4 Steps to Calm Your Anxiety
Experiencing anxiety can be so overwhelming. Feeling on edge, anxious, worried, having an accelerated heart rate, and feeling an uneasy stomach are just a few symptoms that many with anxiety experience.
I have been there with clients who experience moderate or severe overwhelming anxiety until we get to the bottom of what is associated with their anxiety. We dig deep into their thought processes to identify what they think and worry about. Ultimately, anxiety is caused by many factors. Nonetheless, the most common factor is the perfect storm of magnifying the risks (worst-case scenarios and what-ifs) and minimizing your ability to successfully cope and solve the "worst-case" situations.
In this blog post, I'm sharing 4 steps that I use with my clients to help you manage anxiety. I will go over:
Developing awareness (thoughts, situations, triggers)
Evaluate your thoughts to calm anxiety and control anxiety long-term
How to use problem-solving to manage anxiety
Developing a coping plan
If you are tired and overwhelmed by your anxiety, you're in the right place! Stay consistent with these four steps, and positive change will come. Let's jump into it!
Step 1
One of the most critical steps you need to overcome anxiety is to be acquainted with your thought processes. Anxiety is connected to having irrational or inaccurate thoughts; in other words, anxiety is created by overthinking, negative thoughts, "what-ifs," and thoughts about the worst-case scenarios. Therefore developing awareness about what you think during various situations in your life is essential.
Keep a journal to write down your thoughts. For example, if you feel anxious about work, intentionally think about your thoughts before, during, and after a situation. Are you thinking about getting in trouble, making a mistake, or losing your job?
You may be the type of person already acquainted with your thoughts at any given moment; that's perfect. The next step is to write them down. If you are not acquainted with your thoughts, no worries; you will get there with practice. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
What was I thinking during that situation?
What did I imagine would happen?
What did I predict would happen?
Step one requires some effort. Take a few days to practice. Practice as much as you can to identify your thoughts because identifying your thoughts is essential to moving forward to the other steps.
Step 2
As you may remember, I mentioned the connection between your irrational thoughts and anxiety. Now that you have practiced identifying thoughts, we will use them to determine how accurate they are. If they are not legitimate or rational, they are likely causing stress and anxiety.
To evaluate your thoughts, we need to have you look at the situation and thoughts from different angles, sides, and perspectives. One easy way to do that is to evaluate facts and evidence that supports your thought. Make a list of facts that supports your thought. Keep working on that list until you cannot come up with more evidence/facts. Then, move to the other side and evaluate what facts make your thought inaccurate, irrational, or not true. Again, make a list until your run out of points. This side may be more challenging because your mind may convince you that your original thought is accurate. If you need extra help with this side, ask a friend or a family member to help you out.
Be thorough, and be open to the possibility that our thoughts are not always true, objective, accurate, or rational. Once you are done with both sides, write down your conclusion. If you conclude that your thought is inaccurate, write it down and read it daily. If you concluded that your original idea is accurate, that might indicate that we need to do something about it, which I will go over in step number three.
Remember that the most crucial part at the end of this step (step 2) is to read and remind yourself constantly how your thought is inaccurate (if that is your conclusion). Before we jump to step number three, below are other questions that can help you evaluate if your thought is accurate. Here are the questions:
Is there a different way that I can look at that situation?
Could that situation mean something else?
What information can I be missing before I make a conclusion?
Could that person mean something else?
Step 3
Often, when you experience anxiety, you are having irrational thoughts. For example, you may be thinking about getting fired from work, uncertainty, the future, etc. For step three, you need to identify if your thought is irrational or if you have an actual problem in front of you. If you have a real problem, not an imagined one, it is crucial to develop a plan. Problem-solving and goal attainment plans are necessary to manage anxiety. Always get into the habit of identifying a problem and planning a few options to solve the situation. Here are my top recommendations when problem-solving.
Always write it down to keep track of your plan.
If one of your solutions does not work, go to your next option.
Stay consistent with your plan.
Identify barriers, including emotional, logistical, and financial. Work on getting rid of your obstacles to then continue your plan.
Schedule the steps you need to take on your calendar.
Set reminders and alarms to remind you of your step toward goal attainment.
Step 4
Finally, we are here in step number four. We identified your thoughts, evaluated your thoughts, and made plans. Step four includes developing coping strategies to then establish habits for coping. A coping method is effective in helping you cope with life, stressors, and anxiety. It is essential to make healthy coping a pattern that is part of your daily life. A coping plan can involve various ways, including cognitive, using your body, and relying on your support system. I recommend cognitive coping, including reframing your thoughts, reading your coping statements (or conclusions from your evaluation of thoughts), and developing/using affirmations. Take out your journal and plan out various ways you can use to cope that involve your body, mind, and social support.
If you need more help developing a coping plan and managing anxiety snatch my "daily mental health journal" here! You will find excellent tools to manage your mental health in the journal, including anxiety. You will get a guide to walk you through:
Evaluating your thoughts
"Thought work" to help your emotional state
Developing a structured coping plan
Learn how your thoughts affect your emotions
Analyze your thoughts to manage your mood and emotions
Create coping statements and affirmations to get you through the day
Create a daily and weekly coping plans
Create a daily mental health-focused morning and night routine
Tracking your wellness
Warmly,
Diana Ruiz, MA,LCPC