How to Manage Anxiety on a Daily Basis Before It Manages You
Part of Being Human is Feeling Anxiety From Time to Time.
Anxiety is a natural part of being a human. We all feel it from time to time to varying degrees. Look at anxiety as our early warning system that is helping us be aware of potential risks or difficult situations on our horizon. When we have a moderate amount of anxiety, it can help us plan or take action today. While we each have a different baseline of anxiety, when you find your anxiety getting too intense or for too long, then it’s time to consider looking into what might be causing this.
Understanding Anxiety
Whenever we try to start managing our emotions, it is important to understand what it is first. Anxiety is one of the emotions that is expressed physiologically. Anxiety, based on some empirical evidence, is connected to our body’s stress response or “Fight-Flight-Freeze” instinct. When our Fight-Flight-Freeze response is triggered, our bodies have a stress response. Sometimes we are aware of why this happens and sometimes not so much.
Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety
It is important to know some of the signs of anxiety as a starting point allowing us to identify when we are anxious. Common signs and symptoms include:
Difficulty concentrating
Muscle tension
Difficulty relaxing
Sleep difficulty
Constant worrying
Feeling chronically tired
Irritability
Once we know the signs and symptoms of anxiety, the next step is to start identifying what is causing our anxiety. This requires us to become attuned to our body sensations during the day, track the intensity of our anxious feelings, and what events (or people) are around us when feeling anxious. This helps us to identify possible reasons for our anxiety especially when it becomes unmanageable or problematic.
Use Grounding Techniques to Help Manage Your Anxiety
Now that we know anxiety is our early warning system that is focused on the future, learning approaches that “ground” us to the present moment is helpful in managing our anxiety. Think of grounding techniques as ways to reset or refocus your attention from the future to the present. In other words, it turns off our body’s Fight-Flight-Freeze response. There are multiple ways to help achieve this and no one technique works for everyone. Below are some interventions that have been shown to be helpful.
Journaling
Writing down your anxieties and what is causing them is a great way to acknowledge them and help calm ourselves down. When we simply admit we are feeling anxious and what is causing it, that can help decrease the intensity. Anxiety is like a car alarm going off and disrupting our lives. When we sit down and become curious as to WHY we are feeling anxious, we can learn how to create a plan to better cope.
Creating Routines
Given anxiety thrives in uncertainty and disorganization, one powerful tool is creating routines and structure. This can be as simple as creating a calendar and to-do list of the most important things we need to accomplish. This helps us focus our limited time and attention on what needs to be done rather than less important details. In some cases, we may have to make some challenging decisions on what to let go of (even if we want to accomplish everything). Consider options such as pushing it off to a later date, giving it to someone else to deal with, or simply letting it go. That might be hard for some of us to do (especially people who have been very successful in their lives).
Healthy Habits
One of the most important things we can do to better manage anxiety is to be more attuned and aware of how we are reacting physiologically. Review how much you are sleeping, your diet, exercise, alcohol and tobacco usage, and even caffeine. Consider limits to social media and having a more robust boundary between work and your social life.
Communication
Given we all face anxiety from time to time, seek out connection and support from others. We are social beings, and social support is one of the best medicines to staying healthy over our lives. So don’t be afraid to share how you are feeling with your friends and family; it can be relieving to us to know we have people who care and also may have some of the same struggles we have.
Need more help?
While we all have different amounts of time and energy to cope with the anxieties of life, sometimes things can overwhelm us. While the above tips and advice might help in many cases, counseling for anxiety has been shown to be quite effective even after 8-10 sessions. Feel free to reach out if you would like to learn more or schedule an appointment to talk with us about your options.
Dr. Philip B. Gnilka is the Clinical Director and Founder of Sequoia Counseling Group, a boutique mental health practice that serves clients in Las Vegas, NV. His experience as a tenured professor in mentoring students about counseling approaches and theories reinforced his passion for helping individual clients directly. He specializes in anxiety, stress management, and perfectionism.