3 Ways to Manage Anxiety
Anxiety can be difficult to manage
The fact that you are reading this article may mean that you know how difficult Anxiety can be to deal with. It is like an evil step-sister that is always there trying to sabotage your relationships, mess with your motivation, keep you from advancing in your career, keep you from engaging in fun activities, and more.
Sometimes you are just minding your own business and it hits you like a brick. You are now feeling scared and want to run away. Logically, there is no reason to feel scared but you do. You try to figure out why.
Running away and trying to figure out why doesn’t help, it just keeps you from doing the things you care about and makes it worse. Actually, it sends a message to your brain that it was right, there is a danger worthy of attending to. Then your brain ramps it up even higher next time. But since there is no danger, you want to send the opposite message to your brain.
So, you may ask “what would help”? Well, the main idea is to accept the anxiety, notice it rather than act on it, and do something that you value while anxiety comes along for the ride.
To break this down, here are 3 things you can try:
Focus your attention on what is happening right here, right now. (Link to my Mindfulness Blog). What do you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch? What sensations are you feeling in your body? Note that these are likely false body sensations that are making you think you are in danger because they mimic how your body feels when you really are in danger.
Notice the anxious thoughts rather than engaging with them. Let’s say you are on your way to a party and have an anxious thought that you won’t know anyone there, will stand by yourself all night, and people will think that you’re weird. You then engage with the thought by making a mental list of who might be there or listing the advantages and disadvantages of going. Instead, notice the thought without engaging with it. To do this, you can say to yourself “I’m noticing I’m having a thought that I won’t know anyone there, will stand there by myself all night, and people will think I’m weird”. Then continue on to the party. When the thought comes up again, notice it again. When a new anxiety thought comes up, notice that one too. If you start seeing a theme, notice the theme by saying to yourself “there goes that ________ thought again”. In this case, it might be “There goes that people will reject me thought again”. Each time, continue on to the party.
Engage in a valued activity. Instead of choosing the most readily available activity to distract yourself from the anxiety, pause and think: “what is something I could do that’s important to me?” and then do that instead. This activity may take more effort but in the long run, you will feel more satisfied knowing that you spent time on meaningful activities. For example, let’s say that you don’t value spending time on social media before 5 pm. But when you feel anxious at 2 pm, you reach for your phone and start scrolling through Instagram. After an hour, you stop and think: “ugh, I just spent an hour on social media”. Instead of immediately reaching for your phone, you pause to think of something you could do that’s important to you such as making a healthy meal. So, you plan out the meal and go through all of the steps to make it. Later, you go to bed and wake up feeling proud of yourself for following your “healthy eating” value.
This is just a sample of things you can do to manage anxiety but it is a good start. Focus on what’s going on in the present moment, notice your anxious thoughts rather than engaging with them, and engage in an activity you value. Try all three or just one and see what happens!