Negative views about anxiety and unhelpful behaviors tend to backfire and make things worse in the long run. Here's what to try instead, writes BonnieZuckerPhD
Unfortunately, negative thoughts about anxiety and dysfunctional behaviors to get rid of it only make anxiety worse.Source: Aleksandar KureÅ¡eviÄ /Unsplashhas said some version of that sentence. That sentiment is understandable, as anxiety can feel awful:Nobody likes the compulsion to look up every possible medical explanation for a weird body symptom.
When you have a lot of negative beliefs about your anxiety, you are feeding it and making it worse. To illustrate this point, I show my clients my hands clenched together and tell them it represents the original size of their anxiety. The more they tell themselves that they shouldn’t feel anxious, can’t handle it, are weak, and so on, the bigger the anxiety gets. My hands separate and move apart until I hold a giant imaginary beachball that represents how big their anxiety has now become.
A friend of mine recently had to give a talk at an important conference. “I just can’t look anxious,” she said, mortified at the thought of looking bad in front of her colleagues.1) Accept Your Anxiety. Ironically, often the best way to address some of these anxious thoughts is to accept them. People often confuse acceptance with liking something, and it’s not. Acceptance is acknowledging what exists without fighting it.
If you can work on accepting the anxiety, you will keep it to the size of a fist, which is much more manageable than when it explodes into a beachball.2) Revisit Past Challenges. Think about other times when you felt anxious about something. What happened to your anxiety? What was the outcome of the situation?