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Anxiety is a natural dialogue between our mind and body. It’s a red flag that something might be going on in our surroundings that requires our attention. For most of us, anxiety is an uncomfortable but fleeting feeling that pops up on occasion during particularly stressful times. For some, anxiety may be more present and […]
Anxiety is a natural dialogue between our mind and body. It’s a red flag that something might be going on in our surroundings that requires our attention.
For most of us, anxiety is an uncomfortable but fleeting feeling that pops up on occasion during particularly stressful times. For some, anxiety may be more present and color more of their daily life. And for still others, anxiety is a constant torture; a nightmare they can’t awaken from.
Depending on your level of anxiety, there are some healthy coping strategies you can use to manage it. Here are 4 I recommend:
Mind Your Mind
How often are you aware of your own thoughts? Our thoughts tend to bubble up from our subconscious without much control from our conscious mind. For those experiencing anxiety, many of these thoughts will be negative and frightening, although the majority will not be based in reality.
Start to pay attention to the thoughts behind the feelings. Instead of thinking the worst will happen, challenge the thought. What is the realistic likelihood the worst will happen on a scale of 1 – 10?
The more you do this, the more you will retrain your mind to process life differently.
Remind Yourself What Anxiety Is
Beyond frightful emotions, anxiety often comes with physical sensations like tightness in the chest, rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath. In other words, it can feel like you are dying.
But you’re not.
You are having a physical response to an irrational fear or thought. Remind yourself of that ancient dialogue your mind and body are having and know that, in reality, you are okay.
Learn Your Triggers
Once you learn to pay attention to your thoughts and remain calm knowing you are having a natural reaction to what you perceive as a threat, find the threat. Observe your surroundings to find the potential trigger that activated your reaction. If there are other people in the room, notice their reaction to your trigger. Do they seem uneasy or concerned in the least? Chances are they don’t because the threat is not real. Store this information away so eventually your subconscious mind will stop thinking of the trigger as a threat.
Breathe
Slow, deep breaths have been shown to instantly calm a person. Your heart rate will slow, your muscles will relax, your entire body will return to a normal state of being. Don’t underestimate the power of just taking a moment to breathe.
If you find you need a bit more help controlling your anxiety, please get in touch with me. I would be more than happy to discuss treatment options with you.
Some common anxiety symptoms include shortness of breath, increased heart rate, shaking, sweating and dizziness. Since anxiety manifests in the body many common treatments for anxiety include things such as meditating, relaxation breathing, yoga and practicing calming visualization or mindfulness techniques. You may wonder how cognitive therapy or talk therapy in general can help with […]
Some common anxiety symptoms include shortness of breath, increased heart rate, shaking, sweating and dizziness. Since anxiety manifests in the body many common treatments for anxiety include things such as meditating, relaxation breathing, yoga and practicing calming visualization or mindfulness techniques. You may wonder how cognitive therapy or talk therapy in general can help with decreasing anxiety given these physiological symptoms and emotional feelings caused by anxiety. Edmund J. Bourne PhD and author of the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook Sixth edition offers some examples of self talk that contributes to anxiety. According to Bourne, these thought patterns include such things as overestimating a negative outcome, catastrophic thinking or making something bigger than it actually is and underestimating your ability to cope with a feared or real outcome. Looking at anxiety producing thoughts and asking ourselves what evidence these thoughts contain is another strategy for dealing with anxiety. Sometimes anxiety producing thoughts are about future outcomes or what if thinking. We may fear something will go wrong but we do not know that it will happen or we may predict that we will not be able to cope when it does happen. By looking at the evidence of our thoughts or predictions we may come to the conclusion that our fears are exaggerated. One reason that talk therapy may help with anxiety is that our emotions and experiences can be triggers for anxiety. Being in a situation that reminds us of something unpleasant can cause our anxiety to resurface without our awareness of why we are feeling anxious. Talking about our experiences in therapy can help us to reprocess events so we are less triggered by these events without our awareness. Talking with a therapist about your anxiety concerns can help because of the individualized treatment provided through therapy and the ability to address what you are feeling directly as it applies to your individual situation.