Managing Anxiety

Your brain is not wired to be happy, but to keep you safe so that you can survive (Workman, Reader, & Barkow, 2020).

 

We start with that idea because many times clients come to therapy with the belief that they are broken because of their anxiety. It can be a profound experience to learn that you are not broken, your brain is simply over-functioning in an effort to keep you safe. Only when you have empathy for what your body and brain are trying to do to keep you safe can you begin to change behaviors so that you can feel better. You can begin this work by thanking your brain and body for the work they do to keep you safe day after day. Yes it sounds ridiculous, but that gratitude is the foundation for meaningful work that can radically change the way you relate to the world and alleviate your anxiety (Jans-Beken & Wong, 2021) (Jans-Beken, 2021).

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Once you start practicing gratitude, anxiety-management skills become much more effective. Anxiety-management skills that I regularly practice with clients: 

• Instead of letting anxious thoughts swim around in your head and keep you up all night, grab a piece of paper and a pen and write down all the reasons you are anxious. You may think that is an impossible task because you are worried about so much but you will find that there is an end to the list and that in itself can help you manage your anxiety. Once your list is complete hold it in your hand and think about those things for as long as you would like. Once you are done looking at that list, fold it up, put it away, and commit to not thinking about your worries. If you find your brain wandering to your worries, pull out your paper and focus on it as long as you need to, then when you are done put it away. This practice puts boundaries around your anxious thoughts so they do not rule your whole day. 

• When you notice anxiety creeping into your brain and body, start with a scaling question - from a scale of 1-10 how anxious am I (10 being the most anxious you have ever been)? Once you have a number, ask yourself what you could do to reduce the intensity of that anxiety by one number (slow deep breaths, drink water, go on a walk, listen to music, etc.). Once you have identified something you could do, do that thing, then scale your anxiety again. When you notice you have control over the intensity of your anxiety, then you may be able to regulate yourself a lot more quickly and easily than before. 

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If you are interested in more support managing your anxiety, visit my Headway Profile to schedule a consultation. 

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References

Jans-Beken, L. (2021). Mature Gratitude in Positive Psychiatry.

Jans-Beken, L., & Wong, P. T. (2021). Development and preliminary validation of the Existential Gratitude Scale (EGS). Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 34(1), 72-86.

Workman, L., Reader, W., & Barkow, J. H. (Eds.). (2020). The Cambridge handbook of evolutionary perspectives on human behavior. Cambridge University Press.