Ways to manage your anxiety
1. Work to understand what’s causing your anxiety
Although I don’t recommend analyzing your anxiety
in the middle of it, once you are calm, it can be
helpful to reflect on the underlying fears or beliefs
that are causing it. For me, anxiety is most often
connected to romantic relationships. Through
therapy, I learned that my fear that I am unlovable
drives my relationship anxiety. At any hint of
rejection, my mind pulls me down a rabbit hole of
questions about what I did wrong and how the
person I’m dating must not like me or be preparing
to leave me. Understanding this core fear and being
able to challenge it has been an essential part of
me healing from anxiety. Therapy can be very
helpful with this process. If you do not feel ready or
able to seek therapy you might try talking to a close
friend or family member about what tends to make
you anxious and what your fears are. If you don’t
feel comfortable talking to anyone about it yet, try
journaling and seeing if you can identify the themes
of your worries.
Understanding the underlying causes of our anxiety
can help us to be more compassionate with
ourselves as we work to overcome it. Most of us
developed negative core beliefs and fears because
of difficult or traumatic experiences in the past.
Anxiety can develop as a method of self-protection.
For example, your anxiety might protect you from
rejection or disappointment by causing you to avoid
a relationship or applying to a job. In the long run,
these strategies don't protect us from pain and
often keep us from living vibrant lives, which is why
we’ve got to learn to do things differently.
2. Let go of your negative thoughts
Believing everything that your mind says, especially
the negative and self-critical things, is unhelpful. In
therapy, when I’m encouraging clients to let go of
their negative thoughts, they often argue that they
don’t want to let their thoughts go because they
believe they are true. I encourage you to shift away
from focusing on whether or not your thoughts are
true, to considering whether or not holding on to
your thoughts is helpful. Overly critical thoughts
often make us feel bad and keep us from doing the
things that would help us improve and feel better.
Exercise to let go of thoughts: Identify one of the
most negative things you say to yourself and repeat
the sentences below. See if you notice any
difference.
Start by saying the negative statement
(preferably out loud) and dwell on it for a few
moments.
Next say: “I’m having the thought that .” Dwell
on this for a few moments.
Next, say: “I notice I’m having the thought that ”
dwell on this for a few moments.
3. Meditate
Research shows that regular meditation can help to
reduce anxiety. Meditation can serve as an antidote
to anxiety because anxiety is caused by getting
caught up in thoughts and worries about the future
and meditation is the practice of being in the
present and letting go of thoughts. Meditation helps
to strengthen our ability to let go of negative
thoughts and increases our ability to be in the
moment. There are a number of ways to meditate
(e.g. sitting meditation, walking meditation, yoga,
etc.) and if you are interested in trying meditation, I
recommend checking out Headspace , an app that
provides guided meditations.
I know that my anxiety will likely come and go
throughout my life. However, going to therapy ,
understanding the causes of my anxiety, letting go
of negative thoughts and meditating have
significantly reduced my anxiety and helped me to
manage it effectively when it arises. I hope that
these suggestions will help all of you as well.