How to Deal with Anxiety
Anxiety is a feeling of worry, dread, and unease about a future event. It usually also affects our thoughts and behaviour. It can lead to a negative thought process, making us feel that we have no control. Additionally, it can manifest itself physically through sweating, trembling, increased blood pressure, dizziness, or difficulty breathing.
Every one of us is bound to feel anxious at some point or another, as a normal response to a stressful situation or when under pressure. As adults, we go through many stressors in our day-to-day life, be it our relationships, our job, our academics, or our finances. However, if the feeling of dread is constant and significantly impacts our capacity to carry on day-to-day activities, one should consider approaching a mental health specialist. As per American Psychiatric Association, nearly 30% of adults are diagnosed with anxiety disorders at some point in their lives.
Because anxiety plays such a crucial role in our quality of life, it becomes imperative to learn some techniques to manage our anxiety and fears. Coping strategies can be employed to deal with the symptoms of anxiety. Let’s discuss some techniques to work through anxiety-
1. Boxed breathing- This relaxation technique helps in breath regulation and calming the mind. Visualize a box, and we’ll move from one corner of the box to the next using our breath.
- Inhale slowly, counting to 4 or 5.
- Then, visualize the next side of the box and hold your breath for 4 to 5 counts.
- Visualize the third side of the box while exhaling for 4 to 5 seconds.
- Finally, hold the breath for 4 to 5 seconds. This completes one cycle.
Repeat this process for 8 to 10 cycles or until you start feeling calmer.
Consciously slowing your breath counters the shallow breathing often experienced during anxiety. Moreover, focusing on your breath while visualizing the box distracts you from intrusive, anxiety-ridden thoughts.
2. Grounding techniques- Grounding techniques are exercises employed to connect to the present moment, typically by engaging the five senses or through mental exercises. Here, we’ll discuss a few grounding techniques that can help you move away from negative internal thoughts and experiences:
· 5-4-3-2-1 Technique- This technique taps into the five senses to ground oneself. To start, take slow, deep breaths to calm yourself. Then follow these steps:
- Say out loud 5 things you see around you,
- 4 things you can touch and feel around you,
- 3 things you can hear,
- 2 things you can smell, and
- 1 thing you can taste (you can keep something handy to taste before starting the exercise).
· Touch something warm or cold- Feeling something with a drastically different temperature can be a great way to ground yourself in the present moment. Hold onto a piece of ice or put your hands under running water until your thoughts have shifted to the thing at hand.
· Listen to music- Whenever feeling anxious, listen to a song or focus on music. Music has a soothing effect and can help shift your focus away from intrusive thoughts.
Grounding exercises are meant to calm you down. When you feel anxious, your body goes into a fight or flight mode, which is associated with the physical symptoms discussed above. It might also lead to a surge of energy in some people because of the adrenaline release in anxiety.
As a result, some people might find it difficult to perform these grounding techniques immediately. It might be effective to direct that excess energy into physical activities such as brisk walking, running, cleaning, dancing, or engaging in any rigourous activity. You can then come back to the grounding techniques.
3. Challenging your thoughts- Anxiety often gives rise to negative thinking patterns that can be difficult to dismiss. During these times when anxious thoughts become pervasive, it’s important to work on challenging them. Often negative thinking involves what is called ‘cognitive distortions.’ These distortions include imagining the worst possible outcome, focusing on the negatives while ignoring the positives, and more.
To counter these distortions, you can ask yourself questions such as:
- What is the evidence that what I am thinking is a fact and not just my interpretation?
- Am I drawing conclusions based on a few isolated situations?
- If it happened once or a few times, does it mean it will always happen?
- Am I overemphasizing the importance of an event?
Additionally, you can direct your thoughts from being problem-focused, which can make you fearful, to being solution-focused, which can help you think of coping strategies. Calming thoughts, like ‘Take one day at a time’ or reminding yourself that ‘this is temporary’ can also be helpful in managing anxiety.