3 Top Tips for People Coping with Anxiety
Many people have heard the word anxiety many times but do we fully appreciate what it is and how to deal with it? We are going to go through the symptoms below and some top tips to cope with anxiety.
Anxiety is a feeling of nervousness, unease, or fear that everyone experiences from time to time. You can feel physically uncomfortable or tense, and in severe cases, the physical sensation can be very strong that you start feeling tightness in your chest or feel sick. When you learn how to deal with anxiety, you can manage the symptoms and control them.
It can also have an effect on the way you think about things. When you are feeling anxious, the world can feel like a frightening place, and every situation makes you feel fraught with danger. The minds can start to look at things from the worst-case scenario. With that is happening in your mind and in your body, anxiety can start affecting your behaviour. You might find yourself avoiding certain people or going to certain places. You might find yourself working late because you are anxious about the tasks you need to do or check emails late in the evening so you don’t miss anything.
Coping with anxiety
Anxiety can be very severer and take different forms like health anxiety, social anxiety, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, phobias, and generalized anxiety to name a few. If you start noticing anxiety, it is important to ask for help. Don’t be afraid to do that. When you ask for help, it is going to help in coping with the condition.
Here are some tips that will help cope with anxiety:
Breathing deeply
The body activates the fight or flight response when you get anxious. The response is how your body protects you in a threatening situation. It involves some changes in the body including an increase in heart rate and the release of adrenaline which are designed to make your body stronger so you can fight or help you move faster (flight). These are useful when the body is under attack, but it is not useful when you are going to school for example. Breathing deeply can help settle down your body to its natural equilibrium. Think about a balloon of your favourite colour then imagine you are blowing it up. Take deep breathes then notice how the stomach rises when inhaling to allow your lungs to fill with maximum air, then a slow and long breath out as if you are filling your balloon with air. Repeat it three times.
Questioning your thoughts
When we are anxious, the mind can play tricks on us and it distorts our thinking. You get an abrupt email from your boss and you immediately start to think about a mistake you might have made, or a friend failing to return your text and you start thinking they don’t want to talk to you. Before accepting such thoughts, which will make the anxiety worse, as yourself whether the thought is an opinion or fact. If it is an opinion, then you are getting anxious for nothing. Question your thoughts so you can avoid feeling anxious for nothing.
Testing it out
When you feel anxious about something, you are predicting negatively what is going to happen. For example, you fear going to a party by yourself because you fear no one is going to talk to you. If you decide to make a negative prediction, then the best way is to go out there and test it out to see if you were right.