Dealing with anxiety? Learn how to cope and change your thoughts

Dealing with anxiety can be a struggle, but it is possible to learn to cope with anxiety and, for some forms of it, even cure anxiety. This takes some practice, some effort, and some patience, but getting relief from endless worrying and actually being able to live your life is worth it.

Some anxiety is necessary – if you never worried, you would make horrible mistakes because you didn't think of the consequences of your actions. Anxiety also motivates us to prepare for challenging situations instead of charging in blindly. But too much anxiety can have a paralyzing effect, causing you to burn out and be unable to deal with anything or take action to improve your situation.

Some anxiety is also normal in response to challenging or new situations, but can be a warning sign of stress if it's acute or exhausts you. Learning how to cope with stress more effectively will help you with this kind of anxiety, which is triggered by not knowing how to deal with a situation.

Anxiety can also be totally out of proportion to the situation, and that's when learning some new strategies for dealing with anxiety and getting control of your thoughts can be helpful.

Photo credit rosengrant

General tips for dealing with anxiety

• Change your perception. Just because you feel anxious doesn't mean there is any real danger. Recognize that the anxiety is making you look for threats and even manufacture them. Remind yourself that anxiety is a normal feeling, but when there's nothing threatening you, a big part of dealing with anxiety is giving yourself permission to let the worries go. The same goes for physical symptoms of anxiety like shortness of breath. Anxiety is causing those symptoms, so give yourself permission to not worry about them so that you don't just get yourself more worked up
• Build your ability to relax. Many people with anxiety are told to "Just relax!" but it's not that simple. Relaxation is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced – you might not be very good at it when you start out, but that doesn't mean you can't learn. Start with tensing and then relaxing your muscles and taking more deep breaths. Anxiety makes you breathe in quick shallow breaths, which makes you feel like you can't get enough air ... which makes you panic!
• Challenge your negative self talk and any untrue, exaggerated, and unhelpful beliefs (e.g. that you're sure to have a breakdown if you speak in public). People with anxiety are also particularly prone to rumination, which is obsessively overthinking. Changing your thought patterns is critical in dealing with anxiety, since so many people with anxiety have very negative, disruptive, and unhelpful thoughts that they feel like they can't control. You can learn to change your thoughts with practice, but suppressing them doesn't work
• Face your anxiety. Often, the feeling of anxiety makes people even more anxious, and it builds and builds like this until you're completely swept under. Try paying attention to your anxious feelings – not feeding them, just recognizing "Yep, I'm feeling anxious again" and watching how your anxiety levels naturally rise and fall. Odds are, paying attention to your anxiety will be less stressful than you think it would be
• Notice the thoughts that create the biggest spikes in your anxiety - those are the ones you'll have to target and change to something more helpful. Don't make things worse by dwelling on these thoughts though
• Face your fears. The only way to truly convince yourself something isn't a threat is to face it. Start small, with something that's only a bit scary and work your way up once that thing doesn't cause you anxiety anymore
• Take care of your physical and emotional health. Anxiety is much more likely to get you when you're tired, hungry, overworked, or upset. The often-heard advice to sleep more, eat healthy and exercise is so commonly given for a reason! As well, when you are feeling anxious, check to make sure there isn't something else causing it, like being tired or not having eaten well. Slipping back into thought and behavior patterns you thought you'd gotten rid of is a normal part of dealing with anxiety in times of stress – just be on guard for it so you can fight back, and learn how to deal with stress more effectively if necessary
• Keep your sense of humor and actively look for good things. When things are going wrong, find a way to laugh at it... or at your own wild and exaggerating thoughts. This will both break up your anxiety and make things not seem so bad. Similarly, when good things happen, pay attention to them and appreciate them, don't just wait for something bad to happen! Anxiety can make you miss out on a lot of good things, either because you avoid them worrying they aren't actually good, or because you're not really experiencing them due to being too caught up in your own head

Are you dealing with an anxiety disorder?

If you're struggling with anxiety and it's seriously impacting your life, you might be suffering from one of the anxiety disorders:

• Generalized anxiety disorder – chronic, uncontrollable, excessive worry about everything and anything
• Panic disorder – recurring panic or anxiety attacks and fear of future panic attacks
• Social anxiety disorder – fear and avoidance of social and performance situations
• Specific phobia – excessive and persistent fear of a specific object or situation
• Obsessive compulsive disorder – persistent, unwanted, and obsessive thoughts, combined with compulsive behaviors used to reduce anxiety
• Post traumatic stress disorder – fear and avoidance developing after experiencing a trauma, often including other disturbances as well like nightmares and flashbacks

See your doctor for help if you think you might have one of the anxiety disorders. Many strategies for dealing with anxiety are helpful for anxiety disorder sufferers, but serious anxiety problems can be better managed or cured with therapy. The National Institute of Mental Health anxiety disorders section has a lot of information on anxiety disorders and how to get help for them, and Anxiety BC has great self help resources.

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