3 Tips to Catch Anxiety Before It Catches You!!
Anxiety is that feeling in the body that comes from our thinking. The feeling of anxiety can manifest itself as heart palpitations, sweating, muscle tightness and soreness, inability to swallow, tightness in the throat, butterflies in the stomach, tingling in extremities, shortness of breath and more. The thinking that precedes anxiety can involve past traumas, fear of future events, any number of phobias, and can be physiological and neurobiological.
So now that we’ve identified the feeling, what do we do when it comes up? How do we minimize our anxiety?
It is very common. We all worry at times. We all have times of feeling restless and agitated. The only difference is the degree to which we feel this.
So, what can we do when we get anxious?
There are a number of tools that are useful when dealing with anxiety, and it’s often helpful to try out several and see which ones are best suited to us as individuals.
1. Breathe It Out:Mindfulness breathing exercises are a great way to ease anxiety. There are many ways to do breathing exercises, and one of the most effective is counting breaths. Inhale for four counts, hold it for four counts, then exhale for four counts and hold it for another four counts. Repeat as many times as needed. This focus on the breath helps to take our mind off our thinking and grounds us in the here and now.
2. Write It Out:It can be helpful to write out all of our anxious thoughts, so they aren’t trapped inside our head. It doesn’t need to be structured or make sense; it just helps to get out of our heads and onto paper.
3. Talk It Out:Talking about the things we’re anxious about or even just the anxiety itself with someone we trust can reduce the anxiety, and the connection that comes from talking it out with another person can further lessen our anxiety.
An important thing to remember is that these anxious feelings come from our thoughts, which we create, so just because we feel something doesn’t mean that it is real, no matter how real it may feel in the moment. The above tools can help bring us out of those thoughts and heighten our awareness to what is real, and to be in the present moment. But, if your anxiety is making it so you are having trouble functioning in your day-to-day life, talk with a professional.