Anxiety
Anxiety is a normal response to stress, we can all feel anxious, worried or fearful in certain situations.
Anxiety, worry and fear are necessary responses if we are in danger.
At times we can be overly sensitive to what we perceive as danger, when this occurs we can experience these different responses more often and this can become problematic.
Our bodies can react to this perceived danger in different ways:
Freeze:
- Feeling numb
- Heart pounding
- Sense of dread
- Pale skin
- Holding breath/restricted breathing
Fight:
- Aggressiveness
- Taughtness of body
- Stomp, kick
- Anger, rage
- Knot in stomach, nausea, vomiting
Flight:
- Restless legs and feet
- Stimming – legs, feet, hands
- Fidgeting
- Feeling trapped
- Anxiety/Adrenaline
- Wild eyes
- Tense
Each of the below areas can have a knock-on effect on the others and can have a significant impact on areas of your life, such as work, hobbies and relationships.
Thoughts:
- “I am going crazy”
- “I will always be prepared if I worry about things”
- “I can’t cope”
- “My mind just wont stop”
- “Worrying this much is making me ill”
Emotions:
- Anxiety
- Fear
- Apprehension
- Nervousness
- Overwhelmed
- Distressed
- Irritable
Physical feelings:
- Tense
- Restless
- Sleep difficulties
- Nausea
- Tired
- Difficulty concentrating
- Upset stomach
Behaviours:
- Worry
- Reassurance seeking
- Putting things off
- Over preparing
- Avoidance of situations
- Trying to distract yourself
- Overthinking/ruminating
There are many different ways we can help manage the symptoms of anxiety, below are a few easy techniques you can try:
Breathing exercises and grounding techniques.
Being aware of our breathing and being able to change our breathing patterns can help us to manage how we feel and react to different situations.
When we are stressed we can start to breathe fast and take shallow breaths. These shallower breaths cause us to take on more oxygen, this makes our hearts beat faster which can cause our anxiety levels to rise.
By being able to control and slow down our breathing we are able to send signals to our brain and the rest of our body that everything is okay. This reduces our stress responses and calms us down.
Belly Breathing
- Place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach.
- Breathe in through your nose, as you breathe in allow your belly to swell, like a balloon being blown up – this is using your lungs fully.
- Try to keep the movement in your chest to a minimum.
- Slowly and evenly breathe out through your nose – like letting the balloon in your tummy deflate.
- Repeat this, trying to get into a rhythm.
- Aim to make each breath cycle (inhale and exhale) last around 5-7 seconds. (You’re aiming to take 8-12 breaths per minute).
4-7-8 Technique:
The aim of this breathing exercise is for your out breath to be longer than your in breath.
- Take a breath in through your nose to the count of 4
- Hold that breath to the count of 7
- Then breathe out your mouth to the count of 8.
- Repeat this for 4 cycles.
Tip: if breathing in for 4 and out for 8 is too difficult for you, adjust the timings to suit you, but make sure your out breath is always longer than your in breath.
Box breathing:
- Inhale – 4 seconds
- Hold – 4 seconds
- Exhale – 4 seconds
- Hold – 4 seconds
Grounding
The purpose of grounding is to bring yourself back to reality when experiencing panic or severe anxiety.
There are many different grounding techniques that you can try, it might take a bit of time to figure out which one’s work for you.
With your Body: Lay on the floor, take off your shoes and sock and press your toes into the floor. Use your hands to squeeze play dough.
With your Sense: Use essential oils, make a cup of tea, war your favourite item of clothing.
With self-soothing: Take a hot/cold shower or bath, light a scented candle, wrap yourself up in a soft blanket.
By Observing: Describe every object you can see in detail, the colour, texture, shadows, shapes etc.
A simple grounding technique that you can use anytime and anywhere is this one 5-4-3-2-1:
- Name 5 things you can see
- Name 4 things you can touch
- Name 3 things you can hear
- Name 2 things you can smell
- Name 1 thing you can taste
Worry and Rumination
Worrying is very common amongst anxious people. Worry can be helpful in some situations for example: when going on holiday, worry that you’ll forget your passport will make you check your bag before you leave your house so you can get on your flight.
Worry becomes a problem when we worry too much! It can make us less able to make decisions, stay focused, plan ahead and effectively problem solve. It can also affect our sleep, make us tense and feel exhausted!
Worry is a thinking style, not an emotion. We can change thinking styles.
Worry is categorised by ‘What if….’ questions. It can make us fear the future and imagine the worst happening.
Rather than looking at the future, rumination looks at the past and is recognised by ‘if only…’ questions rather than ‘what if…’. Like with worry, Rumination can have a function if it is used to develop hindsight and learn from things in preparation for next time but can it be a problem when it is continuous.
Rumination can feel like having a ‘mental running commentary’ in our head. This commentary is often made up of self-criticism, negative evaluations and self-consciousness; comparing and judging us in a variety of ways.
Tips to help manage worry and rumination
Every time you notice a worry capture it and write it down. Get the thought out of your head and hold it somewhere else (write it down on a piece of paper, make a note on your phone) otherwise your mind will try to be very helpful and keep reminding you… just in case you forget.
If the same worry pops back into your head, gently remind yourself that you have already noted it down and will think it through properly later when you have the time.
Pick a 15 – 30-minute uninterrupted period in your day (no more than 30 minutes – set a timer if you need to). The best time to use this technique is early evening, but make sure you don’t use it in the hour before you go to bed as during this time you should be trying to unwind and prepare for sleep.
During this time allow yourself to think about and explore the worries you have collected throughout the day.
Are there any worries that you can problem solve? Can you gather more information to help you stop worrying about a certain thing?
When you’ve noticed your worrying thoughts or you’ve got to your set worry time with your list of worries from the day and you’re not sure how to proceed, you can use this worry tree.
Start at the top of the tree, asking yourself each question, following the arrows as you make your way down the tree. Act on the final point you reach.
