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You know the feeling. One second you're fine. Present, talkative, genuinely okay. & then something happens. Someone says something, or you see something, & it's like hitting a wall. The conversation keeps going around you but you've gone somewhere else entirely. You're quiet now. You're trying to act normal. & inside your head it's anything but.
That's the beginning of a spiral. & if you've ever been in one you know that the worst part isn't even the thought itself. It's the speed. Once it starts, good luck stopping it. Your mind locks on & it does not let go easily.
I know this feeling well. For me it starts in my body before it fully registers in my mind. My chest tightens. My breath gets shallow. & then that familiar tension creeps up through my upper back, my traps, my shoulders. Places I apparently store every emotion I've ever tried to hold quietly. My body is always the first to know.
What I've learned, slowly, through a lot of trial & error, is that what works in a spiral is not what sounds good on paper. Meditation sounds lovely. Journaling sounds therapeutic. Breathing exercises sound perfectly reasonable. & when I'm already spiraling? None of them work for me. My mind is moving too fast, the activation is too high, & sitting still with it just gives it more room to grow.
What actually works is movement. Fast, physical, get-out-of-your-head movement. Which is also, of course, the absolute last thing I want to do when I'm spiraling. But that's exactly why it works. It interrupts the loop in a way that stillness simply can't.
The first thing I reach for is my body. Not a gentle stretch. An actual walk, a workout, anything that gets me out of the room & into my body fast. Even ten minutes changes the chemistry of what's happening inside you. Your nervous system cannot stay in full activation while your body is moving rhythmically. The bilateral stimulation of walking literally interrupts the spiral at a physiological level. It's not a distraction. It's a reset. If you need a mat to come home to, the Stakt mat is the one I use & love. It folds flat & lives in the corner of my room so there's no excuse not to unroll it.
The next thing I do is put my phone down. I know. I know because I do it too, that instinct to grab your phone & just numb the thoughts out with content & scroll & scroll & scroll forever. It never works. All scrolling does is give your activated nervous system more input to process while the spiral runs quietly underneath. Put the phone face down. It will still be there when you're regulated.
Then I give it space & time. This sounds like the least satisfying advice in the world when you're in it, but it's the most honest thing I can tell you. Sometimes a spiral needs to move through you before it moves out of you. Fighting it, suppressing it, pretending you're fine, that just compresses it. Letting it exist without acting on it is its own form of regulation.
I also try to talk to the person if I can. This is the one that actually works the fastest & is also the one that feels the most impossible when you're shutdown & quiet & trying to hold it together. But speaking through the spiral with the person who set it off, calmly, when you're ready, is almost always the quickest path through. It's not as scary as your mind tells you it will be. & the relief on the other side of that conversation is worth every second of the discomfort it takes to start it.
I support my nervous system from the inside too. When I'm in a heightened state I reach for a magnesium supplement. It genuinely takes the edge off anxiety & helps my body downshift. It's not a fix, but it's a support. I'll also put on something calming in the background. Not a true crime podcast, not social media, something that gives my nervous system something gentle to land on.
& then I write it out after. Not during. Journaling in the middle of a spiral doesn't work well for me. I'm too activated, too in it. But writing after, once the wave has passed, is incredibly useful. Getting it out of your body & onto paper closes the loop in a way that just thinking about it never does.
Here's what I want you to remember the next time you feel it starting. That chest tightening, that breath going shallow, that sudden quiet that comes over you when you're trying so hard to act normal. You are not losing control. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It got activated & now it needs help coming back down.
That's not weakness. That's biology. & there are real things you can reach for.
If you want another gentle place to start, Remembrance is a free guide & a quiet return to yourself. & if you want to go deeper, The Soft Landing is a 7-day return for the woman who is tired of pushing her way through the hard moments & ready to actually come home to her body.
Stay close,
Jess