One of the most powerful skills I’ve learned in my 20s is controlling and reframing my own narrative to not let anxious thoughts overpower my wellbeing. While anxiety is a common human experience, it can lead to an overwhelming state of emotional distress so, I decided to research anxiety through the minds of a mental health professional and found some really powerful strategies you can use to alleviate some of that overwhelm.
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For me, anxiety manifests itself in two ways:
- In my thoughts – what the voice is my head is saying
- In my body – racing heart, shortness of breath, tightness of muscles, sweat
Here are three key takeaways I found the most powerful when trying to manage these mental and physical symptoms.
Find & Challenge the Thinking Trap
Thinking traps are inaccurate thoughts that we believe to be true and therefore, make us upset. It is when we do things like make assumptions or try to read another person’s mind to help us prepare for the worst case scenario. This is a common human trait that stems from our evolutionary instinct to prepare for the future and for potential dangers. However, it can trap our anxiety and cause our internal narrative to be negative and stressful. Here’s how you can manage this.
Step one: Identify what the thinking trap is. Here is a list of some from The Chelsea Psychology Clinic but, there are many more you can research to help you out.
- All or nothing
- Mind-reading
- Personalization
- Emotional Reasoning
- Overgeneralization
Step two: Challenge the thinking trap.
Now that I have identified the thinking trap and applied it to my scenario, I can deduce that I am overgeneralizing a situation or using emotional reasoning and then, I can challenge the truth of this. I can create a list of evidence that proves my thought is true vs. evidence that it is not.
Here’s an example:
Thought: I made a mistake in my client presentation. I am so dumb. I’ll never get this right.
Challenge: It is human to make a mistake. This one mistake does not define me or my intelligence; I am not dumb. Never is an absolute, extreme overgeneralization and it is possible that through practice, I will improve my presentation skills.
Action creates momentum
When we are feeling distressed or overwhelmed, we often tend to isolate ourselves from others and remain stagnant until we feel better. This can look like staying in bed for days or saying no to dinner with friends because we think that we will get out of the house or meet up with friends in the future when ‘we no longer feel like this’. And while sometimes rest is necessary depending on your struggle, it is important to know that taking action will give us more energy, more motivation, and will make us feel better.
When we muster the courage to get outside for a walk and fresh air, we will find relief.
It is dinner with friends that creates a sense of connection and pushes away that feeling of loneliness.
It is when we decide that the only way out of this is through it.
So we power through with meditation, exercise, friend dates, self-care, or whatever is going to get you moving through this feeling. The more momentum we create the more powerful our strides are. Motivation and energy are a result of us taking action. An object in motion will stay in motion, friends. It’s physics, really.
The ‘Thinking | Feeling | Doing’ Exercise
At first, I found this process tedious. However, after several rounds of practice I realized how powerful mastering this skill is.
Have a blank sheet of paper or your phone notes app ready to go. In moments of uneasiness, write down what you are thinking, what you are physically feeling, and what you are going to do.
Here is an example:
Scenario 1: I am anxious about an upcoming client presentation.
What am I thinking?
“I might mess up and embarrass myself”
“What if the client doesn’t like it”
“I am not smart enough to lead this”
What am I feeling?
short of breath, stomach ache, headache, sweaty
What am I doing? NOTE: this is the most important part of this exercise because the action you take to manage this scenario is what is going to determine if this will be a positive experience for you. Remember, action breeds momentum
Challenge the thinking trap, go for a walk, write in my journal
It is so important that you are not judgmental of your thoughts and that you complete these exercises with utmost empathy for yourself and for this human experience. Anxiety, anxious moments, stressful moments, insecurity are common feelings, which means you are never alone. Skill-building like this exists because there are other people in the world who have faced this same challenge and have gone through this same feeling and they want to share how to help.
You got this.
Xo, A