Interesting Psychology Team
How to Deal with Anxiety
The good news is that anxiety is not a life sentence. All these feelings can improve with the help of a medical professional, and ideally a team of people with complementary approaches. Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, includes mindfulness to help people be present, regulate their emotions, and deal with distress. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, sometimes in combination with medication, helps people understand how their thought patterns contribute to feelings of anxiety and how they can change their thoughts to improve how they feel. New behavior techniques also help reduce or eliminate the symptoms of anxiety. Here are several that can be useful starting points on how to control anxiety without medication:
1.β β Be a detective: Learn what triggers your anxiety.
When you feel anxious, jot down in your journal what is causing that feeling. It may be work deadlines, relationship issues, family, unexpected news.β¦ Identify the cause and write it down, giving your level of anxiety a number on a scale of 1β10, with 1 being the lowest. If you really want to track it, set your phone alarm for three times per day for one week, and when the alarm goes off, jot down your anxiety levels. Notice if there are variations during the day; look for any patterns.
2.β β Mindfulness meditation:
One of the strategies more people are tuning in to is meditation, which improves resiliency and reduce stress, sharpens focus and attention, while reducing the bodyβs inflammatory response and pain. It is being taught in schools, corporations, and community centers, not to mention being available on a variety of apps, such as Headspace, Calm, or Insight Timer. Today, this is almost Stress Survival 101.
Thereβs more than one way to develop a mindfulness practice. While some people respond to sitting meditation, others are much better off with moving meditation, like tai chi, yoga, chi gong, or even hiking in nature. Controlled breathing helps calm the body and mind and activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Progressive relaxation and guided imagery helps the body release tensions and relaxβitβs helpful to get to sleep, too. Biofeedback connects people to electric sensors to teach them to control their bodyβs functions, like heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension.
3.β β Work with the body to heal trauma:
There are also somatic therapists to help the body release trauma. The idea is that the body has an innate intelligence, down to the cellular level, and each cell is connected to the others. Normally, if something disturbing arises, the body knows what to do to come back to equilibrium. Scientist Dawson Church points out that problems in listening to the bodyβs cues come up when trauma occurs, as in a situation when people perceive their life to be in danger, something is too overwhelming to cope with, they feel powerless, or the situation violates expectations. This is when the emotions and pathways of energy within the body can get blocked. This is when we βcheck out.β It is hard to be fully present and engaged when part of our thoughts and emotions are still stuck in a past trauma. Here are some options that may be useful to explore.
β’ EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, found to be helpful for PTSD and panic attacks, uses specific eye movements in conjunction with therapy to release emotional distress.
β’β β Cranial sacral therapy works through the body, focusing on opening up the central nervous system and releasing restrictions that can cause pain or dysfunction.
β’β β Acupuncture works with tiny needles to unblock the energy channels of the body, known in Chinese medicine as meridians.
β’β β Acupressure does the same thing without the needles, and reflexology focuses on the feet or hands to release tension throughout the body.
β’β β Tapping (also known as EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique) combines acupuncture and psychology to release old traumas and has been widely used.
β’β β Psych-K focuses on changing underlying beliefs related to self-esteem, relationships, and physical health.
β’β β HeartMath has more than three hundred validated studies, showing how people can move into a state called βcoherence,β where the heart, mind, and emotions are all aligned and stress is dramatically reduced. This is done through shifting the rhythms of the heart, which sends a different neuromessage to the brain.
If you havenβt tried these yet, see which ones you are drawn to and explore how any one of these can help you release trauma, re-center, and allow your body-mind connection to function in healthier ways. You will learn to place more attention on how to navigate through anxiety and trauma, rather than getting stuck there. The point is that there are many modalities that can and do help. You can create a personal toolbox of coping resources to help you take control of your life.
Having these resources at hand can make a big difference. One study from the University of Cambridge followed women who were poor and those who were rich to track their levels of anxiety. It was not a shock that the financially secure women had less anxiety. What was surprising, though, was that among the women who were poor, those who used coping resources were significantly less anxious.
Author Olivia Remes elaborates that the research showed that:
βThe way you cope or handle things in life has a direct impact on how much anxiety you are experiencingβtweak the way youβre coping, therefore, and you can lower your anxiety levels.β
4.β β Build your team:
Have a go-to person you can talk to the minute you feel anxiety coming on. She/he can help you test your assumptions to evaluate how real they are, remind you that you cannot control everything, and offer some perspective about how important that issue is in the whole span of your life. Depending on the intensity of your anxiety, you may want to seek an experienced health professional who can work more quickly to help you get results.
5.β β Donβt forget the self-care:
Remember the basics: sleep is vitally important to recover from stress, and exercise, including yoga, walking/running, and chi gong, helps you maintain emotional equilibrium. Did you know that alcohol or caffeine can escalate anxiety and trigger panic attacks? Sugar, as tempting as it is, does not help either. Maintain your glucose levels with regular meals and healthy, protein-filled snacks. Sometimes a good healthy cry relieves a lot of stress in no time at all. Anxiety is a state that involves the body as well as the mind, so donβt take your one precious body for grantedβhelp it help you.
6.β β The 4-7-8 Breath:
Breath is used to re-center in athletics, childbirth, and martial arts. Dr. Andrew Weil offers this 4-7-8 breath as the most powerful antianxiety measure he has found: inhale quietly through your nose for a count of four, retain the breath (donβt exhale yet) for seven counts, then exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of eight. Do this for only four rounds. (Some people start with an inhale for four counts, hold for four and exhale for sixβsee which one you prefer.) This should be practiced twice a day. In the evening, it will also help you fall asleep. It is known to be effective in anxiety-provoking situations. Over time, with regular daily practice, be prepared to notice the difference. One and a half minutes per day can change your life.
7.β β Change your state of mind:
When you notice the beginnings of anxiety and you are zooming into a vortex of negative thoughts, change your thoughts and your actions. If your thoughts are moving into future scenarios that are filled with negative outcomes, bring yourself back to the present. Activate your senses to notice how your body feels in the moment, where you are sitting, the details of objects on the surface of the table, hear the sounds outside the window, observe colors around youβbe here now. You can also change your headspace by getting your body moving: go for a walk around the block and notice your surroundings; get some nature near you if you can. You can also turn on a funny video, which might be the quickest way to break from the state of anxiety. By the way, if you find yourself turning to your phone for instant relief if you get anxious, try to be aware of that tendency and really tune in to the root of the problem instead of distracting from it.
8.β β U.N.L.O.C.K. a more resourceful approach:
If you are experiencing panic, check out the symptoms with a doctor first. If the issue is not physically based, seek a health professional to work with you. They may suggest Dr. Helen Odesskyβs U.N.L.O.C.K. method:
β’β β Understand (intellectual): Understand the way your panic symptoms develop and subside and learn to recognize the false message that the symptoms are suggesting, for example, that you are going to die.
β’β β Negate (mental): Challenge the negative beliefs that accelerate the panic. Are they really true or errors in your thinking? In your journal, jot down why they are false, so they can no longer pull you in. You are taking back your power.
β’β β Leverage your fears (physical): Get very familiar with the feared panic symptoms that accompany a typical panic attack. It could be rapid heartbeat, feeling dizzy, etc. Then replicate their effect (by sprinting in place or spinning in a chair) and patiently notice how your body will find its own equilibrium. By practicing this deliberate exposure to the symptoms and noticing that they do subside in time, you will have much less fear if they arise again. Your body gets to experience that the symptoms will pass, and you will be okay.
β’β β Openness (attitude): Allow yourself to be open to the possibility of change. Imagine a more positive outcome and try asking yourself, βWhat if it turned out better than I thoughtβ¦β and write down what you would think, feel, and do in that scenario. Instead of living in dread, you are opening a space for positive change.
β’β β Compassion (heart-centered): When you are trying something new, there is a learning curve. When things donβt go as well as you may have planned YET (they will get better with practice), how could you respond to yourself as you would to a child who is learning to walk? In your journal, write down your own phrase, like: βIt takes courage to try something new, and itβs okay to make mistakesβeveryone doesβkeep goingβyou got this.β This is a process; know you are on your way.
β’β β Kindle (behavior): Small shifts lead to bigger changes: In your journal, write down a list of activities that make you anxiousβyou may be getting through them but with much anxiety, or you may have decided not to do them at all. List the easiest activities on top, leading progressively to the most difficult ones. Start with the easiest, practice it over time, and prove to yourself that you can take on things that you had previously avoided. Then move to the slightly more difficult activity. You will learn what it feels like to trust yourself to move out of your comfort zone. Your confidence will get stronger as you see yourself progressively taking on more.
9.β β Forgive yourself:
People who suffer from anxiety will often condemn themselves as defectiveββWhatβs wrong with me; why canβt I just deal with this?β Anxiety, as we have seen, is a human reaction that most everyone encounters to one degree or another at certain points in life. The question is, βHow do I get some support to learn what tools I can call upon if I need them?β Putting yourself down will, apart from the initial experience of anxiety, make you anxious about being anxiousβyou donβt need that! Instead, forgive yourself if you felt anxiety, forgive yourself if you had a panic attack, and forgive yourself if you couldnβt deal with a social situation. There are more people than you know in this boat. You can learn how to row, and then you will be able to help others, too.
Through this chapter, you can see that there is a spectrum of anxiety: the beneficial type that helps you rally under stress and do your best, and the more challenging types that are a call to address the symptoms, then their roots. This may lead to exploring lifestyle changes and establishing boundaries that align with your values and help you thrive. You can make choices that serve you.
By using anxiety as your messenger, you will get more in touch with what your mind, body, and soul need, and with this information, you can support a new level of being true to yourself and make the decisions that help you thrive. Anxiety does not make you a freak. The reason so many people are experiencing anxiety is because the culture is anxious, the world is more anxious than ever, and we have not yet learned to manage our addiction to social media.
It takes intention and some effort to sift through the healthy anxiety and the kind that invites us to look deeper, maybe reconnect with our priorities and tweak how we are choosing to live. In that sense it is a clarion call to awaken to the fact that we can course correct, we can make choices, and we have more options than we may know. Anxiety is not a dead endβon the contrary, it is an invitation to grow.
