How To Not Panic: From Someone Who Is Always Panicking
Build A Community That Doesn't Gaslight You, Write So Your Mind Isn't Full of Someone Else's Ideas, and Try an Affirmation Practice that Isn't Spiritual Bypassing
Hello, I’m Adeline. I write Ginseng & Tonic to deliver a straight shot of cultural & skincare analysis to your inbox every most Sundays. Subscribe for deep dives into the intersections of culture and beauty by a former cultural studies professor and current skincare formulator.
I spent the week after the American November 5 elections last year curled up in bed in head-to-toe panic.
I spent the week after January 20th, 2025 in a similar hyperventilated state. With the United States hurtling towards becoming a country I can’t recognize, it takes me all of what I’ve got to not become completely paralyzed daily.
Panicking has been hard on my middle aged body.
But it seems impossible to not panic when the exorbitant price of eggs on your grocery run makes you think twice about putting them in your cart. Impossible to stay calm when you wonder if your loved one will land safely every time they get on an airplane flight. Impossible to stay regulated when you say hello to your friendly immigrant neighbors, hoping you’ll continue to see them again day after day. It’s no wonder that our nervous systems are shot.
Yet I cannot survive for the long haul if I am constantly panicking over what is happening in the United States. So over the last 3 months as an act of self-preservation I’ve painstakingly cobbled together three completely free-of-charge techniques that have helped me to self-regulate from my constant panicking. I share them with you hoping they will help you too.
1. Build Community that Doesn’t Gaslight You
I am very introverted. I started off as an extrovert when I was a young child, before the world repeatedly told me I was too much. I finally retreated into my shell after age 30.
But since January 20th, I have been possessed with this unusual, primal urge to build connections. Not to cement the connections I already had, but to build new ones. I sundered a lot of existing ties. If they had quibbled with me about systemic racism before, I was done. If they had expressed that both candidates in the 2024 election were unfit, it was over.
I wanted to connect with people who share my reality. So I reached out to women acquaintances that I’ve always felt a connection to but with whom I hadn’t yet established an actual friendship. Most of these women were women of color I looked up to. I used my intuition, following my heart, rather than established ground. I asked these women if they would like to share some space over coffee, over a meal. I organized and hosted dinners.
When I met these women, I was direct and vulnerable. I told them that my mental health was suffering under the new administration, and asked how theirs was doing. I said that I had always felt a connection to them, and that I was hoping that I could be there for them and that they could be there for me as well.
And I’ve been blown away by the response. I was welcomed and blessed with connection. Many expressed that they felt similarly. Importantly, through establishing these connections, both of us felt more seen and safer.
It’s common knowledge that isolation causes depression. Being in community with people that I don’t need to explain or justify my feelings to has been liberating. As one of my new friends said to me, “you need to protect your peace.”
Protecting my peace comes from making real connections with people who aren’t gaslighting me. Knowing I have a network of people who share my reality and who are willing to stand with me in community has been one of the best things I’ve done to stop panicking.
2. Write Your Point of View
I started writing on Substack in February 2025. I initially started writing only about skincare, since my primary job now is skincare formulator for my own line, Sabbatical Beauty. But I needed to find a way to process the chaos and terror of the times we’re living in, so I ventured into cultural criticism. And I’m extremely grateful I’ve ventured in that direction. Writing has been one of the best things I’ve done for my mental health in years.
Writing works so well because it’s an act of production instead of an act of consumption. Just like you, I’m inundated daily by an onslaught of social media content that’s optimized to make me scared and angry. Content that inspires fear and anger is what the algorithm is optimized to push to us, because a scared and angry user stays longer on an app than a happy and well-adjusted one. The longer we stay on the apps, the more they can monetize our attention.
And yes, I’m well aware that you are probably reading what I’m writing on an app — one which also has its issues. But as of yet there are no advertisements on Substack, and this isn’t content aimed at pushing your emotional buttons.
Writing helps me to not panic because it forces me to parse through all the information I’ve consumed before I can write something of use. I do not write to parrot someone else’s perspective; I write to clarify my own. I write to establish my own reality amid being flooded by social media. I write to cut my own mental path of reality through the thickets of information.
I write because writing demands that I see the world clearly. And the mental clarity that writing demands lowers my panic. When my mind is clear, I am calm and grounded. But when I allow my reality to be defined by a sea of pundits, I slide into panic.
3. Affirm Yourself
If you’re a member of the science-forward crowd, affirmations may sound suspiciously MAHA at first. But just because there’s a branch of spirituality that has been hijacked by the wellness-influencer-to-January-6 pipeline doesn’t mean that spiritual practices are worthless.
Affirmations are simple positive statements that you repeat to yourself again and again to encourage positive change and challenge negative thoughts. Plenty of established religions have their equivalents; for example, in the ways that Catholics use a rosary to pray, or in the manner that Buddhists use mala beads to recite mantras.
Affirmations have completely shifted my mindset and self-concept. The key is that I have to do a lot of them. I repeat the same affirmation at least 10 000 times. I notice a shift in my mindset usually around 2000, another shift around 5000, and more shifts around 8000 and finally 10 000. I use this tallying app to keep count.
It takes me a really long time to get to 10 000 of the same affirmation, but I’ve experienced a real appreciable shift in my mood and levels of panic from practicing this regularly. After my daily practice, I feel more positive and hopeful. My nervous system drops down from on high alert. I am more functional.
Note that the biggest impact my affirmation practice has had is on my sense of self. Affirmations have transformed my self-concept and relationship to myself. I went from seeing myself as a powerless victim of a larger system to reclaiming my agency and abilities as a human being. And this is where the magic of affirmations lies, because when your self-concept changes, so does how you move through the world.

Help Me Help You Not Panic
The situation we are in is serious. The methods I’ve outlined here that help me to not panic are not meant to be used to ignore what’s going on, or to shut it out. Our daily life will be changing very soon. For some of us, daily life has already transformed.
But when everything around us is screaming 5-alarm fire, panic, panic now!!!, finding ways to emotionally regulate ourselves is critical. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t in a 5-alarm fire. And this fire isn’t going to be put out any time soon.
So help me to help you not panic. Try the three techniques in baby steps. Send a text to someone you think feels the way you do. Start a journal. Affirm yourself. My affirmation of choice is: I am safe, secure, loved and adored. Repeat it 100 times a day, 3x a day.
These techniques won’t make the world better. But they’ll help you to take better care of yourself as you navigate the new world we are in. To survive, all of us need to be able to choose to not panic. The most powerful tool we have in our arsenal is the choice of self-regulation, which is imperative for our resistance and survival.
Found this piece interesting? Read more of my work:
Conservative Beauty Trends: Tradwives, Hyperfemininity & the New Face of MAGA
Fascist Fetishcore: From MAGA to Muaddi Heels
The Outrage is the Point: Hate & Arousal in Politics, Marketing & Beauty
I love this.
Thank you Adeline! While we all live in different parts of the world, it seems like many of us share the same feelings of anxiety and helplessness when we see the direction the western world is heading too. I will definitely try some of your suggestions…starting with affirmations 🫶🏼