Before any guidance, it's important to say that anxiety is not a feeling to be classified as good or bad. It's not something to be sought, eliminated, or controlled. Treat anxiety as a message from your body telling you that there's some threat around you. Since it's a message, the best thing to do is receive it and process it in the best way possible.
That said, when facing anxiety there are many strategies we can use to deal with the situation in that moment. They are divided into two categories:
- Natural responses
- Intentional responses
Natural responses
As the name suggests, natural responses are those we take naturally "without thinking." Such actions can be constructive or destructive.
- Hesitate
- Freeze
- Withdraw
- Ruminate
- Worry
Hesitate
It's holding back with doubts or indecisions, often momentarily. Generally it's a constructive action, especially if you're analyzing the risks of the situation to act in the best way.
Freeze
It's becoming unable to act or speak. It can be constructive or destructive depending on the circumstance.
Withdraw
It's physically or mentally leaving the scene of the threat. It can be constructive or destructive depending on the circumstance.
Ruminate
It's obsessively thinking about a past emotional experience. Generally a destructive action, because the past can no longer be changed and this rumination makes you more negative in the present.
Worry
It's anticipating the possibility of harm. Generally it's a destructive action, because as the word suggests, you're pre-occupying your mind with harm, you're anticipating suffering (which may not even happen).
Intentional responses
Unlike natural responses, these are done intentionally, meaning you're aware of what you're going to do. Here there are 4 options:
- Change perspective
- Breathe deeply
- Mindfulness
- Distract yourself
Change perspective
The strategy is to identify and then change the way situations, experiences, events, ideas, and/or emotions are viewed. Often they are seen in a way that doesn't benefit you.
Is your anxiety your enemy that must be destroyed, or is it actually your best friend who cares a lot about you? The first view leads you to attack yourself (guess who loses?), while the second leads to a kinder and more collaborative attitude toward yourself. In the second case, you understand that you should treat yourself as you would treat a friend who needs to be calmed.
Another, more daring way to change perspective is to notice that many anxiety symptoms are the same as when you're very excited. So, facing such symptoms, you can try to reframe the situation and tell yourself: "I'm not anxious, I'm excited."
Besides seeing things in a harmful way, we often see situations in an incorrect/false way. For example, "If I make a mistake at work, I'll be a total failure." Everyone makes mistakes, it's part of human nature. No one is absolutely brilliant or totally stupid. Besides everything, in life you can "lose, but not be a loser." Therefore, this thought is false. And also dangerous because, if you're a total failure, then it's not worth trying again, it's not worth learning from mistakes. This type of thinking paralyzes you instead of making you stronger.
if you start from false thoughts, you'll reach false conclusions
At Vigilantes do Sono we have two techniques that help "change perspective":
- challenging negative thoughts: helps identify distorted thoughts and analyze them more realistically
- paradoxical intention: helps reduce fear of doing something
Breathe deeply
Just as we have the power to move a part of our body, we also have the power to calm our body. Repeating, because perhaps you didn't give it due importance: we have the power to activate the system that calms the body!
Deep breathing is exactly how to do this. However, there's an important difference: while you can move a part of your body in the same second, calming the body takes a little longer (a few minutes). You can learn more about the "parasympathetic nervous system" if you want to understand more deeply why we are this way.
To apply the deep breathing technique, read this article.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of full attention. It's total awareness of what's happening in the moment. It may seem obvious, but we don't always notice what's happening around us, what we're feeling, or how our body is doing. This total awareness is important for a simple reason: It's practically impossible to correct a problem you don't know exists. How will you manage your anxiety if you don't notice it coming and what mechanisms you use with it? The idea here is to work on this, and the best way is through meditation.
At Vigilantes do Sono we recommend some apps for you to do this practice.
Distract yourself
The strategy is to divert the mind's attention from the thoughts and emotions of that moment. This is useful in situations where we cannot (due to lack of time or ability) deal with the situation.
At Vigilantes do Sono we recommend the thought stopping technique to do this.
What do I do with all this?
Now that you know some of the different strategies that can be taken, it's worth reflecting:
- Which of the "natural responses" do you normally use?
- If your actions are being "destructive," is it possible to switch them to a constructive action? Or better yet, to one of the "intentional responses"?
Answer in the comments 😉
