4 Ways on How To Decrease and Manage Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotional response to situations that may appear to be out of your control. Anxiety forces you to live in the future with those dreaded ‘What If’ thoughts.
“ What if I fail?”
“ What if this relationship doesn’t work out?”
“What if everyone I invited doesn’t show up to my party?”
“ What if I end up divorced?”
“What if I can’t get pregnant?”
What if What if What if……
Anxiety creeps up within our irrational thoughts and certain beliefs about ourselves.
“ I messed up on this, that means I’m never going to be successful at anything!”
“ I’m a horrible friend and I don’t deserve to have friendships.”
“ I’m unworthy”
“ I’m not good enough”
“ I’m never going to find someone”
Anxiety is an emotion just like happiness and sadness, it comes in waves. Everyone experiences anxiety, but there is a point where anxiety can creep in and stay if left unacknowledged and unmanaged. It can lead to impacting your daily life. It can look like….
Unable to fall asleep at night.
Fidgety hands, nail biting
Excessively over thinking and questioning yourself
Difficulty in maintaining social relationships
Avoidance
Difficulty remaining in the present moment
Impact on appetite
Physical symptoms: shallow breathing, heavy chest, heart palpations, etc.
Difficulty focusing
The thing about anxiety is that it keeps you in your mind only. It tricks you into believing your irrational thoughts and beliefs, and it takes you away from your body.
This can look like being somewhere physically, but your mind is somewhere else. You can be sitting at a table with friends and be completely wrapped up in something that is currently not happening.
Example Scenario: It’s a Friday night and Sally is comfortably watching an her favorite tv show with her husband. Sally feels calm, present, and content. When suddenly, Sally starts to question if she completed some legal documents for work, and she begins to spiral with ‘What if’ questions.
“what if I lose my license?”
“What if I get in so much trouble?”
“what if I get sued and lose everything?”
Sally is no longer present in her body to enjoy her Friday night. She begins to pick at her nails, her heart starts to race and her chest is heavy. Anxiety has taken over and Sally is stuck in a spiral of future based thinking.
The antidote to anxiety is mindfulness and self-awareness. Without such, leaves zero room to realize your anxiety as a whole, let alone know your triggers, symptoms, and how to manage it.
I’ve been privileged (bringing back that sarcasm) to have had a very intimate relationship with my anxiety (Click Here for my previous post on my journey with panic attacks). Through years of my own therapy, journaling, meditation, and mindfulness practice (legit certified in mindfulness!), I’ve been able to formulate what has worked for me. Which has helped me strive personally and professionally by being able to better serve my clients.
4 Ways on How to Decrease and Manage Anxiety
This photo shows a quick summary of 4 different techniques to help reduce anxiety symptoms.
ABCs Technique
This is not your normal ABCs exercise. But, I’m sure just by mentioning ABCs, it took you back to the kinder years of reciting this song over and over 😜.
This exercise works well while siting in a room, preferably a room with many different objects. As you sit, take a couple of deep breaths and begin by starting with letter A and try to find something in the room that starts with that letter. Once you find an object that begins with an A, you move on to B and so on.
What this exercise does is it interrupts the anxious thoughts or anxious spiral. Instead of remaining in the ‘What Ifs’ or an on going pattern of irrational thoughts, this brings you back into your body and into the present. Allowing you to breathe and focus on rational thinking. Thus, reducing anxiety.
Click Here for my IG reel on the ABCs
Touch
Touch is completely underrated in my book. As I mentioned before, the antidote to anxiety is mindfulness and part of practicing mindfulness is coming back to your body. Touch does exactly that.
As you sit, focus on your finger tips to start. Rub them together and really focus and observe what your finger tips look like and feel like. Breathe in through your nose and out of your mouth. Are your finger tips soft? Are they rough? Are there any cuts or blisters? Are they dry? You can move on to other parts of your body like your hair, arms, and legs.
This allows you to focus on coming back into your body, while interrupting anxious thinking. This also brings awareness to your body, that way you’re able to check in on physical symptoms that may be happening due to anxiety. Thus, helping you knowing your body and symptoms better.
Click Here for a look at my IG reel on Touch
Tapping
This is one of my favorites and I have used this during my own episodes of anxiety and in moments to reduce panic. What you do is you come to a seated position, although this can be done in any position, and simply tap your hands on your thighs and count.
Sounds like this…1…2…1…2 and as you count your alternating your hands from left to right.
Left 1……Right 2…..Left 1…..Right 2……count out loud ( just the number!)
In between each count, breathe slowly in your nose and out of your mouth.
This method helps with slowing down hyperventilating and heart palpitations since the main focus is counting and you get the somatic touch in the tapping.
Click Here for my IG reel on Tapping
What do you see?
This technique can be done anywhere since anxiety does not discriminate on when or where it decides to show up. Simply look at your surroundings and name, and count how many colors you see. It also works well with shapes.
This method helps reduce anxious spiraling, increase staying present, and gives you some time to breathe slowly.
The core of managing anxiety, increasing mindfulness, and self awareness is the breath.
Breathing is our anchor to our bodies and is the center of everything. It helps calm down our nervous system, it brings us back into the present, interrupts anxious thinking, allows room for rational thoughts, helps you respond instead of react, and so on.
Here is a meditation I’ve written. I invite you to try it out in a quiet and calm room.
Find a comfortable spot with your spine straight and settle in. Feel the floor beneath you as you take a deep belly breath through your nose. Feel the coolness of the air as it enters your nostrils. Feel your belly expand. Hold for 4 seconds. Exhale for 8 seconds through your mouth. As you exhale, let out a sigh and picture something you want to surrender to and let go. Repeat 4x. You may notice some thoughts entering, that’s okay. Picture yourself on a train looking out the window, you see your thoughts as you pass by. Acknowledge them and let them go. If an emotion makes an appearance, allow yourself to feel it in your body. Then let it pass.
