What is Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion that is characterised
with feelings like worrying thoughts, feeling tension and physical symptoms
such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. There are two kinds of anxiety
– normal anxiety (such as being anxious before sitting an exam) or an anxiety
disorder (requiring medical intervention – and this means the anxiety
experienced is out of proportion to the trigger or the severity of the anxiety
is disabling to the point of being able to function in your day to day life).
Anxiety is your body’s reaction designed to
keep you safe – but when it is hard to control, then it becomes problematic!
Yet sometimes, no matter how much we tell ourselves not to be anxious, we
cant’s stop those emotions or physical symptoms.
Changing
your mindset
Changing your mindset doesn’t happen
overnight, However, small repeated steps, will assist in transforming –
remember don’t hurry the process! Also, don’t try and do all of these suggested
strategies at once, it will only make you more anxious! Just be you and rejoice
in one accomplishment at a time!
BE PRESENT:
Don’t worry about the past or future. Don’t
follow your anxious thoughts. Anxiety is all about “maybes” and “what if’s”
then takes you to a potentially threatening and uncertain future. Try
experimenting with being fully present in the future and focus fully on what’s
happening around you – the noises, the sound of your breath, the outside noises
– just even for 2 minutes – set yourself a time limit. Congratulate yourself
after! What you’ve just done is developed an ability to pull yourselve back
from your anxious thoughts to the present. Try to practice this everyday
regularly.
BE PATIENT:
Always know that feelings and thoughts
come, stay and then go. There’s a saying “this too shall pass”. So be patient,
ride the feeling/s and thought/s. Develop the wisdom to know that you can stay
with these feelings long enough to know that eventually that they will leave
and that you do not need them today. You could try developing an internal
dialogue and saying to yourself “thank you for these thoughts and feelings,
you’ll leave when you’re ready”. Then breathe deeply.
DON’T ENGAGE:
Observe your thoughts and feelings without
engaging with them. Anxiety is exhausting. If you engage with the thoughts and
feelings it’s downright exhausting! So just observe them, don’t try to change
them, let them be, don’t try to understand them or talk yourself out of them – let
them float around you without becoming part of you.
TRUST YOURSELF:
Finally trust yourself! Know that you are
strong and resourceful! You have gotten this far in life and so no matter what
happens in life, you can deal with what ever comes your way! Remember,
underlying anxiety is anxiety worry, rejection and stress of failure and that you may not be able to cope with what
comes your way… Move towards trusting in yourself – act as if until it becomes
that. You can do it!
