ANXIETY is the number one mental health issue today. It is estimated that one in four individuals suffer from anxiety at any one time.
Anxiety can stand alone as Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder or Phobic Disorder.
Frequently, anxiety coexists with other mental health conditions including depression, bipolar disorder, adjustment disorder and schizophrenia.
What many people do not know is that anxiety is the most treatable mental health condition. If you suffer from anxiety symptoms, and they are not complicated with other disorders, you can learn to manage and even cure your symptoms in 90 days.
Your experience of anxiety may be different from other people. Moreover, your symptoms may change from day to day and can vary in intensity on different days.
Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all cure. For the best results, the first step is to identify your symptoms and their source.
The next step is to choose one or more tools that will specifically target your symptoms. For example, if your thoughts are producing the worst symptoms, it will be more effective to challenge your thoughts than practising a relaxation method which targets your bodily reactions.
Symptoms of anxiety can occur in four areas:
1. Your thoughts
2. Your behaviours
3. Your feelings
4. Your bodily reactions
1. THOUGHTS
There are several types of negative thoughts that cause or perpetuate anxiety
• Imagination on fire. This feels like your thoughts are burning your brain or moving at incredible speeds.
• Rumination is when you go over the same negative thoughts repeatedly with no resolution.
• Regret about the past.
• Worry about the future,
• Overestimating the chance that something will go wrong. For instance, you may feel sure that you will not get the job you have applied for.
• Overestimating the cost of things going wrong. In this instance you predict that not getting the job you applied for will result in you becoming poverty stricken.
Tips to manage anxious thoughts
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a way of learning to identify your negative thought and then challenging it. For instance, the thought “I know I will not get the job” can be challenged with detective thinking: “What evidence is there that I will not get the job? Until they call and tell me I have not been accepted, I will assume another outcome.”
Thought stopping is a behavioural psychology method where you literally imagine a STOP sign and tell yourself “STOP” to block the thought.
2. BEHAVIOURS
There are several behaviours which sustain anxiety and can keep it at a high level
• Avoiding anxiety provoking situations such as not applying for a job
• Not doing things you would like to do or achieving certain goals such as changing jobs and improving your circumstances.
• Overplanning to prevent your highly feared predicted event from occurring such as researching to every last detail the company where you would like to work.
• Overpreparation to prevent the feared event from happening such as rewriting your CV many times and never submitting it.
• Hypervigilance which entails paying greater attention to your body or surroundings looking for a potential threat.
• Staying in unhelpful situations that promote anxiety such as staying in your old job which is stressful.
Tips to manage anxiety provoking behaviours
Simply put, the best way of countering these behaviours is to face your fear and just do what needs to be done. If you need to change jobs, put together a CV and submit it. Tell yourself that “Done is better than perfect”. Ask a friend to check your CV once and if approved, send it. Ride your fear like you would ride a roller coaster and it will subside.
3. FEELINGS
Feelings of fear, insecurity, hopelessness and helplessness can increase your anxiety. The longer you hold onto these feelings, the more entrenched they become. It is in your interest to substitute negative feelings with positive feelings.
Tips to manage upsetting feelings
Your heart can feel. You literally can be “heart sore” or your heart can feel like it is bursting with joy. Focus on your heart space and let feelings like trust, hope and circle of security enter your heart.
4. BODILY SYMPTOMS
Bodily symptoms are experienced by most anxiety sufferers.
• Heart racing or pounding
• Tight chest or shallow breathing
• Muscle cramps
• Nausea
• Dry mouth
Source :Herald Sun ( Australia)
