5 Ways To Stop Anxiety & Constant Worrying

Anxiety is something that most people in the modern world are familiar with, whether in themselves or the people around them. Anxiety is future bases, which means that it stems from the anticipation of something that will happen or that is feared to happen in the future. While a small amount of anxiety that comes in bursts and dissipates quickly can be useful and lead us to act and solve a problem, for most people it lingers. It leads them to worry about what-ifs or catastrophic scenarios. When extended for weeks, months, or years this turns into irrational doubts, paralyzing fears, OCD, and even physical symptoms.

Anxiety?and consequently exaggerated worry drain your emotional energy, increase tension & stress levels, and interfere with your day-to-day life, all without any positive returns. The good news is that anxiety is a mental process that you can learn to lessen and even overcome. You can train your mind to be calmer and in control, allowing you to be present in your daily life and feel calm and peaceful so you can start enjoying it more.

Once anxiety is triggered, worry follows, as a by-product of anxious information processing. Consequently, it triggers emotions such as fear, anger, confusion, and frustration mixed with physical symptoms. These feelings also impair sleep, decrease concentration, change food intake, decrease mood, and increase pessimistic and catastrophic thoughts.

But luckily there are some forms of information processing that justify these concerns. For example, when you think:

• Maybe I will find a solution.
• I don't want to forget anything.
• If I think about it a little longer, maybe I can resolve the situation.
• I don't want to be surprised.
• I want to be responsible.

We all have a natural tendency to be anxious, so it becomes difficult to uproot this habit because, in a sense, our anxieties have been serving us.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO STOP WORRYING?

Anxious thoughts are fueled by beliefs, both positive and negative, that maintain a limiting belief. On the negative side, you may believe that your constant anxiety and worrying are harmful and that they will drive you crazy or affect your health. Or that you will lose control over your thoughts, and you will never be able to control your anxiety again.

On the positive side, you may believe that your anxiety helps you avoid bad things, prevents problems, prepares you for the worst, or leads to solutions.

Negative beliefs, or anxiousness about your anxiety, triggers further anxiety and the cycle of anxious thoughts continues, but positive beliefs about anxiety can be even more harmful. It's hard to?break any habit?if you believe that it protects you.

To?stop?excessive?anxiety, you must let go of your belief that worry serves a positive purpose. Realize that the ruminations you may have regarding a possible threat or problem are not real and has no concrete evidence. Once you start believing that those thoughts have no value or merit, you can regain?emotional balance?and reframe mental patterns to a more optimistic way of looking at life.

So how do we do that? Here are 5 ways to significantly lessen and even stop those anxious symptoms.

1: ACCEPT UNCERTAINTY

The inability to tolerate uncertainty plays a central role in increasing?anxiety?and?worry. People who suffer from chronic anxiety have a need to remove all doubts and unpredictability. They need to know with 100% certainty what is going to happen.?

Worrying is seen as a way to predict what the future holds, avoid unpleasant surprises, and control outcomes. The problem is that this strategy of wanting to know what will happen in the future and/or making sure unpleasant things won't happen just doesn't work unless you are Nostradamus.

Thinking about everything that could go wrong doesn't make life more predictable. You may feel more secure by triggering your mental tendency to worry, but it's just an illusion. Focusing on the worst-case scenarios is not going to stop some bad things from happening. It will only prevent you from enjoying and enjoying the good things you have in the present moment.

So if you want to stop worrying and want to alleviate anxiety, start by addressing your need for security and immediate responses.

Challenging Uncertainty tolerance: The Key to Anxiety Relief

Ask yourself the following questions and write down your answers. This will help you understand what being intolerant of uncertainty looks like for you and the disadvantages that come with it.

• Is it possible to be sure about everything in life?
• What are the advantages of wanting to be sure of everything, versus the disadvantages? Or, how is the need to be sure of something useful or harmful in life?
• Do you tend to predict that some bad things might happen just because they are uncertain? Is this a reasonable thing to do? What is the probability of positive or neutral outcomes happening?
• Is it possible to live with a small chance that something negative could happen, given that your risk is so low?

2: CREATE A PERIOD FOR WORRY

It's hard to be productive and functional in your daily life when?anxiety?and?worry?dominate your thoughts. Simply trying to stop worrying doesn't work, at least not for long. You can be distracted for a moment (which can be beneficial temporarily), but you cannot banish your anxious thoughts.

Trying to do this often makes them stronger and more incisive. But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do to lessen or overcome your anxiety. You just need to take a different approach. Rather than trying to completely suppress an anxious thought, one strategy that has proven effective is to develop the habit of putting off worrying.

Learn to postpone your worries:

• Create a “?Worry Time?”.?Choose a set time and place to worry. It should be the same every day (for example, in the living room between 5:00 pm – 5:20 pm), try to make it far enough away from bedtime so that anxiety does not interfere with your sleep. During your worry period, you are allowed to worry about what is bothering your mind. The rest of the day, however, is a worry-free zone.
• Defer your worries.?If an anxious thought or worry pops into your mind during the day, make a brief note on a pad of paper and postpone processing the information until your worry period. Remember that you'll have time to think about it later, so there's no need to worry about it now. Save it for later and get on with your activities.
• Check your “?worry list?” during the worry period. Reflect on the concerns you have written on the pad of paper during the day. If the thoughts are still bothering you, allow yourself to worry about them, but only for the amount of time you have specified the worry period. With this strategy, your worries will probably seem less important to you, so you can reduce or eliminate your worry period as you get better at it.

What to remember:?Delaying worry is effective because it lets you break the habit of dwelling on worry in the present moment. Once you develop the ability to put off your anxious thoughts, you will experience greater relief from anxiety, worry, and an increased sense of control.

3: CHALLENGE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

If you?suffer from?chronic anxiety and worry, chances are you look at the world in ways that seem to make it more dangerous than it really is. For example, you may overestimate the possibility that things will go wrong, jump immediately to catastrophic scenarios, or treat every negative thought as if it were a real fact.

You can also discredit your ability to deal with life's problems, assuming that everything will go wrong at the first sign of trouble. These irrational thinking and pessimistic attitudes are known as?cognitive distortions.

Although?cognitive distortions?are not based in reality, it becomes difficult for the person to counter and eliminate this type of reasoning. Often these distortions are part of a pattern of thinking that you have used throughout your life, it has become so automatic that you are not even fully aware of it.

In order to break these destructive and distorted habits of thinking and?stop the worry?and anxiety they cause, you must gain?motivation?to train your mind with new ways of thinking and processing information.

Start by identifying the disturbing thought, being as detailed as possible, about what scares or worries you. So instead of seeing your thoughts as facts, look at them as hypotheses that you are testing to see if they align with what you want and serve you. By examining and challenging your fears and concerns, you will develop a more balanced perspective mentally and emotionally.

Stop worrying by questioning the thought that worries you:

• What is the evidence that the thought is true? That it’s not true?
• Is there a more positive, realistic way of looking at the situation?
• How likely is it that what I'm afraid of will actually happen?
• If the probability is low, what are some of the most likely outcomes?
• Is this thinking useful? How will worrying about it help or harm me?
• What would I say to a friend who has this concern?

Distortions in thought patterns that lead to anxiety and worry:

Here are some patterns that lead to anxiety to be aware and challenge.

• All or nothing thoughts.?You look at things thinking categorically and absolutistically, as if things have to be black or white, with no middle ground.” If I fall short of perfection, I am a total failure.”
• Hypergeneralization.?You make generalizations from a single negative experience, hoping it will always hold true. “I will not be hired for the job; I will never get any job.” The mental filter only focuses on the negative aspects, while omitting all the positive aspects. Realizing the one thing that went wrong, rather than all the things that went right.
• Devaluation of what is positive.?You don't pay attention to the good things that happen to you. “I did well at the performance, but that was just pure luck.”)
• Jumping to conclusions and making negative interpretations without concrete evidence. You act like someone who believes he can read other people's minds. “I know that person hates me.”) Or like a fortune teller. "All I know is that something terrible is about to happen."
• Catastrophic thoughts.?Expect the worst possible scenario to happen. “The pilot said we are in a hole of turbulence. The plane‘s about to crash!”.
• Emotional reasoning. Believing that the way you feel reflects reality. “I feel scared now. That must mean I'm in real physical danger."
• Strict rules like “I have to…” or “I can never…”.?Arming yourself with a rigorous list of do's and don'ts, punishing yourself if you break any of the rules.
• Labeling. Label yourself based on perceived errors and shortcomings. "I'm a failure, an idiot, a loser."
• Personalization.?Take responsibility for things that are out of your control. “My son had an accident, it's my fault. I should have warned him to drive carefully when it rains.”

4: LEARN TO RELAX

Anxiety is more than just a feeling. Anxiety involves a physical response, emitting a “fight or flight” reaction to a perceived threat. Your heart beats speeds up, you breathe faster and shallower, your muscles tense up, and in some situations, you feel dizzy.

When you are relaxed, the opposite happens. Your heart rate lowers, you breathe slower and deeper, your muscles relax, and your blood pressure stabilizes. Since because of the mental and physical link to anxiety, it is impossible to be anxious and relaxed at the same time. And this is tremendously empowering, it's a very powerful strategy that can be used in situations of extreme anxiety. Relaxation is a?powerful?tactic for relieving anxiety.

If you are a person who suffers from anxiety,?relaxation techniques?such as progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and meditation can teach you how to relax. The key is a regular practice. Try to set aside at least 20 minutes a day. Over time, the relaxation response will be easier, until it can be instituted as an effective technique at your disposal to regulate your anxiety to functional levels suitable for different life situations.

Some useful relaxation techniques:

• Progressive muscle relaxation.?When anxiety starts increasing, progressive muscle relaxation can help you release muscle tension and reduce or ward off your worries. The technique involves systematically contracting and then relaxing the different muscle groups in your body. As the body relaxes, your mind will focus on that feeling of well-being and start letting go of anxious thoughts.
• The deep breath.?When you are anxious, you breathe faster. This hyperventilation causes symptoms such as dizziness, shortness of breath, stiffness, and tingling in the hands and feet. These physical sensations are frightening, leading to more?anxiety?and?panic. But by breathing deeply through your diaphragm, you can reverse these sensations and calm yourself down.
• Meditation.?Many types of meditation have proven to be effective in reducing anxiety. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, proves to be a very useful technique for relieving anxiety. Research shows that mindfulness meditation can actually change some states of your brain. With regular practice, meditation increases the feeling of peace and joy.

5: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

A healthy and balanced lifestyle plays a big role in keeping anxiety, fears, and worries at functional and adequate levels.

Here are several ways you can alleviate anxiety and worry by taking care of yourself:

• Seek support from friends, family, or?professional help.?Anxiety and worry get worse when you feel helpless and alone. Commit to building a strong support system. The more you are connected to other people, the less vulnerable you will feel. If you start to feel overwhelmed with worry, call a family member or trusted friend. Talking about your worries, and venting can make your problems seem less threatening.
• Adopt healthy eating habits.?What you eat is very important in determining and changing your mental health. So find a simple diet that works for you with foods that feel good to you and try to stick with it as much as possible
• Practice leisure activities.?Try to practice activities that bring you satisfaction, joy, and relaxation. Do activities that allow you to stay involved and immersed, that make you lose track of time.
• Practice physical exercise.?Do some type of physical activity, preferably of an aerobic nature, such as walking, low-intensity jogging, or some type of group game.

Do you suffer from anxiety?

If your anxiety and worry have reached high levels to the point that you are seeing your life negatively affected and avoiding certain behaviors or situations that cause you discomfort, I would love to help:?

I've helped countless people overcome their anxiety without years of therapy or pills. Let's chat!

https://calendly.com/ruthkumba/chat