Anxiety can feel like a monster that is out of control and you have no way of conquering it: nothing could be further from the truth. You can make choices to reduce your anxiety. You have the power. By adopting these seven strategies and restructuring your habits, the anxiety monster gets less scary and slowly loses its power.
Schedule/Routine: Not everyone's anxiety is related to some deep-seated trauma hidden under layers of dysfunction and poor coping skills. Your anxiety could be due to a wonky daily, weekly schedule, and routine. “Wonky” is a clinical term, by the way. Okay, it's not really. It's not uncommon for me, as a therapist, to discover that a client's anxiety is largely influenced by a poorly managed and disorganized schedule. There will always be unexpected events throughout your week, but for the most part, you can structure your day and week in such a way as to reduce your anxiety.
What are some anxiety producers for people in regards to their weekly routine?
What are some anxiety reducers for people in regards to their weekly routine?
Awareness: Having awareness of your anxiety is the first and biggest step in your battle against it. Anxiety has a way of creeping into your daily experience without drawing attention to itself. Therefore, you need to make friends with the anxiety monster and learn everything about it. You can't conquer an enemy you don't understand.
Deep Breathing: "Belly breaths", "deep breathing", "cleansing breaths", "diaphragmatic breathing", or whatever you call it, deep breathing is very effective at controlling anxiety. Below are simple steps you can follow to manage your anxiety.
Finding Resolution: Possibly, the reason you are feeling distress is due to an unresolved conflict that you are not allowing yourself to deal with because it is uncomfortable. However, ignoring your hurt doesn’t do anything. The feelings remain despite your efforts to dismiss them. It is better to face the discomfort and find a resolution to the feelings.
THE BASICS
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: When you have a free moment, sit in a relaxed position and tense every muscle in your body. Then, slowly, starting with your head, release the muscle tension throughout your body all the way down to your feet.
Accept It and Move On: Your anxiety may have its origin in a disappointment or failure which can infect how you feel about the rest of your day, week, or month. Or the anxiety can come out of nowhere and be like a dark cloud hanging over your head. However, just because one thing went wrong doesn’t mean everything will go wrong. Don’t allow your anxiety to be a dark forecast on everything else. Allow for a mistake to be a mistake, a failure to be a failure, or an out-of-nowhere anxiety episode to be an out-of-nowhere anxiety episode, and let that be that. Accept what happened and move on.
Find Distractions: As I said above, sometimes anxiety will impact your mood or thinking without cause. If that’s the case, sometimes there is no resolution to be sought and the best strategy is to distract yourself. Reading a book, watching TV, listening to music or going for a run can aid with distracting yourself from the anxiety long enough that it goes away. Below is a list of 15 ideas that can help with distraction.
Anxiety Essential ReadsI wish anxiety were easier to vanquish, but the truth is, it takes a lot work. Most people aren't afraid of hard work, they are afraid of self-discipline, putting in the hard work day after day, even when they don't want to. But that's what it takes. You can achieve self-discipline by following the seven strategies discussed in this post and rolling them into daily habits. Before you know it, one day turns into two, and then three, and then a month and then a lifestyle, a lifestyle of managing and overcoming anxiety. You can do it.
