A Six-Part Approach to Managing Anxiety

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Woman looking anxiousMost of us experience anxiety at different times in life; it’s when it takes over our quality of life that that it becomes a problem. But what is anxiety, and do you experience it?

There two different types of anxiety: external and internal.

External anxiety comes from outside events that produce an internal reaction inside us. Examples include sitting in traffic jams and worrying about being late, or perhaps an argument with a spouse.

Internal anxiety is when a person internally generates anxiety with an internal thought.

Thinking, “What if my boyfriend doesn’t like what I said and he leaves me, and then I’m all alone and I can’t take care of myself and I break down?”

We think the worst, and then our thoughts become a generator of this biochemical reaction in our bodies. A moment of anxiety automatically sends an alarm system to our brains. In this case, the anxiety is all in the mind, and it manifests into a physical reaction. When this happens, we start to question the physical symptoms.

The fuzzy, anxious feeling won’t hurt you. It’s only an adrenaline response. But when you focus on the fear, you may create more cortisol and adrenaline, which will create more body symptoms and more confusion. When adrenaline hits the lymbic system of the brain, we feel intense terror. The thinking part of our brain reacts, and we start to question how we feel and we want to fix it.

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Start by making a list of situations that make you uncomfortable and you find yourself wanting to avoid. Here are some possible examples:

  • shopping in stores
  • bridges
  • standing in lines
  • socializing with people
  • talking in front of an audience
  • being alone

Now write down the body sensations you could experience during an anxiety episode.

Here are more examples:

  • racing heart
  • feelings of confusion or bewilderment
  • insomnia or sleeping too much
  • feelings of fatigue and depression
  • feelings of helplessness
  • muscle tension
  • headaches
  • strange or scary thoughts

Now that you’ve thought about what makes you most anxious and how you react, don’t worry—you are not crazy, and you are not alone.

Anxiety can be caused by the following:

  • obsessively anticipating
  • thoughts that create body symptoms
  • feeling fear of losing control
  • projecting into the past and worrying about the future

The following is a six-part approach to helping manage anxiety:

  1. Recognize that you are feeling anxious and accept feelings as a sign that something is bothering you.
  2. Try to figure out what is really bothering you. Is it some kind of conflict you don’t want to deal with? Is it a scary thought? Is it a ridiculous expectation you have of yourself. Did you eat chocolate or drink caffeine last night?
  3. Give yourself permission to feel anxious about whatever it is that is bothering you.
  4. Use compassion and self-talk to move past anxiety. It will be ok. You can go about your business until it passes.
  5. Get busy. Do something productive with all the energy.
  6. Try to see a little humor in the way you feel and laugh at yourself a little. For example, if you don’t like confronting someone, say to yourself, “I don’t like confronting people. That is a normal, OK reaction to have.”

Being aware of what is causing your anxiety is the first step. Once you find out what is bothering you, you can use the six-part approach above to help cope with and diminish your symptoms. Remember, anxiety is often caused by a physical reaction to our thoughts. If one can stop and take time to recognize the thoughts and where they are coming from, one can then learn to do self-talk and understand that there are healthy ways to manage anxiety.

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© Copyright 2014 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Joanna Engelman, LMSW, MA

The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.

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  • 16 comments
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  • gemma

    May 31st, 2014 at 6:12 AM

    So driving over a bridge that spans a huge body of water always freaks me out, to the point where I will intentionally drive miles out of my way to avoid that scenario if I know that this is on my route. How then would I be able to stop and do this willingly and then write down how it makes my body feel? I would have to somehow overcome some of the anxiety that I already have to even be able to try this little experiment because if not I am afraid that I would have a panic attack even attempting to do it.

    Reply

  • Ollie

    June 2nd, 2014 at 3:48 AM

    I get it that you wnat to give yourself permission to feel what you are feeling but is it always a good thing to allow yourself to feel the anxiety? Do you think that in some ways this validates what you are feeling and helps you continue believing that this is an appropriate response when things are uncomfortable?
    I am not saying that you don’t deserve to feel or experience, but I think that there are always better ways to handle these responses if possible.

    Reply

  • Kate

    June 2nd, 2014 at 9:18 AM

    Ollie all feelings are valid. Good and not so good ones- being able to manage, feel and ‘be with’ these feelings is the aim. Even the uncomfortable ones. By fighting or denying the feelings of anxiety you cause your brain to believe that there really must be something terrible about to happen if you need to fight feeling it! It exacerbates the feeling of anxiety and increases all the physical symptoms- viscious circle… By accepting the anxiety it becomes less of a monster – you learn to understand it and how you manage it. No one will ever be without anxiety and in fact we wouldn’t last long if we didn’t feel it! It’s what keeps us safe- ie we don’t stand near the edge of the cliff in case we fall off, anxiety over being late for work helps us keep our job… Etc it’s about being able to accept that you will be anxious sometimes and that’s ok. When anxiety becomes an problem counselling can really help as to what the root of it is, and learning techniques to manage and control anxiety symptoms like relaxation techniques, breathing techniques and de-catastrophising can be of great benefit.

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