Five Tips to Help Reduce Anxiety
Heart racing, palms sweating? Chaotic butterflies or an anchor of dread in the pit of your stomach? Feeling irritated or annoyed by everything? Sounds like you might be experiencing a response to stress, something we call anxiety. If this sounds familiar, keep reading for a quick-and-easy Anxiety 101.
What is anxiety?
In the face of a stressful event—such as sitting down for a job interview, for example—we can naturally feel anxious as we prepare ourselves to face a new person we are trying to impress. We might worry about stumbling on our words, we might practice talking about our work experience and résumé, or take a few moments to make sure nothing is stuck in our teeth. All relatively manageable, right?
For some people, though, anxiety can become overwhelming, persistent, and more and more difficult to overcome despite the task at hand. It might start happening while we're trying to focus on work, talking to our partner, or simply sitting on the couch. The National Alliance on Mental Illness helps explain that anxiety is problematic when “persistent, excessive fear or worry [occurs] in situations that are not threatening” and makes us start avoiding certain situations as a result. Chronic unmanaged stress can bring unwarranted anxiety to our daily lives, too. Below are some beginner tips to help you manage your anxiety.
1) Assess the physical: How is your body reacting? Could something in your environment be triggering this feeling? Anxiety can do different things to different people, and we all respond in unique individual ways. For example, loud, chaotic environments can be especially overstimulating, a person might become hot, sweaty, or shaky, they might feel a sense of panic or become weak in the legs. For others, perhaps they get that anchor of dread weighing in the pit of their stomach, they might have difficulty focusing on a task, lose track of their thoughts, or become frustrated and irritable. Some people might also experience panic attacks, overwhelming fear and dread that can stop us in our tracks and require immediate attention and intervention to get back to normal.
A first trick to managing anxiety is acknowledging how your unique body reacts in the moment, take a look at your reaction and see if you can change the environment around you. Can you take a step outside for some fresh air, or move to a different room if it’s too loud or crowded? If you’re feeling hot/sweaty, can you take that turtleneck sweater off to cool down (which means plan ahead accordingly, wear layers next time!). If you are facing that daunting job interview, can you make sure to wear comfortable (but still professional) clothing, eat a meal first, or take time with a friend for a mock interview beforehand? If we can be more in control of our environment, we can be closer to feeling more in control of our anxiety as a response.
2) Find a strategy that works for you and then make it your default: Grounding activities, meditation, guided imagery/visualization, breathwork, music, journaling, going outside, moving your body, taking a hot shower, petting the dog, watering the plants, making a cup of tea… just like how every person has their own unique experience with anxiety, each of us has a different coping technique that works for us.
Sometimes we can call on techniques from our past and sometimes it helps to experiment with new ones to see what fits best. It’s helpful to find a technique that can be used in a variety of settings such as breathwork or grounding, which can be done anywhere and are relatively easy and quiet if you’re in a public place. Sometimes the most "simple" of techniques can do wonders to our mind and anxiety. So, close your eyes, picture yourself on that warm beach in the sun, and breathe in, breathe out.
3) Lean into your support system: Call a friend, talk to a family member, talk to your therapist, meet with a trusted medical professional if needed. Sometimes all it takes is to talk about your worry with someone else. Are you able to pinpoint what’s making you feel anxious? Talk about it. Having open conversations with friends can help normalize and validate something that could otherwise feel scary and isolating; it might encourage them to share their experience with anxiety, too! Getting another person’s perspective and speaking your worry out loud has tremendous benefits to helping you find relief. It can also lead us to a better understanding of #4 (below).
4) Consider “size of the problem” to measure your reaction: As mentioned in previous blog posts, anxiety can make any problem feel magnified, huge, insurmountable. Take a moment to reflect on the problem at hand. Is it relationship-ending? Is it career-ending? Should it be something so feared it causes us a reaction that stops us in our tracks? Oftentimes, problems that feel huge initially end up being not that big. Talking about it with others can also help measure the size of the problem and put things into a healthier perspective. If the size of the problem is relatively small (e.g., spilled milk) and the size of our reaction is out of this world (e.g., explosion of emotions, yelling, crying, feeling like you want to give up), we have something to talk about. The size of your reaction should mirror the size of the problem (e.g., spilled milk = "let me grab a towel, all good").
5. Be kind to yourself: It's not possible to live an anxiety-free life, we will all face stress of some kind everyday. That stress does not have to completely overwhelm us, though. The trick to leading a more balanced life is learning how to manage your anxiety and stress, and giving yourself grace when you don't feel your best. We are human beings, after all.
Therapists at Perspective Psychology are available to talk about how you can better manage your responses to anxiety and improve your everyday experience as a human being via anxiety therapy. Reach out today.
Aimee Fizor is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) at Perspective Psychology. She can be reached at 312.219.4707 or aimee@perspectivepsychchicago.com.