Coping skills for stress, anxiety and worry

Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored the difference between stress, worry, and anxiety.

Just in case you missed it, here’s a quick recap:

• Stress: A physiological response to danger (real or perceived) that allows your body to mobilize resources to move you toward or away from something (think fight or flight response).
• Worry: A cognitive response to anxiety that comes into play when your brain is dealing with unease or apprehension. A worry is an intrusive thought that your brain uses as a coping mechanism to deal with uncertainty. Worrying is the act of ruminating on the intrusive thought.
• Anxiety: A culmination of symptoms from stress and worry, characterized by fear, apprehension, or concern about future events (even if there is no immediate threat). Physical symptoms include increased heart rate, muscle tension, restlessness, sweating, and a sense of impending danger or doom.

From “what if” questions that run rampant around our minds to over-analyzing what we said or how we acted in a prior situation, these feelings often bring nothing but negativity into our everyday lives. In short, they make us feel horrible about ourselves and how we act.

Stress, worry, and anxiety are emotionally exhausting, using resources that diminish our self-control, focus, and wellbeing – but YOU have the power to stop them in their tracks.?

Before we begin, I’d like to mention that the practices to mitigate and manage these thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations are most useful when we can build them proactively. These coping skills aren’t as helpful if you only use them in situations when you most need them – and in fact, can become a form of avoidance. Try to implement these practices before stress, worry, and anxiety become too much to manage. More importantly, pick one and practice until it becomes a habit. Then pick another. This builds your resilience muscles well before you have to lift any weight and makes it easier to practice when you need the skills the most.

Here are a few coping strategies to help you regain control.

Coping strategies for stress

1. If social situations cause your heart rate to rise and your stomach to tighten, deliberately place yourself in safe, adaptive social situations. This helps to raise your discomfort tolerance by letting your brain know there is no real danger, making you less likely to have such a strong stress reaction the next time you are in a similar situation.?
2. Whether it’s a workout class, a walk around your neighborhood, or a yoga class with your friends, get up and move your body! Regular physical activity can help improve brain health, reduce the risk of disease, and pump up your endorphin levels (re: your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters). It’s not always easy to exercise, but when we use movement as a way to work through our emotions, we can lower our feelings of stress and anxiety while increasing self-confidence and strength in the process.?
3. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. When you change your breathing, you change your emotional state. Long, slow exhales signal safety and reset your parasympathetic (rest or digest) response. Watch the video below for a quick and effective? breathing exercise.https://youtu.be/fG5m9NUACp8

Coping strategies for worry

1. If you find that your mind is consumed with worry and it impedes your ability to move through life, it is important to first recognize that worry is your brain’s way of protecting you. While it is uncomfortable, it is totally normal. You may not be able to control the worry itself, but constant worrying is where things become more of an active choice. To begin regaining control, try creating a worry window. Rather than let worrying eat up your day, set a timer for 10 minutes for the same time every day. Allow yourself to worry during this time and only this time. Just be sure you set your worry window well ahead of bedtime. We all know what agonizing over our intrusive late-night thoughts brings, and it certainly isn’t a good night’s sleep. (And for what it’s worth, will what you are agonizing over matter in 10 years?)
2. Write worries down. This forces you to crystallize your thinking. Research shows that just eight to 10 minutes of writing can help calm obsessive thoughts. You don’t have to sound perfect or eloquent. Simply let your mind wander across all your worries, and let the words flow out naturally. Over time, you will begin to identify your triggers – and, in turn, learn how to control them.
3. S.T.O.P This mindfulness exercise can provide a great mind interruption, which is often all that’s needed to control worrying. First, stop what you are doing. Next, take a three deep, diaphragmatic breaths and extend the exhale to calm your heart rate and center your attention on the current moment. Third, observe what is going on with your body, emotions, and mind. Name the emotion you feel and identify where in your body you feel it. Lastly, proceed.?Is this something you want to continue to worry about, or is it time to move onto something else?

Coping strategies for anxiety

1. Anxiety is an emotion that keeps you safe from danger. In most cases, the threat is perceived – and the most powerful way to minimize anxiety is to observe and accept it. When you feel anxiety creeping in, acknowledge it. I say, “Ok, Anne, you are feeling anxious. Your heart is beating fast and your shoulders are tight. You are not in danger. Breathe.” By bringing yourself into the current moment and giving your anxiety a name and some substance, you can start to tame it, sending a signal of safety to your brain.
2. Practice radical acceptance. Simply let it be, and sit in the suck. Don’t beat yourself up or try to rush through the process. Feelings and thoughts are not facts. They are simply information. Even the unpleasant ones serve a purpose. Don’t rush to numb these feelings. They will only intensify.
3. If it’s appropriate, take action. Do one small thing to get yourself closer to your goal. What's one small action could you take to improve the situation? Break bigger tasks into small, measurable, bite-sized tasks. Don’t forget to celebrate small wins.

What’s Next?

Stress, worry, anxiety might not be comfortable, but they are a normal part of the human experience. If you didn’t feel stressed, worried, or anxious some of the time, I’d have questions. Be careful not to push these feelings under the rug. When we don’t learn how to address the root cause, the symptoms will keep showing up, and they will get stronger over time.

YOU have the power to regain control. Just start small, be kind to yourself, and trust the process.