Use Nature As Your Therapist
Talking to a therapist is an excellent way to work through your fears and anxiety. However, you cant always be at your therapists office. Try going for a walk outside instead! Natural beauty found in parks, backyards, or wherever something green is growing does help reduce symptoms of fear and anxiety. Nature calms people, reducing stress levels and changing moods from anxious to relaxed. Plus, the physical activity of walking or jogging outdoors requires us to use our brains differently, which can cause a switch from irrational fearful thoughts to clearer thinking that can help overcome the fear.
Would you like to know more? Our counselors at Real Life Counseling can provide real help for your fear and anxiety problems. Please contact us to learn more.
What Are Fear And Anxiety
Back when we lived in caves, we needed to constantly assess whether we were safe. A highly-tuned sensitivity to potential threats was necessary for survival. We dont experience the same kinds of stressors as we did thousands of years ago, but the response is pretty much the same.
Fear is the emotion we experience when we see a threat to our physical well-being or emotional well-being.
Our bodies and brains react to both kinds of threats in the same way. In other words, it makes no difference whether the threat is a physical, emotional, or social one. The alarm bells of the autonomic nervous system dont distinguish between public speaking and a saber-toothed tiger. In fact, many of us would prefer the latter.
Although unpleasant, fear is a healthy response. Our fight-or-flight response keeps us alive, safe, and thriving. When constant fear prevents you from living life to the fullest, though, it becomes anxiety.
On the surface, anxiety looks very much like fear. And they’re rooted in the same emotion. But anxiety occurs when fear becomes maladaptive .
Anxiety is when the fear response goes haywire. You may feel afraid all the time, overreact, or respond to triggers that dont actually pose a threat.
While fear is something that people experience regularly, anxiety should not be a part of your day-to-day life . Fear is an emotion, and anxiety is a mental health disorder.
Use Your Imagination In Positive Ways
An imagination is a wonderful thing. It gives you power, creativity, and the ability to think outside the box. Unfortunately, an active imagination can be a harmful tool when it causes you to think about negative things. Your imagination can magnify your fears, making your situation seem much worse than it actually is.
Instead of letting your imagination lead you down the dark corridors of fear, purposely use it for overcoming fear.
How do you do that? Pick a calm moment when you are relaxed and not anxious. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a situation that normally causes fear. For instance, if you are afraid of being lost in a crowded building, picture yourself in a busy airport. Now, imagine yourself handling the situation peacefully. You dont freeze and begin to cry. Instead, you search for an information desk or a sign that will help you regain your sense of direction. You imagine yourself reaching the correct parking lot, unlocking your car door, and driving safely home without any bad incidents.
The peace you experienced in your imagined scenario can actually help you get through the actual ordeal more peacefully.
Also Check: How To Deal With Ibs Anxiety
How To Calm Anxiety: 8 Natural Ways
Occasional anxiety is a normal human experience. Mild anxiety can occur before interviewing for a new job. A higher level of anxiety can occur from barely avoiding a car crash. And an even higher level may come with the loss of a loved one. There are also those people who experience anxiety persistently. However, learning how to calm anxiety is essential for your quality of life. Its also important to know what causes anxiety to determine the best way to alleviate it.
Identify The Source Of Your Anxiety
See if you can identify what is driving your anxiety, fear, or worry. This means identifying the underlying beliefs or thoughts that your emotions are based on. Dont just react to the emotions , see what lies beneath them. These may have been events that occurred in childhood you actually forgot about or things you try not to remember. If you dont pull the weed out by the roots, it will just grow back. Attempting to simply deal with the feeling is seldom successful.
Don’t Miss: Can Social Anxiety Be Diagnosed
How Can I Relieve Anxiety Instantly
When youre in a loop of negative, anxious thoughts, you often want to find a solution right now.
It might seem the opposite of what you should do, but to release worries immediately, you may want to lean into your feelings and the present moment.
You can do this by noticing your:
- Inner world. What are you feeling and thinking?
- Outer world. What can you observe by your senses? What do you see, feel, smell, or hear?
- Breath. Focus on when you breathe in and out, feeling how it fills and empties your lungs.
Other ways to relieve anxiety quickly include:
Helping Your Children Cope With Emotions Related To Violence
Our children are particularly vulnerable to fears in the wake of violence. They have a harder time understanding what is happening and putting it into perspective. We need to pay special attention to their needs. Here are some tips for doing this.
Give them honest information about the event, at a level they can understand. Offer only as much information as they request.
Encourage your children to talkto you about their thoughts and feelings related to the event.
Listen to their concerns, and then reassure them. For example, point out that this is limited to a small number of people, and the risk to any particular individual is very low. Communicate that you will always do your best to keep them safe.
Limit your childs exposure to broadcast news and social media.Watching repeated images of the event can be as disturbing to a child as if it were happening anew each time. Try to watch it with them and discuss it afterwards.
, volunteers and public servants. This may help to counteract some of the negative event.
Maintain family routines, particularly around meals, bedtimes, and scheduled social and leisure activities. Structure helps a child feel safe. Make time for soothing activities such as reading with them or playing board games as a family.
Be especially patientwith your children, your family, and other loved ones. Give them signs of reassurance such as hugs and affection. Also be patient with yourself and understanding of your own needs.
Recommended Reading: Are Depression And Anxiety The Same Thing
Learn To Avoid Procrastination
Another way to take control of your stress is to stay on top of your priorities and avoid procrastinating.
Procrastination may harm your productivity and leave you scrambling to catch up. This can cause stress, which negatively affects your health and sleep quality .
A study in 140 medical students in China linked procrastination to increased stress levels. The study also associated procrastination and delayed stress reactions with more negative parenting styles, including punishment and rejection .
If you find yourself procrastinating regularly, it may be helpful to get in the habit of making a to-do list organized by priority. Give yourself realistic deadlines and work your way down the list.
Work on the things that need to get done today and give yourself chunks of uninterrupted time. Switching between tasks or multitasking can be stressful in itself.
Summary
If you find yourself regularly procrastinating, staying on top of your to-do list may help ward off related stress.
How To Be Kinder To Yourself
Part 2:7 ways to start letting in the positives
When we can learn to recognize fear and understand how it impacts people, we can use it as a guiding principle for all of our interactions. Community leaders can use it to help people move through positive change. Teachers can use it to help students learn. Parents can use it to better guide their children.
One of the biggest opportunities may be in the workplace. At times, employees can have fear and anxiety. When we learn to see the snakes on their heads and take steps to remove them, we free people up to do their best work.
Helping reduce employee fear and anxiety is more important now than ever. COVID changed a lot of things. People used to spend a lot of time together, talking during breaks, huddles, etc. When communication goes up, fear and anxiety go down. In many ways, we now are playing communication catch-up. People may have a new boss. They may be working inside new structures. All of this impacts anxiety.
There are certain situations we know increase employee fear. As leaders we can view these touchpoints as cues to help put people at ease:
Read Also: Can Acupuncture Help With Anxiety
Understand That Feelings Are Not Truth
Feelings are symptoms of deeply held beliefs or the learned thoughts and behaviors that we pick up when were young. Our feelings are often the result of the ways we tried to make sense of the behavior of those around us or the experiences that weve had. If you were very young when you experienced a traumatic event, then give yourself some grace. You were basically using a very young mind to try and figure things out. It may be time to update your beliefs and thought process.
Spend Time With Your Pet
Having a pet may help reduce stress and improve your mood.
When you cuddle or touch your pet, your body releases oxytocin a hormone thats linked to positive mood .
Plus, studies show that pet owners especially those who have dogs tend to have greater life satisfaction, better self-esteem, reduced levels of loneliness and anxiety, and more positive moods .
Having a pet may also help relieve stress by giving you purpose, keeping you active, and providing companionship.
Summary
Although stress is an unavoidable part of life, being chronically stressed takes a toll on your physical and mental health.
Fortunately, several evidence-based strategies can help you reduce stress and improve your overall psychological well-being.
Exercise, mindfulness, spending time with a pet, minimizing screen time, and getting outside more often are all effective methods.
Don’t Miss: What Tea Is Good For Anxiety
Touchpoints Where We Can Reduce Anxiety
It’s so important to look for opportunities, places that have traditionally been stressful, and seize the moment to make people feel better. When we get intentional about looking for these, they are easy to see. Here are a few examples:
Onboarding/new hires. Mindy talked about how when you walk into a new position, all these questions are swirling in your mind. How do they do things here? Will people be nice to me? Will they tell me all the little unwritten rules? She said it’s important to make sure they have a mentor or coach and to make sure they meet the right people and feel connected. Also, find out something about them that has nothing to do with the job and share it with others.
Talk To Someone Who Gets It
If your feelings of anxiety are making it hard to function, you should speak to a health professional. But talking to friends can also help. I have friends who have an anxiety disorder too. When Im feeling really bad, I send them a message telling them how Im feeling.
They might have a new hack I can try, or they can point out something that might have acted as a trigger. But sometimes its just nice to vent to someone who knows how it feels to be in my shoes.
Don’t Miss: How To Help Someone With Separation Anxiety
A Few Times Every Day Recognize That At This Moment You’re Doing Ok
Neurospsychologist Rick Hanson says in his Psychology Today column that our human instincts of survival make us constantly unsettled and fearful, protecting us against ever completely letting our guard down.
But it’s mostly a lie, according to Hanson. Your brain is automatically telling you something bad is going to happen, which may be true in the future, but not right now. By reminding yourself that you’re OK right now, you can more easily settle your fear and build well-being.
Try Supplements Or Change Your Diet
Changing your diet or taking supplements is definitely a long-term strategy. Research shows certain supplements or nutrients can help anxiety reduction.
These include:
However, it can take a few months before your body is actually running on the nutrition these herbs and foods provide. If youre taking other medications, make sure to discuss herbal remedies with your doctor as there can be adverse reactions.
Recommended Reading: Does Anxiety Make You Feel Sick
Talk To Yourself To Perform Better In Stressful Situations
To get rid of some of your preinterview or pre-presentation nerves, try talking to yourself like you’d talk to someone else in the same situation.
Specifically, use the pronoun “you” or your name instead of “I.”
In one study, researchers had a group of about 100 undergrads deliver a speech about why they were qualified for their dream job. While preparing, they were instructed to write down how they were gearing themselves up. Half the students were told to write using “you” or their name the other half was told to use “I.”
Results showed that students who used “you” or their own name were more confident and less anxious about the exercise. Plus, they performed better on the speech.
If you don’t have space to talk to yourself out loud before a stressful experience, try writing down your self-talk like the participants in the study did.
Do A Daily Or Routine Meditation
While this takes some practice to do successfully, mindful meditation, when done regularly, can eventually help you train your brain to dismiss anxious thoughts when they arise.
If sitting still and concentrating is difficult, try starting with yoga, or walking meditation. There are many free guided meditations on apps like InsightTimer that can help you get started.
Don’t Miss: What Is The Best Essential Oil For Anxiety
Coping With Violence In The Community
With community violence in the news, more of us are experiencing increased anxiety and fear as we go about our daily lives. If this sense of fear is ongoing or we are in close proximity to violence, we can find ourselves constantly reacting to a high level of stress. This may result in decreased productivity at work and can have a traumatic impact on our daily living.
How To Know If You Have Anxiety
While there are more serious panic disorders, phobias and anxiety conditions including post traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder , more generalized anxiety can often be classified by some of the following symptoms:
- Uncontrollable worry that causes distress
- Realizing that even seemingly inconsequential things like completing chores causes stress
- Feeling irritable
- Difficulty sleeping
Also Check: How To Talk To Your Doctor About Anxiety
Most Importantly Stay In The Moment
Learning to manage anxiety takes time. Its important not to get ahead of yourself. That means being patient with your progress. Typically, it takes a holistic combination of approaches that is unique to you. So, dont live too far in the future or in the past. Do your best to stay in the moment and remember that feelings are only temporary.
Spend Time With Your Friends Social Support Reduces Anxiety
Three decades of research suggests that people with close friends are better able to survive divorces, job losses, and other traumatic events.
“Friendfluence” author Carlin Flora says that friendship has long been an evolutionary advantage.
“When we lived in groups where survival itself was difficult, you needed someone who would be guaranteed to throw you a lifeline,” she told Thought Catalog. “You can easily theorize that the notion of a best friend developed because we needed someone where we were number one on their list and they were number one on our list in those life and death situations.”
Also Check: When To Know You Need Anxiety Medication
Learning To Be Assertive
Being assertive means communicating your needs, wants, feelings, beliefs and opinions to others in a direct and honest manner without intentionally hurting anyones feelings. A person with an anxiety disorder may have trouble being assertive because they are afraid of conflict or believe they have no right to speak up. However, relating passively to others lowers self-confidence and reinforces anxiety. Learning to behave assertively is central to developing a stronger self-esteem.
When Is My Anxiety Harmful
Identifying what sort of anxiety youre dealing with can be somewhat challenging because how ones body reacts to perceived danger can be entirely different compared to another person.
Its likely you heard anxiety as a blanket term for that general feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease. Its often a feeling in response to an upcoming event that has an uncertain outcome.
Every person deals with it at one time or another, because its part of our brains response to a perceived danger even if that danger isnt real.
That said, there are times anxiety can get serious and turn into anxiety attacks that initially feel manageable and then gradually build up over a few hours.
You May Like: How To Help A Cat With Separation Anxiety
Whats The Difference Between Fear And Anxiety
Fear symptoms and anxiety symptoms overlap in many ways, but the reasons they occur are different. Both fear and anxiety trigger the bodys stress response. However, fear usually occurs in the face of a real or immediate, tangible threat, while anxiety occurs in response to imagined danger.
Fear is a short-lived reaction, while anxiety can be ever-present. Both share physical sensations, like racing heart, muscle tension, a tingle or a cold chill, and increased breathing rate.
These physical sensations are part of the bodys fight-or-flight response. They prepare you to take quick action by diverting your resources to necessary functions.
Symptoms of fear include:
Thank you for your interest in BetterUp.