What are the keys to overcoming anxiety? What can we do to face this disorder? Discover the main triggers of anxiety and how to overcome it.
There are many people who must deal with anxiety on a daily basis. In fact, some people end up learning different physical and mental strategies to reduce their distress. Despite the difficulty that living with this disorder can entail, we must remember that with effort and inner work, it really can be done. overcome anxiety
Why is anxiety overcome little by little?
In the book Overcome anxiety by specialist Domènec Luengo, the main switches of fear and anxiety in people are described. Knowing them is essential to learn to control and prevent our fear and thus defeat one of the most important enemies in life to be happy. These 7 anxiety triggers are:
- Situations that include changes or developments, especially if these are seen as important.
- Unpredictable situations, that is, ambiguous situations or situations with an unexpected ending.
- Uncertainty: situations, not only with an unexpected ending but also with an uncertain course, that is, not knowing how things are going to happen.
- The imminence of danger: perceiving that danger is approaching irreversibly and practically immediately.
- Lack of self-confidence to face danger: seeing that we must face a danger for which we feel we are not prepared.
- Disturbing situations already experienced previously with a bad experience, as they remember what was already suffered in the past.
- Situations that seem crucial and transcendent: drastic, important situations that imply moral obligations of now or never, that is, where there are no more opportunities.
All these situations produce anxiety , especially the last two. It is good to know them to identify them, prevent them and not let ourselves be carried away by the pressure and fear that occur, but rather by the temperance to act with reason and imagination, which are the capacities that best resolve our circumstances.
We must know that 90% of the fears we suffer today are of unreal or irrational things or ideas. Let us observe that each fear trigger is not based on realities but on the perception of realities. Fear does not appear in the face of threats but rather in things perceived or evaluated by our brain as threats. Understanding this is essential to understanding our fears and subsequently redefining our response to them. The good news is that our brains are often wrong: our lives are better than we think. Therefore, let us distinguish between rational fears and irrational fears
How to overcome anxiety?
To overcome anxiety , it is important to let go of all our irrational fears, especially the fear of suffering and the fear of fear. Let us recognize our own fears and replace them with awareness and responsibility, with faith to remain calm, hope to be patient, and love to give meaning to each suffering. Otherwise, we will be slaves to our fears for life. In many cases it will be good to go to a professional to overcome them, but, in summary, the best way to get rid of our fears is:
- For: stop doing things, stop running away, stop avoiding and distracting yourself, stop working. Stop, breathe, wait, don’t do anything. If you are afraid, be afraid. If your heart or breathing is fast, let them run, if you want to cry, cry. You don’t need to do anything. Your body is doing exactly what it knows how to adapt. Wait a little in silence until you get out of inertia and take possession of yourself. Take your time.
- Recognize your fears: What’s bothering you? Name your fears, write them down if you want, make a list. If you don’t identify it, be patient, keep this in mind throughout the day, travel through your memory from time to time until you find the key. Your fears do not need to be understood logically, listen to your intuition more than your reason.
- Express them honestly and describe them: Define what you feel, how you feel it, where you feel it, in what part of the body, what your sensations are similar to, what intensifies it, what reduces it, imagine a scene or visual metaphor that transmits those sensations, for example: as if it were in the middle of a storm and I was sinking.
- Reflect on them and understand them: Try to understand where these fears come from, if you can. Ask yourself what past experience or experiences you are transported to and what recent experiences may have activated it. If you don’t know how to do it, train yourself, read about anxiety and you will understand fears better.
- After better understanding your situation, decide what to do with your life: If you are making a mistake, admit it, nothing happens. Pride and stubbornness will destroy you. Stop self-destructing or going towards what harms you. Many times we are the ones who self-sabotage. Listen to your conscience, take care of yourself, not only for the love of yourself, but for your loved ones and those around you. Only if you are happy can you make others happy.
- Define what attitude you want to have: Observe the people you admire the most. How do they deal with this situation? Isn’t it the best way? Imitate your role models, be inspired by them, their attitude and how they love and care for each other.
- Accept it and live with them until they subside : Keep going, live with fear, do what you have to do… If it scares you, do it with fear. If you can’t, be patient: do as far as you can go. In the meantime, live in the present moment and don’t anticipate the future: get busy instead of worrying. Learn to wait.
- Learn to laugh at yourself: You can become familiar with your fears and defects as well as learn to give meaning to your sufferings, to such an extent that you do not need to change them and can laugh at them. When you achieve this, you will have accepted them completely and paradoxically, they will almost completely disappear.
Keys to learning to overcome anxiety
Mainly, for overcome anxiety We must overcome the fears that cause it. To better understand and define our fears, let’s look at some definitions. These definitions will allow us to better identify which fears trigger our anxiety:
- Fear: automatic response of our body that activates our alert and defense mechanisms when detecting something that is interpreted as a specific threat.
- Anxiety: fear of something we don’t know what it is. Need to escape from something but we don’t know what. Sometimes it becomes a general fear, a fear of life, which leads to anguish and sadness or depression. Once we identify our anxiety, it transforms into fear, which is the first step to overcoming it.
- Panic: feeling of having lost control of our life, our mind, our actions or something fundamental to our physical or mental integrity.
- Distress : deep and existential fear when we believe that our entire life or our greatest projects, desires or desires are strongly threatened.
- Sadness: discouragement or profound loss of energy and vital desire. It is usually accompanied by a longing for love and the feeling of not having been loved, or at least not enough; which leads to difficulty in loving, frustration in accepting life and the feeling of not being able to move forward.
And to confront these fears:
- Happiness : Deep experience of joy, energy and desire to give to the overflowing of life. It is usually the fruit of having fallen in love with life and having flatly accepted our circumstances.
- Peace: Deep feeling that everything is well done, that everything is in order or at least tends towards order, of being on the right path and knowing what we should do when faced with what happens to us.
- Delusion: deep desire to live our present and future lives, to enjoy the journey and share it with others.
- Love: Love is not a feeling but it can be felt. When we feel loved
Despite overcome anxiety It is a difficult task, the reality is that with effort people who suffer from it can confront the fears and fears that are related to this disorder.