So many people I meet, either as a therapist or on a course, suffer from anxiety to some extent. Anxiety can cause so much stress and trauma to an individual as it can have the effect of paralyzing them with fear. Anxiety can build up and catches an individual out as its onset can feel sudden. Anxiety can also exist in the background and just be a constant with no break form it. It can be hard for an individual to actually feel that there is anything they can do about it.
The problem with anxiety is that often we learn to react to situations with anxiety. Our brains seems to be hard wired to default to being cautious about situations and events. This goes back to when we were hunter gathers and needed to have out wits about us in case we were threatened by hostile tribes, situations or wild animals. We needed to have this hyper alert state for our protection.
However in our modern times this hyper alert mode being on all the time can be self destructive and cause unnecessary stress and problems. Not all of us are born with personalities that deal well with stressful situations and this can trigger anxiety within us. Also life events can cause us to be more hyper alter again triggering the anxiety state.
I was not born with good stress management skills and certainly learnt as a child to be anxious. I have had to learn how to cope with stress and anxiety and have managed this quite well over the years. I thought I had it sorted when the menopause hit me and would feel anxious all of a sudden. I was aware of the physical triggers of anxiety such as an over active thyroid , heart and breathing problems and diabetes. However I was not aware of how the menopause could bring on feelings of anxiety. It was not until I explored the menopause for the book that Chris and I wrote, Little Less Dragon Little More Angel, that I realized this sudden reoccurrance of anxiety was due to the effects of the menopause on my body. All too often anxiety is put down to psychological causes but it is important to realize that sometimes the cause can be physically triggered or a combination of the two.
Learning to manage anxiety can be a mind-field as there seem to be so many strategy to help out there. Therapists and websites offer a plethora of approaches. We are all different and what works for one may not work for another. It can also be that one technique works in one situation and not in another. So what I can offer is what has worked for me and my experience as a therapist and trainer.
My first lesson on how to manage anxiety was when I did my stress management training. I realized that my thoughts certainly wound me up and that the way my brain was wired to think in negative and critical ways. My confidence and self belief would plummet leaving me anxious and very negative. Learning to manage stress and what triggers it is a starting point for managing anxiety. Learning to recognize how negative and destructive thinking can cause anxiety is important. However the Cognitive behavioral therapy approaches can be complicated and daunting for some people. This helped me in the beginning however I thought there was something missing .
It was all very well doing all the head stuff and task and strategies, however I felt I needed to get in touch with myself in other ways to understand what triggered things or have a sense of when I started to feel uneasy. This is where meditation and mindfulness helped me. I needed ways to calm my mind and body so I could have a sense of what was happening and be in a space where I could observe and notice my body and mind. In my blog Pushing the comfort zone boundaries I show how I use some of the mindfulness techniques.
I look for things that give me pleasure to stay in the moment as this helps to turn off the stress hormones and pump up the the good feel good hormones. Taking my dogs for walks , working in my garden, volunteering at Secret world, painting and taking in sunsets and sunrises. These are a few of the things that help me to keep grounded and in the moment.
