Anxiety: five effective tips to help you overcome it

Introduction

Are you experiencing anxiety but don’t know where to start to improve how you are feeling? This article will look at five effective tips to help you to overcome anxiety and move towards the life you want.

Let’s start with some context

We are all alive today because of our survival instinct, this is very much where our anxiety stems from. However, if anxiety becomes a difficulty in day-to-day life, this may be because our internal alarm is raising an unnecessary alert. Let’s jump straight into five tips to help you to manage anxiety.

If you want to find out more about the definition and symptoms of anxiety, check out this post. You will also find a free printable worksheet below with an exercise you can practice to help you to shift your focus when you feel anxious.   The five tips I recommend to help you manage anxiety are:

•           Shift your focus 

•           Allocate time to focus on the anxieties

•           Engage in relaxing activities

•           Be kind to yourself

•           Remind yourself of your achievements 

I will discuss the above points in further detail below.

Five tips for managing anxiety

Shift your focus

from your anxious thoughts. As we identified earlier, one of the symptoms of anxiety is that your thoughts can race, and it can be challenging to think clearly. 

It can therefore be beneficial to practice shifting your focus. This will have two positive outcomes:

•           You will feel calmer in the moment

•           You will realise that you can learn to reduce your anxiety. It is not something that will always overtake you.

Allocate time to focus on your worries

One of the worst things we can do is push our worries out of our minds. Let’s look at an example to illustrate this. I am going to describe something for you. You must make sure that you push that description out of your mind as soon as you read it.

Are you ready?

Remember, it is essential to focus, do not think about the description below.

Whatever you do, in a moment, make sure that you do not think about a purple parrot whistling the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb while reading a newspaper.

You have the description; now put it out of your mind, don’t think about the parrot, the tune to Mary Had a Little Lamb or the newspaper it is holding.

Give yourself a chance to really push the image out of your mind

Have you managed it? To put the above picture entirely out of your mind?

I would bet a Queen’s ransom that you were not thinking of a parrot before. Possibly you had never thought about this scenario in your life before. It is definitely something you are thinking about on some level now! 

It works the same way when you try to put anxious thoughts out of your mind. We often create some kind of representation of our thoughts; this is even more pronounced when we try to put a thought out of our minds. 

Of course, we need to think about a worry to know what we don’t want to think about! 

Rather than trying to push away anxiety focused thoughts, consider allocating time to allow these thoughts to flow freely without trying to push them away. The key to this is to allocate time-limited to specific tasks that you carry out regularly but that don’t take long. 

An excellent example of this is that you drink tea regularly throughout your day. Allocate worry time when you put the kettle on and make your tea. Focus on those thoughts that you usually try to push away during that short amount of time. Really go for it during this allocated time. 

At the other times of the day, when these worries or anxious thoughts come to mind, be sure to tell yourself that you have allocated time to focus on those thoughts and feelings. You will give all the time needed to focus on them at the allotted time.  

Engage in activities that help you relax 

Think of a time when you have felt at peace and settled; what were you doing at the time? Is there anything from those moments that you can make a regular part of your day that can help you collect your thoughts or just be? For some, that might mean relaxing to a song; for others, it might be going for a long bike ride. Whatever that is for you, I would encourage you to look at your schedule and see if you can make that activity a regular part of what you do. 

Some people would find it helpful to schedule it in their diary. You can also put up a reminder somewhere prominent to ensure that you are prompted to engage in this activity.

As you read through this post, you might have been struck with the thought that you cannot remember ever feeling completely relaxed. This probably means that you have lived in an environment where it wasn’t safe to relax. 

Perhaps, letting your guard down meant that you were at increased risk of harm. If this is the case for you, try to grab 30 seconds each day to exhale and let your shoulders drop. This may be at work when you walk to get a cup of tea, it may be at home when you use the toilet, it might be while you put the rubbish out. 

Taking that time out can really help you get a sense of control, that for even that relatively short amount of time, you can grab a moment for yourself.

Be kind to yourself 

This can be difficult. An excellent way to start is to think about what you would say to a dear friend in the same situation. Let’s say a very close friend was struggling with anxiety, and they regularly beat themselves up because of it. Think about these questions and speak to yourself as you would to a friend.

1.         If this were someone else in your situation, would you understand why they might be feeling anxious?

2.         If you were talking to a friend, what do you think they would need to hear from you?

3.         What would someone who loved you dearly want you to know in the moments you are feeling most anxious?

This is likely to be challenging to do at first. If it is too difficult to think of a friend, think of someone famous eye that you imagine would have a compassionate approach.

This can help you take a slight step back from things to be compassionate towards yourself.

Remind yourself of one thing each morning that you achieved the day before 

If I were to ask you to list ten things you don’t like about yourself, would you find that difficult? Most of us wouldn’t. We are so accustomed to focusing on what doesn’t go well, what we didn’t manage, what we should have said, or the negative ways we believe others see us. This is common and something we all face at times.

Taking a few moments each day to think about something you have achieved can help you centre yourself and look at your situation in a way that actively takes note of the achievements and the areas we want to change.

It is essential to clarify what I mean when saying “achievement”. I do not mean this compared to what would count as an achievement if you didn’t have difficulty with anxiety. I mean, given how difficult things are for you currently, an achievement could have been to survive the day. It could have been to allow yourself to cry. An achievement could have been to get out of bed or to take part in the public speaking engagement that you were nervous about.

Take a moment each day to acknowledge at least one win from the day before. You will feel better for it.

In conclusion

Anxiety is something that we all experience. You may feel like you are stuck with the anxiety forever, but the tools in this post should demonstrate to you that you can take some steps to lessen the struggle. You can overcome anxiety!

You can also schedule a free 15 minute consultation if you would like to explore whether therapy could help you.