Tom Sykes believes he may hold the world record for the most panic attacks around the world. He’s had meltdowns in Manila and anxiety in Accra, nightmares in Nigeria and hyper vigilance in Vietnam.
As a travel writer with a hefty carry-on of generalised anxiety disorder, Tom has more than two decades of learning how to lug his spiralling mental health around the world while not missing his connecting flight.
Tom, from Portsmouth, was diagnosed with anxiety when he was 24 after years of partying. It began one Saturday morning when, lying in bed recovering from a drum ‘n’ bass all nighter, he found his vision was blurred and that he couldn’t breathe.
‘You think you’re dying when you have your first anxiety attack. It felt like the world was closing. I didn’t die, but I realised I needed to get to the bottom of what had happened,’ he tells Metro over Zoom from his office at the University of Portsmouth.
Tom endured a few hellish weeks of being unable to eat or sleep before he saw his GP, and he was relieved to hear that he was suffering from anxiety, as opposed to heart failure.
At the time, Tom, now 46, momentarily toyed with the idea of becoming a hermit and avoiding every situation that might trigger another anxiety attack. Luckily, he had a friend who also struggled who told him: ‘Absolutely not. Don’t do that. That is the worst thing you can do.’
So Tom has had to learn ways to follow his dreams, exploring the world as a freelance travel writer, guidebook author and foreign correspondent, all while battling a condition that tells him there is danger lurking around every corner.
Tom describes two anxiety gremlins. One emerges when dealing with visas, flights, bureaucrats and all the many pitfalls that come with travelling. This one is easy to deal with with grounding and deep breathing. Then there is the more pernicious version that rears its ugly head out of nowhere and hits him like a truck.
‘I’ve been in situations where I felt incredibly relaxed, with people that I know, enjoying some nice food and a drink when I’ve been suddenly struck by anxiety that hasn’t been triggered by anything that’s happened in that situation.’
On one occasion in Manilla in 2022, he was enjoying a night out with colleagues when the dreaded panic struck.
‘I’ve had a wonderful time in the Philippines; I’ve lived there and I love every moment of being there. I was with really nice, welcoming people, having wonderful discussions about Philippine history and about exciting future collaborations and we’re having this delicious meal in this gorgeous hotel, and suddenly, my throat has dried up and my heart is thumping like a broken clock and I’m shaking and I’m sweating. And everyone is asking if I was okay.’
Tom told them he was suffering with anxiety while reassuring them nothing they had said or done had triggered the attack.
Later in his hotel room, he tried to drink himself to sleep – a tried and tested method which had served him before – but this time it made the symptoms worse.
‘All the alcohol did was magnify the anxiety and the thoughts got darker and the physical symptoms got more horrible.’
Dizzy, nauseous and struggling to breathe, he staggered down to reception in the middle of the night to ask for a doctor. An ambulance was called and he was taken to a hospital. Later, following tests, Tom was at once relieved and embarrassed to find no physical illness, but paradoxically wished there was something more serious going on.
‘I was almost hoping that I did have a heart attack or a stroke, because, and it sounds very morbid and weird, at least I wouldn’t then feel terrible the next morning, that I’d been a bed blocker in a hospital in the Philippines because of my mental health issue.’
This wasn’t an isolated incident. Tom has managed many crises across the years, from restless legs and intense sweating that made working at a conference in the Philippines unbearable, to being convinced he was dying at the Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire border. He nearly drowned off beaches in Southeast Asia because of panic at sea and has struggled with sleep in India, Nepal and Nigeria.
‘It is scary. Because it’s not something you feel you can control,’ he says, though counselling later helped him realise the Manilla attack was related to delayed grief at the loss of a close friend.
Tom has never used medication, mainly because doctors advised him only to take it when he’s feeling bad, by which point he is too anxious to try it for the first time, and he has had mixed experiences with counselling. But he has his own anxiety toolkit that has kept him globetrotting.
‘The key thing that I’ve realised as an anxious traveler, you have to remind yourself that it’s better to put yourself through something than to avoid it. Avoidance really just takes you to a very dark place and can be very counterproductive.’
Tom’s top tips for managing anxiety while travelling:
● ‘Find a good distraction activity – a creative one if you can. For me it’s writing, but for other people it might be playing the piano, painting or even just looking at some art or reading a book. It’s called the “flow state” and for me, it really relieves me of anxiety because you just forget about everything and you’re not worrying about what’s going to happen in the future. Find your craft, music or hobby and pack it in your suitcase.
● Having a healthy body is a really important precursor to a healthy mind. When we travel we are in a rush and we often end up eating more junk food just for convenience. But you need to look after yourself really well to stave off anxiety. I’ve learned the hard way that alcohol just does not work. Using it as medication is not advisable. I wish I’d learned that earlier in my life as I would have saved myself a lot of stress.
● Breathing exercises are really important. It’s not always an easy thing to do, because it can feel very unnatural to sit there and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth at the airport. But if you can do that in advance of any stressful situation you can help prevent stressful situations from spiralling.
● Meditation has helped me regain my peace of mind on more than one trip. There are lots of apps and books you can get to help you learn how.
● Sea swimming is amazing. My own institution, the University of Portsmouth, made an amazing discovery where they put some subjects who were suffering from quite severe depression through a course of sea swimming, and they had some extraordinary results, where people overcame the depression. I try to swim in the sea whenever I can and that has really helped.’
Tom married Oge in 2022 and last year they had their first child, a baby girl called Amara. Focusing on her has been a huge help with the anxiety, and Tom has found the rigours of parenthood have required a healthier lifestyle that facilitates a calmer existence.
While he accepts that he may always carry anxiety with him, the condition is now manageable and becoming a dad has transformed his priorities.
‘It’s changed all the things I used to worry about. I can’t think about if I am going to look like an idiot to some people I am going to impress, because I’m too busy looking after a baby.
‘I’ve settled down and changed my lifestyle, from being on the road a lot and being very itinerant to becoming more conventional and settled down. And that has really helped settle me. I’ve learned that I can’t live a life completely void of anxiety. But for now, I’m glad not to be such an anxious person generally.’
Tom is author of ‘The years of travelling anxiously: A travel writer’s search for peace of mind’, due out in March