11 Tips to help with anxiety

Which techniques do you find help with anxiety?

Did you know that 30% of people in North America experience anxiety? Although this is an American statistic, we’re not that dissimilar to them, therefore, it’s likely to be a similar number for the UK. A lot of these people and those who suffer from anxiety feel like they’re the only ones who suffer.

Anxiety is such an isolating emotion to feel, I know as I’ve been there and experienced it myself, and it can affect your life in so many different ways. It can negatively affect your sleep and a whole host of other things in your life. Did you also know that North America 41% of employees are looking for help for anxiety, this figure doesn’t account for people who are feeling anxious but aren’t seeking out help for it?

Telling someone who is suffering with anxiety to “calm down”, “stop being anxious” or “chill out” is like telling someone who is struggling to sleep, to “sleep”. It doesn’t work. Typically, what happens when you approach doctors when you have anxiety one of 2 things are suggested:

They prescribe you Beta-blockers and around 6 sessions of counselling, which is what they initially prescribed me when I was experiencing anxiety. It helped to take the edge off my anxiety but it didn’t resolve the underlying issue causing it, much like a cover-up or short term solution. Also with counselling, it’s difficult to have more than 6 sessions on the NHS which also didn’t solve the underlying issue.

The alternative is CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) which I found to be really inconsistent in the way in which some people got great results but others it was useless. For me, it was ok but again, it didn’t solve the underlying problem.

If you have ever experienced these solutions for anxiety, what are your thoughts about them?

Top tips to help with anxiety

1.     Listen to relaxing music - This specific track’s been scientifically proven to reduce anxiety and induce relaxation: https://youtu.be/UfcAVejslrU

2.     Reframing – Think about things in a different way or perspective. If you’re getting anxious or worried about something that hasn’t yet happened, it’s important to realise it shows you care about this thing that hasn’t happened yet.

So take that “buzzy”, anxious, emotional energy and redirect it into something that’s more productive such as writing.

 A good case study of this working well is a journalist who suffered with anxiety used to channel her energy when she felt anxious into writing. She actually found that she wrote better and really well when she channelled her anxiety energy into writing.

3.     Try to figure out what your unconscious mind is telling you – There are 2 parts of your brain, your conscious and unconscious. The unconscious part of your brain controls emotions and involuntary movements much as your heartbeat. The conscious part of your brain controls everything that you choose to do such as talking.

Anxiety comes from your unconscious part of your brain thus it’s likely that your brain is trying to tell you something when you are feeling anxious. NLP can help you to practise this and target more specific things by using things like content and contextual framing.

4.     Remember perfection does not exist – If you’re someone who is a bit of a perfectionist or a high achiever and this is what’s driving your anxiety. Know that no one can be perfect. Don’t let perfectionism rob you of your ability to live in the moment.

5.     Use future pacing using the anxiety model within timeline therapy – The anxiety model, used in NLP, can be a great, simple strategy to help with your anxiety. Imagine your worry that’s causing your anxiety as a physical event in the future in your mind, for instance, an exam.

Then imagine a timeline in your head with the event being in the middle with a future and a past. Have the focus that the event is going to go really well, then imagine it’s 15 minutes after the event’s happened successfully. Ensure you’re imaging it working well. What would it sound like, look like, feel like? What would you be saying to yourself? What might you be thinking? What would other people be saying?

Or think of the successful event as a movie scene and look at it from different angles.

6.     Act fast! – Find what triggers your anxiety, then as soon as you recognise that you are experiencing them, act upon it before you’re too anxious for these strategies work.

7.     Play around with submodalities - Picture your self as if you were in a movie scene but it’s your settings right now so as if you were looking in on yourself and what you’re doing in the third person. Imagine the picture gets really small, the volume is reduced, reduce colour or the darkness is lower. Imagine the controls for these things, for example, imagine physically turning down the volume of your imaginary scene with a dial.

8.     Breathing – Tracing hand technique is a brilliant way to control your breathing. Trace your hand with a finger on your other hand and reciprocate the movement of your finger going up and down with the act of breathing in and out. Breath in when you move up, pause at tips and dips, then breath out when moving down. Here’s a helpful video to demonstrate this: https://youtu.be/A0fWhlB-dvk

9.     Practise going from foveal vision (focused on one small thing) to peripheral vision (looking at the bigger picture) for a couple of minutes daily. Do this by picking something small such as a small dot on the wall to look at, don’t move your head, then relax your field of vision (still looking at the dot) so you can see everything around.

10.  Practise relaxing your jaw – This can help with your breathing.

11.  Practise the simplistic method of anchoring - Imagine a memory of when you were really calm and relaxed, for example, a holiday on the beach, and really embrace what you were experiencing and feeling at that time. It can help to gently rub your earlobes while you do this. 

I hope these simple tips give you some idea how to handle anxiety. Here at Unleash Your Potential we are passionate about mental wellbeing and encourage you to take a look at NLP as a solution for aiding anxiety. We offer a range of training options - our most popular course is the NLP Practitioner qualification which delivers a fantastic 7 day course of personal development and for many delegates creates life-changing results.

You can download our free brochure here or email [email protected]. If you would prefer to speak to us about NLP please do give us a call on 02920023311, where Lyn will be delighted to speak with you.