Are you someone who struggles with Anxiety? Or have you never experienced anxiety before? Either way, being anxious is a normal feeling that anyone can experience. If you’ve ever felt excited in anticipation about something, where you can’t sit still and your heart begins to race, you can understand the sensation. Anxiety in the body, at first will be noticed as restlessness. Believe it or not anxiety comes from your mind, your thoughts whether conscious or subconscious contribute to a shortness of breath and increased heart rate. Many things trigger the feeling of anxiety, one could be something that shocks the system, a surprise of unexpected change. Change is a main factor that can trigger one to feel uncertain and uncomfortable.
Anxiety can become exhausting and feel like a battle which in some cases contributes to depression. I’m a psychotherapist and I work with people everyday that have anxiety. What I have found helpful, for myself and my clients is giving up the fight. Like I said it is tiring having anxiety and frustrating. Giving up the internal fight creates space for a flow of energy to become our new fuel. There is nothing wrong with you if you have anxiety, the average person does and it is becoming normalized. Accepting this fact and acknowledging that you’re struggling is beneficial for success. It could seem like you’re taking a step backwards by admitting this to yourself, but it is essential step one.
The physical sensations that you experience, could be sweating, fidgeting, increased heart beat, shortness of breath and feeling choked up, all of these things can be managed before leading to panic. Your body is reacting to thoughts from your subconscious / conscious mind. Resisting in your mind creates an emotional response, causing one to get more worked up. This is why many therapists recommend breathing exercises because it tires you out resulting in less of a struggle. My treatment is under the philosophy that anxiety has a root tigger. This could be self esteem or self worth related. Not feeling confident in one’s self, triggers anxiety as a reflex for protection. If you are not feeling safe your adrenaline kicks in as an instinct. Our mind comes up with all these thoughts of why you are not safe and how to get out of the situation. If you cannot “get out” of the situation you may freeze and have a panic attack.
Let’s rewind, before you get to that point, acknowledge the anxiety that you’re feeling, accept it as normal. Once you can do this it allows you to become more rational. Assess your situation, are you in danger; are you experiencing life or death. If not, remind yourself that everything is okay. You may need to take a break, get some air, do something to distract you. Nothing is more important than your health and wellbeing. Take a time out and allow the anxiety to pass, this can happen again and again until you get better at it. You have to believe it in and one day you’ll wake up and you won’t feel the burden anymore. It takes practice, talking to a therapist to work on your self worth creates a solid foundation. I want to say good for you for being so resilient throughout your life. If you were curious about anxiety I hope this information was helpful and if you need to talk to someone you can book an appointment with one of our psychotherapists at Thrive.