Coping with Anxiety

We need to remember on the very onset that anxiety disorder or GAD is a treatable mental condition. By using the right tools persistently and believing in the power of mind, one can learn to overcome anxiety and panic attacks. According to Deanne Repich, who has twelve years of experience in this field and has been associated with National Institute of Anxiety and Stress, getting the right information on your anxiety and incorporating it in your life style, is the key to combat anxiety. In her book, the Anxiety Tips: Seven Keys to Overcoming Anxiety, a free publication of the National Institute of Anxiety and Stress, she offers the success keys to combat anxiety.

These seven keys, which have helped millions of people in their anxiety, are;

• Educate yourself
• Address roadblocks
• Set gradual progressive goals
• Train your body and mind to stress differently
• Make wellness a way of life
• Personalize your solution
• Celebrate your success
• Process of Conquering Anxiety

Educate Yourself

Learning about anxiety, its symptoms, affects and reasons is very helpful. One out of every eight Americans suffers from anxiety disorder but what you should know is that anxiety is a treatable illness. Half of the deaths that take place are caused by diseases associated with stress, such as heart disease and cancer.

So let us understand how our body responds when we feel anxiety in our minds.

There is a similarity between flight and fight response and anxious response; in both the cases we feel palpitation, pounding heart or accelerated heart rate, lightheadedness, dizziness or fainting, numbness, sweating, abdominal distress, trembling or shaking etc. And psychologically, when flight and fight system is activated; it exaggerates the fear of danger, similarly, when we are suffering from anxiety, the mind experiences same feeling. At that time, the rationality is forgotten or that area of the brain is turned off and false and illogical explanations are developed.

Anxiety Cycle: This cycle consists of five phases: Trigger, fight of flight, internalizing, assuming the worst, intensification of symptoms.

1. Trigger: Trigger is a situation, in which you start feeling anxiety, e.g. lack of sleep, a tiring day of work, or a fight with someone close.
2. Flight or fight: The anxiety trigger initiates the flight or fight reaction in the body. Everyone, with or without anxiety disorder experiences flight or fight symptoms.
3. Internalize: When we take the flight or fight reactions of the body as symptoms of a problem with our health or your mind, in that situation we internalize the reactions and stress turns into anxiety.
4. Assume the worst: After internalizing the reaction as problem, our minds start thinking on the problem and the false and illogical responses compel us to assume the worst.
5. Intensification of symptoms: The flight or fight symptoms are intensified as we are assuming the worst and our survival seems at risk. We also start experiencing many other symptoms. The combination of all these symptoms is referred to as ‘anxiety’.

Address Roadblocks

Every one of us wants to get rid of anxiety but something holds us back from taking up the measures. Deanne Repich refers to that something as ‘roadblocks’. According to her there are five major roadblocks which hold people back from taking active measures against anxiety;

1. Fear of Change: It is natural for human to resist change. After suffering a considerable time from anxiety, men get used to it and make anxiety a part of their identity. They are afraid of changes even if they are good.
2. Feel lack of Time & Energy: Most of the people say that they are too busy or too tired to practice anxiety-reducing techniques.
3. Feeling not good enough: Many people who are suffering from anxiety disorder think that they are defective and that is why they are experiencing symptoms like that. They do not realize that anxiety is the main culprit so they do not want to do anything about it.
4. Doubting the power within: Many of those who are suffering from anxiety believe that they do not have the mental ability to conquer anxiety. This belief turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.
5. Lacking Skill and Inner resources: Many people understand that they have the power to overcome the anxiety, but do not know how to do that.

It is normal to have road blocks, but one must not wait till the roadblocks fade away. The most effective way to remove roadblocks is to start practicing the anxiety-reducing techniques today.

Set Gradual & Progressive Goals

This is the third key, which requires you to accept that there is a hope of combating anxiety. She says that people with anxiety tend to set high and unrealistic goals leading to feelings of frustration. This may hamper the progress as the man may feel he has failed. To acquire this confidence, you need to set small and practical goals for yourself which Deanne Repich refers to as setting gradual and progressive goals.

For example, a good and practical goal setting would be taking up one emotional symptom at a time. Learn the techniques of dealing with ‘what if’ thoughts and practice them regularly. When you have learnt successfully and can handle your ‘what if’ thought, it is time to congratulate yourself and set a new goal towards your emotional growth.

Train your Body & Mind to Respond to Stress Differently

You can train your mind and body to respond to stress differently by practicing anti-anxiety success techniques repeatedly. There are two ways of overcoming anxiety:

1. Reduce the stressor by improving your external environment, which involves minimizing the physical stress by using strategies for changing your eating, breathing, sleeping, and physical activities like exercise.
2. Change your internal environment by changing the way you think so that you can perceive the world with less anxiety. You have to apply the techniques of transforming self-destructive thoughts into healthy thoughts.

We can re-train our body and mind by practicing the anxiety-reducing techniques daily. This way you will feel more relaxed, calm and will react differently to stressors. So, when the anxious thoughts occur to you next time, you can quickly transform anxiety into harmony and serenity.

Make Wellness a Way of Life

The fifth key to conquer anxiety is to make wellness a way of living life. For this one has to build a lifestyle which can become a lasting solution for anxiety disorder. How we can build that kind of a lifestyle?

Personalize your Solution

Every man is unique, so the solution for overcoming anxiety will certainly be different for each of us. So, we can personalize the anxiety-reducing techniques by combining the strategies, wellness programs, counseling, and even medications, which have helped us. But the main issue here is to practice the personalized solution consistently to achieve the goal of low-anxiety lifestyle and help ourselves to acquire a lasting change.

Celebrate your Success

No matter how small is our success, we must celebrate it. These small successes make the foundation of our permanent recovery from anxiety attacks. This will encourage us to continue our practice and motivate us to keep the commitment of a better life.

Here Deanne Repich asks us to consider our inner power like any other muscle, the more we use it, the more toned it becomes and the more we are able to accomplish. Practice makes men perfect, so with practice, we can use the technique involuntarily as and when required. This way, we will continue to become more skilled in conquering anxiety and creating a peaceful life…so, every positive change has a reason to celebrate.

The Common Process of Conquering Anxiety

Deanne Repich, finally says that every one of us will integrate the anxiety-reducing techniques differently. However, the process of conquering anxiety remains the same.

In this process we have six goals to follow continuously:

Follow the seven keys and open the door to an anxiety-free life by conquering your anxiety. Start the process today!