Overcoming Anxiety

To be able to overcome anxiety (or atleast reduce it), one must understand what anxiety is. Anxiety is one of the most distressing emotions that people feel. It is sometimes called fear or nervousness and is an emotion that everyone experiences at some point in time. It can be difficult to overcome anxiety without learning what exactly anxiety is and without learning helpful coping strategies.

Understanding Anxiety

The word “anxiety” describes a number of problems including phobias, panic attacks, posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Anxiety also describes brief periods of nervousness or fear experienced when faced with difficult life experiences. Numerous cognitive, behavioral, physical, and emotional symptoms are associated with anxiety.

Conginitive symptoms

• Overestimation of danger

• Underestimation of your ability to cope

• Underestimation of help available

• Worries and catastrophic thoughts

Behavioral Changes

• Avoiding situations where anxiety might occur

• Leaving situations when anxiety begins to occur

• Trying to do things perfectly or trying to control events to prevent danger

Emotional Symptoms

• Nervous

• Irritable

• Anxious

• Panicky

Physical Symptoms

• Sweaty palms

• Muscle tension

• Flushed cheeks

• Light-headedness

All of the physical, behavioral, and thinking changes we experience when we are anxious are part of the anxiety responses called “fight, flight, or freeze.” These three responses can be adaptive when we face danger. Unfortunately, we also experience these reactions when danger is not present, when danger is not as serious as you might think, or when too much anxiety interferes with good coping.

Identifying the symptoms and controlling them is important for coping. Keeping a track of symptoms is important to note frequency and progress towards reducing anxiety.

Methods to Overcome Anxiety

Anxiety can almost always be helped. The treatment approaches that have been shown to be most effective in reducing anxious feelings include cognitive restructuring, relaxation training, overcoming avoidance, and medication.

Conginitive Restructuring

Anxiety can be reduced by decreasing your perception of danger or by increasing your confidence in the ability to cope with threat. Evaluating anxious thoughts is helpful in order to more quickly and accurately evaluate the danger and its consequences. Anxiety may decrease if you examine the evidence and discover that the danger you face is not as bad as you thought. When threats or dangers are present, it is helpful to figure out what strategies will best help cope with them.

Relaxation Training

Relaxation can be accomplished through either physical relaxation or mental relaxation. Both methods can be equally effective. When we are physically relaxed, mental relaxation follows and when we are mentally relaxed, physical relaxation follows. Relaxation training can alleviate anxiety because it is difficult for the body or mind to be simultaneously relaxed and anxious. If you develop the ability to relax before and during stressful situations, then you can substantially reduce the frequency and severity of the anxiety you experience.

Overcoming Avoidance

Avoidance is a hallmark of anxiety. When we avoid a difficult situation, we initially experience a decrease in anxiety. Ironically, the more we avoid a situation, the more anxious we become about facing it in the future. In this way, avoidance in the long run actually feeds anxiety, even though it seems to help anxiety in the short run. To overcome anxiety, we need to learn to approach the situations or people we avoid.

Medication

The use of medication to treat anxiety is controversial due to the addiction potential many anxiety medications possess. They can also potentially interfere with developing coping skills to overcome avoidance and managing anxiety without medication. Medication to treat anxiety is appealing, however, since it produces relaxed, calming sensations. Some antidepressant medications are used to treat anxiety but they are not always effective.

It's important to rise above the stigma of mental healthcare and treat ourselves properly as and when required.