Winning the Anxiety Battle
Posted on August 14, 2016
How To Win The Battle With Anxiety
The number of people in Australia struggling with anxiety and stress is rising each year. This is true for our kids and teens as well as adults. It can be a crippling experience with attacks occurring without notice and the thought of “Am I enough?” never far away. For some young people anxiety means that they withdraw socially, they may underperform at school or avoid going to school, they miss out on many opportunities, friendships and relationships, and life is not as enjoyable as it could be. I know what anxiety feels like as I’ve had this experience many times in my life, beginning in my teen years and lasting well into my 30’s.
Anxiety often occurs when we have low self-worth, low self-esteem, overly high expectations of ourselves, few coping and self care strategies, and perceived large external stressors such as family conflict, pressure from peers or from school. It can be impacted by our DNA, hormones, lack of quality sleep and poor diet.
Anxiety is caused by projecting our thoughts into the future and imagining the worst or very unpleasant outcomes. People who struggle with anxiety often have very active imaginations which is how we are able to vividly imagine the unpleasant outcomes and become overwhelmed.
Before I began studying coaching I believed that I would live with anxiety for all of my life. I believed that it was something I had little or no control over, it was something that just happened to me with no conscious awareness on my part of why it was happening.
Anxiety is a strategy
Through coaching I’ve learnt that anxiety is a strategy, just like everything else I do in life, it’s something that I can take control over and I don’t have to live the rest of my life feeling like that. This doesn’t mean that I never experience anxiety, it means I experience it less frequently and I can manage myself when it happens and overcome those feelings quicker and easier.
This morning was one example when this experience crept up on me…
My partner is about to embark on 12 months of working away from home, not only will I miss her like crazy but it will also mean that I’ll be on my own with our two young kids while working, studying and building a business. In a moment I was overcome with overwhelm and panic. Thoughts like “What if I don’t cope?”, “What if I can’t manage?”, “How will I be able to do all of this” and “this is going to be too hard” flooded my head and suddenly it was hard to breathe.
Here’s what I did:
- I laid down and took control of my breathing.
- I became aware of where in my body I was experiencing tightness, and I consciously pictured myself unraveling this tightness, like undoing knots.
- I felt like I’d fallen into a big dark hole, like a deep well, it was concrete on all sides and there was no way out, so I pictured creating rungs on the walls so that I could climb out.
- I thought about what these rungs would represent – things that I know would make me feel better. These rungs represented:
- A warm shower
- A cup of tea
- A walk
- Sitting in my favourite chair in the sun
- Cuddling my kids
- Using my essential oils
- Eating a healthy snack
- Reading a book
- Resting
- Getting enough quality sleep
- Meditation
- Gratitudes
- Finally, I destroyed the negative thoughts by noticing the inaccuracies of those thoughts. For example, “I’m not enough”, really? Not enough for who? Have I coped in difficult times before? Of course I have! Have I been a great parent to my kids even when my partner has been at work or out of the house? Of course I have! I thought of some really empowering examples of when I’ve been a great parent, when I’ve coped in difficult times and when I’ve been MORE than enough!! One of my favourite thoughts for destroying negative, unhelpful thoughts is “I’m made of star dust”!
We’re all made of the same elements as the stars, we’re all designed to shine. The questions of “Am I enough?” and “Will I be able to cope?” are diminished and replaced with thoughts of “How can I make this year fun with my kids?”, “How can I take care of myself so that I can be at my best?”
No matter how you’re feeling there is always something you can find to be grateful for, it could be as simple as clean water or access to education and health care.
Really it was everything I could think of that I know helps me to feel good. I wasn’t in a position to do them all right away but I knew three things I could do as soon as I got up that would help me to feel better.
How can we use this thinking to reduce the amount of anxiety that we experience?
Research by Tal Ben Shahar PhD has shown that spending 5 minutes each day focusing on what we’re grateful for, doing things for other people (focusing outward instead of inward), spending time each morning focusing on what we’re looking forward to that day (also known as gratitudes in advance) and daily meditations can have a great effect over the long term.
Understanding that anxiety is an emotion, that all emotions serve a purpose and that anxiety is our brains way of trying to keep us safe is really useful. When we understand that this experience is not good or bad and it will pass we can relax. We can thank our brain for trying to protect us, recognise that we’re not in immediate danger and slowly, when we’re ready, release the feeling without trying to fight it, as the more we fight it the more tightly it holds on to us.
Learning coping strategies and practicing them before we experience the unwanted feelings can help.
Building a list of actions that we know support us when we have a clear head so that when we feel anxiety, stress or overwhelm creeping up on us we already have a range of strategies ready to go.
Think of it this way, if there’s a bushfire coming your way you’d hope that you already have your action plan written, easily accessible and even practiced. Authorities recommend being well prepared ahead of bushfire season because stress means that our brains don’t function at their best and we can react without clarity, so rehearsing how we can manage these emotions before we experience them allows us to consciously choose how we want to respond.
For children charts work really well. Young children respond well to charts with pictures of actions that they can choose such as breathing activities, time outside, time with a special toy, even getting a drink of water, going for a run or listening to music – whatever your child responds to. Older children can have a written list of actions that they know support them.
Anxiety is often caused by vividly imagining an unpleasant future experience, another antidote to anxiety is to vividly imagine things working out the way you’d like them to. Kids are often especially good at this as many young people have great imaginations and are not limited the way adults are by “reality”.
If you’d like to know more about how coaching can help you, your child, teen or young adult contact me now for your complimentary 45 minute consultation.
