1) Never tell them to "just stop worrying" or to "just stop thinking about it" if they are in the midst of an anxiety attack. It does nothing. If you could just stop worrying about whatever it is, we totally would.

2) Remind them to breathe. Different people have different numbers, but basically concentrating on how long to breathe in, how long to hold it, and how long to exhale helps a lot. I was originally told to do 4 seconds in, 6 seconds hold, 8 seconds exhale. Over time I've changed it to 5 seconds in, 2 seconds hold, 5 seconds out, 2 seconds wait. Your friend can find the numbers right for him and it will help a lot.

3) Often times you just kind of have to ride out the attack and wait for it to end. Personally I always find it helpful to be by myself with a nice set of headphones and music of my choice. My college roommate said it always helped her get through attacks by just doing stream-of-consciousness writing. Maybe try different things with your friend to find what helps him calm down - maybe it's reading a good book, listening to music, writing, gardening, gaming, whatever.

Anxiety attacks are no fun. But if you can help your friend get through them more easily, he will definitely be grateful to you.

Yes, quite right!

Thanks! I definitely will post them, at the very least so I can get some feedback. I just finished recording a playthrough of the exploration/interpretation game Dear Esther and will hopefully have some videos of that edited up soon.

Just to be clear - when you say "proper tea is theft", I am assuming you mean the imperial/colonial ways in which it was brought to the West (with some cultural appropriation thrown in for good measure)? Or something else entirely?

Wow, this is a much different internet community than I'm used to! (But definitely not in a bad way!). If you live near Gisborne, I'll take you up on your coffee offer. I'll be sure to message/call if I have a question!

My favorite #tea when I wake up is Yorkshire Gold Blend. I've been using tea bags but I just found out that they also sell it loose leaf which blows my mind.

I also drink tea throughout the day and lately I've been on a bit of a Harney and Sons kick. I love their Palm Court black tea blend and their peppermind herbal is, bar none, the best mint tea I've ever had. And I've been to Morocco and had real Moroccan mint tea, so that's saying a lot I think.

Interesting tea experiences wise, like I said I've been to Morocco. I've been to a tea ceremony in China and sampled a number of different teas there (I still have a box of jasmine tea I got there that I break out as 'special occasion' tea). A bit less 'exotic' I suppose is at the Drake Hotel in Chicago - you can go and have Afternoon Tea. They have a fancy fountain and harpist, you pick a tea and they give you finger-sandwiches, pastries and deserts and infinite hot water til you are stuffed. It's amazing.

Wow thanks for the info! I'll definitely look into him.

Why, would you say, does anthropology need popularizing?

I'm 22 and I just finished school in December. I have a BA in English with minors in Anthropology and IT. In 3 weeks, I'm moving to New Zealand from the US to live with my fiance. I'm really excited and happy to finally move (been with him for 3.5 years).

But I'm nervous too. He lives in a small town and I feel like maybe my nice shiny new degree is worthless in a small town like that. I don't feel like I wasted the past 4.5 years getting it, but it doesn't feel right somehow. I'm hoping that I'm wrong and will be able to use my degrees in a a job there somehow. I think part of this is a general pressure that exists to get a degree based on the job you want. I've always firmly believed in getting the degree you enjoy the classes for and the career will follow. Now that I'm pushed up against that wall though it seems daunting

Generally, I'm trying to keep very open minded about everything and not make "in 5 years I will be ___" type plans. My plan right now consists of: Move to NZ, try not to stress out, get married in July, apply for Residency. Then we'll see what happens.

But I'm a perpetual worrier.

I think for me the only thing that trumps an Oberweiss chocolate malt is a chocolate cake shake from Portillo's.

Oh lol, the pun went right over my head!

Yea I've heard good things about hibiscus for hat sort of thing. Worked in a tea shop and had a woman come in every week for hibiscus for a similar ailment. I've never heard of it being mixed with basil but that sounds very interesting! Ill have to try that out.

If you want to see Sapir-Whorf in action, watch the Star Trek: Next Generation episode "Darmok". It sounds weird, but I had to watch it for an anthro class and write a paper about it and discuss the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

I also recommend reading up on the conduit metaphor.

I don't think I've ever met anyone in my anthropology department that likes Jared Diamond's writings. This article says exactly why: "the shallowness of the arguments, and it is this characteristic of Diamond's writings that drives anthropologists to distraction".

His conclusions and arguing points are just too shallow to be really good, thorough anthropological examinations.

Dunbar's number doesn't necessarily mean "150 friends". As the first line says, it's 150 "genuine social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us". So it might be a couple friends, but it also means your family members, the classmates you see regularly, your workmates and bosses, your neighbors, your school friends from when you were younger, etc.

This was great and I love David Mitchell's Soapbox channel. However I disagree with his point on smilies. Well, except maybe the "you're too fat" example, he has a good point there. However in general I think that smilies, too, fit into a linguistic gap that appears when using text based communication rather than voice or face-to-face communication: tone and/or body language.