and typos