3 Tips On Dealing With Anxiety

One important step to dealing with anxiety is to understand its connection to panic. Anxiety and panic are often confused because the symptoms are the same. In fact, you will read many articles and books that use the two interchangeably. The difference is that one is more severe than the other although both can be distressing.

Anxiety occurs when you are feeling vulnerable. Some typical situations include having to make a presentation to a group, going for a job interview and meeting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time. You can say that anxiety puts you in a state of anticipation because you are not sure what will happen and whether the outcome will devastate your ego, threaten your self-esteem or put you in an embarrassing or humiliating state.

Panic occurs when anxiety goes awry. That’s when you begin feeling anxious about something but when the threat disappeared, the anxiety remained. The persistent anxiety becomes your automatic response to events in your life, even before you’ve had a chance to evaluate whether they are a threat to you or not. In this persistent heightened state, you become panicked easily. Rather than simply feeling vulnerable, you also experience confused thinking.

How do you begin dealing with anxiety?

1. Start by taking immediate steps to spot them the moment they begin. Don’t overlook the symptoms or think that they will be gone soon. While you should expect the anxiety to go away, you cannot rely on that happening unless you take action. Whether you like it or not, your subconscious mind has its own plan and will work on your fears below your level of awareness. This is what makes anxiety attacks so startling when they do arise from your subconscious.
2. Quickly scan what just happened and see if you can identify the thought or action that triggered your anxiety. This will give you a clue to the particular things that are causing your anxiety. It might be a fleeting thought about how vulnerable you feel under certain circumstances. Remember that it doesn’t have to be anything big or highly significant. Some of the merest things can cause anxiety, such as regretting that you just spent $500 on a new pair of shoes when you know it’s not in your budget.
3. Tackle the event head on. Put it into perspective by taking a logical look at exactly what your “careless spending” really means. Should you feel guilty or satisfied that you deserve this gift to yourself? If your guilt is too much to bare, you can always return the shoes.

You might need to go through several such exercises before you can honestly and logically look at your situation and your anxiety. Once you do, it will get easier for you to decide which events are serious and which are not. You likely will find that most are not serious at all or that they can be remedied easily.

Practice these three steps next time you feel an attack coming on and you will soon have the tools for dealing with anxiety in any situation.

If you need additional help, read my review of the top anxiety and panic relief products that I highly recommend: The Linden Method. Charles Linden, a long-time anxiety suffer who created this program, provides all the tools you need including one-on-one counselling for a full year if you need it.