3 Tips To Overcome Anxiety Without Complicating Your Life
Have you had the experience of feeling a knot in your stomach? Or that your chest is tight? Have you felt fear when facing situations such as exams, a job interview or going out with the girl you like?
Well then, It is possible that what is happening to you is an anxiety problem.
Anxiety is a normal experience, we have all experienced it; Even the most relaxed person in the world sometimes feels anxious. This experience, when present in its proper measure, allows us to face challenges of everyday life. It prepares us, makes us attentive and helps our senses become sharper. Yes, believe it or not, there is a healthy and positive anxiety.
The problem is when anxiety is out of control, when it is activated too intensely or frequently. In those cases, our anxiety is no longer an ally, but an enemy of daily life.
The good news is that anxiety can be overcome, you don’t need to live in tension. Currently, CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) is the branch of psychology that has the best results in the treatment of anxiety. And at the same time, within CBT we find specialists in anxiety disorders.
Do we all feel anxiety the same?
The anxiety presents more than 100 symptoms including physical, mental, emotional and behavioral. In other words, although there can be countless combinations of how anxiety feels, we all experience it in a similar way. That is why anxiety does not need big “presentations”, it is enough to say that you feel anxiety so that your colleagues understand what is happening to you.
However, depending on where the anxiety is directed, we may be facing different disorders. For example, if what makes you uncomfortable is meeting unknown people (or even friends), going to bars, parties or social gatherings, we say that it is social anxiety, that is, the anxiety-inducing object is people. Among anxiety disorders, those that currently have the highest incidence are panic attacks and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder).
Two very common forms of pathological anxiety
Before delving into the 3 tips to control anxiety in this article, I would like to briefly explain what are panic attacks and generalized anxiety disorder.
A panic attack is a very abrupt and intense rise in anxiety, which entails a great feeling of discomfort and a multiplicity of physical and emotional symptoms. It usually lasts approximately 10 minutes and then begins to improve on its own. Among the most common symptoms you can feel palpitations, tightness in the chest, a feeling of suffocation, and fear of dying or going crazy.
Although the sensation is very unpleasant, nothing bad will happen to you, after the 10 or 15 minutes it lasts, you will return to normal. You may feel tired, but nothing serious will happen to you due to a panic attack.
On the other hand, people with GAD often have worries, or rather, anxiety, about various things or situations in everyday life. They may feel worried about exams, work, relationships, safety, health… Although these issues worry us all, if you have GAD your worry may be more intense than usual and more frequently. Those with GAD can “live from one worry to another”.
What can you do about this discomfort?
Fortunately, all forms of anxiety are treatable and full well-being can be recovered.
In this article, I want to leave you 3 general tips to fight anxiety. Here I present the 3 favorite strategies of my patients.
1. Live in the present
When we feel anxiety behind us there are thoughts and fears related to the future or the past. I may feel anxiety about what is about to happen (and imagine a catastrophic future) or about what has happened (rumination or mental repetition of events or phrases that I said or did not say).
But if we focus on the present, if we focus on what we are currently experiencing, we will notice that there’s nothing to worry about right now at this moment.
That is why being present is one of the best techniques to combat anxiety. Specifically, what should we do? One option is to mentally describe what we see and hear, concentrate on what is happening in our environment, concentrate on conversations, on a TV series or on your cell phone. That is to say, “get out” of our thinking and focus on our senses. Focus your experience on what is happening around you. What can you see? What can you hear? What do you feel on your skin?
There are many techniques to be present, but this is one of the easiest and most effective to start with and that even my patients usually recommend.
2. Distrust your negative thoughts
Anxiety is characterized by a negative bias toward the future, toward myself, and toward the world. When we feel anxiety, our thinking tells us that “something bad is going to happen.”
But… How many times have you predicted a catastrophic future that then didn’t happen?** How many times is what we think worse than reality?
This is one of my favorite techniques. Distrust your negative thoughts. To do it, You can add at the end of each negative phrase or thought, a simple “or not…”.
For example: if your thought is: “they are going to fail me on the exam”, doubt this by transforming it into: “they are going to fail me on the exam, or not…”.
If your anxiety says: “He doesn’t respond to me because he doesn’t like me,” doubt this thought and transform it into “he doesn’t respond to me because he doesn’t like me, or he doesn’t…”. This simple doubt enables us to new ways of thinking about reality.
3. Do physical activity
This last tip is essential! Scientific evidence says that daily aerobic physical activity significantly reduces anxiety.
In my clinical experience, this is very true! But I like to tell you that it is not necessary to demand more from yourself, that you already have enough to manage your anxiety. That’s why, My advice is to do aerobic physical activity frequently ; If you only have time to do it three times a week, that’s fine too, and if you can’t go to the gym but you can walk to the shops, that’s fine too. Everything you add in activity will add to your well-being.
To end…
Finally, I want to tell you that these are not the only possible techniques. If you feel that they are not easy for you or do not work for you, don’t worry, there are hundreds of options to overcome anxiety! Don’t be discouraged
Practice these techniques and, if you have questions, contact us; We will gladly help you!
