An anxious mind is poor in concentration, focused on what could go wrong, is full of ‘what if’s’, uncertainty and catastrophes. The anxious mind has a wicked way with the imagination allowing you to wander down paths of possibly terrifying scenarios of worst possible outcomes. Feeling anxious or overly stressed distorts how we think, we become much more threat focused we find problems, not solutions. Our thinking is narrowed with a bias to finding further information to fuel our stress and anxiety.
If you recognize this keep reading.
We all experience an anxious mind at times; it’s important you don’t judge yourself or jump to any unhelpful conclusions about your experience. Having an anxious mind is often the result of trying far to hard to fix this, or predict events to try to gain more control over them.
Unfortunately having an anxious mind is often more difficult to manage than the very problem you are trying to solve.
The calmer we are the broader we think and the better placed we are to manage problems.
Anxiety is not the same thing as stress. Whilst the two can feel very similar and share a lot of the same symptoms, it is usually very easy to pinpoint the cause of stress, whereas the source of anxiety is not always easy to place.
David Spiegel, Stanford University’s associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, says that whilst there is definite overlap between stress and anxiety, ultimately the two emotions come from two different places:
“With stress, we know what’s worrying us but with anxiety, you become less aware of what you’re anxious about [in the moment] and the reaction becomes the problem. You start to feel anxious about being anxious.”
The impact
An anxious mind means we often act in a way that does not fit with our true intention. For example, we might avoid doing something we actually wanted to do, such as attend an interview for a job we really want or going to the school reunion we’ve been looking forward to for ages.
When we avoid in this way, the anxiety gremlin in our mind is pleased with its work and feels like it has kept you safe from harm; meaning that it feels the need to pop up again next time you are in a similar situation and consequently wiring your brain for further anxiety.
Anxiety breeds anxiety. Symptoms can increase over time and yet, ironically, anxiety does not ‘mean’ to cause us harm; it is actually a survival method, born from the ‘fight or flight’ instinct and developed in a time when threats were predators out to kill us! This, of course, isn’t the case anymore and this overdeveloped response, designed to save our lives, it too powerful for the world we live in today.
Anxiety and stress have a detrimental impact on our bodies; raising adrenaline and colitis, which impacts negatively on our physical health. We must take note of our stress levels in the same way that we prioritize other physical health symptoms.
Ten ways to calm an anxious mind..
1. Name it.
Labeling the emotional state we are in reduces the emotion experienced. This is because we are engaging our logical mind. When you are anxious, actually say to yourself ‘I am anxious’ (it doesn’t have to be out loud) and the anxiety will begin to settle.
2. Understand it.
Anxiety is an important part of humanity. It exists for our survival and is ultimately trying to protect us; it just gets things wrong sometimes! Not having a threat system would be very dangerous, it just needs to be trained in the right way. Ask yourself if anxiety wasn’t part of your experience now what would your true intention be? What is anxiety trying to protect you from and is it accurate?
3. Accept it.
Most people who suffer from anxiety say that they are desperate to get rid of it and stop feeling all the horrible symptoms. Unfortunately, this has a paradoxical effect on anxiety, meaning that you notice it more and feel it more. Ultimately, ‘what we resist persists’. Therefore, your aim should be to allow the experience and to work with it.
4. Write it down.
Journaling gets things out of our head, engages our logical mindset, and helps us gain more clarity, which enables us to become more objective about our experience.
5. Delay action.
We’ve all heard the saying that you should wait a day before hitting send on an angry email; well this is very good advice when it comes to anxiety too. In the midst of anxiety, we don’t always think rationally, but once our anxious bodies have calmed down, our thinking often shifts.
6. Mindfulness.
This is a form of meditation which is about learning to be in the moment, this is perfect brain training for an anxious mind which is often in the future with worry.
7. Take your own advice.
Ask yourself if your best friend or someone you really cared about was in this situation or having this worry what would you advise? The advice we would give to someone else is often perfect. If this is too difficult to do then it’s because your anxiety levels are too high. Do a quick mindfulness session and then come back to the question.
8. Cognitive diffusion-
This is a fantastic technique that essentially helps us to become untangled from our own thoughts by viewing them as just that; just thoughts and nothing else. They are not facts or instructions; they are simply words in your head. The aim of cognitive defusion is to detach ourselves from the thought, thereby decreasing its power over us.
9. Hypothetical thinking-
This type of thinking is future based often starts with a ‘What if’ statement and the main point is that it has not happened and may not happen, so as grandma said cross that bridge if and when you get to it and in the meantime – let it go. Problems that have happened and are in the here and now can be problem solved and cause us less anxiety than hypothetical thinking.
10.Train your brain –
Your brain is like a muscle and where ever we put our attention grows in our attention and you are in control of this.
Ask yourself for my Well-being where is it most helpful to put my attention right now and re-direct your focus.
Keep calm and carry on..
I know these tips are not easy but I assure you they are achievable it just takes practice and it’s not always easy to do either when you are anxious, especially if you suffer from an ongoing generalized anxiety.
The physical symptoms can often be the easiest to tackle and if you’re able to calm the body then this should start to calm the mind. Try to stay busy (with non-stress inducing activities!) and engage a mind-set of self-compassion. If you’re able to, formulate a plan using the strategies detailed so that you have defined strategies in places to utilize next time anxiety kicks in.
My aim is to help you understand yourself better and enable you to look after your psychological health in the same way we do our physical health.
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