How To Control Anxiety
Learning How To Control Anxiety
Learning how to control anxiety may or may not be one of your top priorities. It would seem to be greatly beneficial if we could learn to prevent anxiety altogether, but that will never happen. As long as we are not in complete control of our own private universe, things will happen, or threaten to happen, that will make us anxious.
Learning how to control anxiety is going to take a different path for different people. Some of us, perhaps most of us, are able to shrug off periods of anxiety whenever they appear. A fortunate few, seldom feel anxiety at all, except perhaps things which are, to them, small matters. Other people experience a great deal of anxiety, some justified, some of it not, and some experience debilitating anxiety attacks.
When anxiety becomes either debilitating or simply is making life miserable for someone, seeking professional help is usually the best route that person could take. We can't always treat ourselves of every disease or disorder. We just don't know how.
While being anxious usually involves small or temporary situations, (What if I'm late?), deeper anxiety often involves viewing the future, even the immediate future with a certain amount of dread (What if I'm late, will I get fired, be sent to jail, and if so, will my wife file for divorce?).
Let Go Of Control - We said at the beginning that anxiety is one result of us not having complete control over our lives, or our surroundings. One way to deal with anxiety is to deal with the issue of control. When you can, let go of it. Gaining control of something can be a challenge and a rewarding one. Retaining control can often be quite the opposite. Learn to accept what you can't control, even if you don't particularly like it. When someone says, "Just deal with it", dealing with “it” often means just setting it aside.
Study Your Breathing - Try learning to breathe. Sounds silly, as we do that naturally. Trying to learn not to breathe would be the hard part. In yoga and related practices, there is a great emphasis on breathing, not just proper breathing, but thinking about your breathing, and thinking of nothing else. Thinking of nothing but your breathing, in a quiet setting, is about as powerful an anxiety reducer as you're apt to come across. A few minutes of focusing on your breathing not only reduces worries and anxieties, but rejuvenates the soul.
Try Focusing Instead Of Multitasking - Try being a bit less busy. Our society places a great deal of value on the art of multitasking, which could be defined as an ability to control and execute a wide variety of tasks at the same time, though not necessarily very well. If you're given a full plate, try dumping some of the contents, and focusing on a single food item, then proceed to enjoy it. Having an ability to focus is a great way of avoiding unnecessary anxieties, as well as being better able to deal with those which may crop up. Multitasking, by its very nature, is a breeding ground for anxiety.
Get Organized - In tandem with being a little less busy, is the practice of getting, and staying, organized. This doesn't mean simply organizing your time, but also means cleaning up clutter around the house, and off of your desk as well. A desk piled high with an assortment of paperwork, both meaningful and meaningless, is essentially one large In-basket, which should be labeled "Anxieties".
Don't Worry - Speaking of anxieties, Danish artist, writer, and philosopher Piet Hein summed it up this way. "Anxieties yield at a negative rate, they decrease in value the longer we wait". In other words, if you don't nourish your anxieties, but neglect them, they eventually shrivel up and go away.
There are many different approaches to learn how to control anxiety, but the methods mentioned above all have something going for them. Let go of control, learn to focus on your breathing, stop trying to be a champion at multitasking, get organized, and stop nourishing whatever anxieties you do have.