Anxiety

If someone doesn’t respect you and your emotions, its not your fault and stay away from toxic people.

What is Anxiety?

Stress and feeling anxious are a common response to certain situations in which we feel pressure, these feeling usually pass once the stressful situation has passed or the so called ‘stressor’ is removed.

Everyone feels anxious at some point in their lives, but when these anxious feelings don’t go away, happen without any particular reason or cause a change/make it hard to cope with daily life it may be a symptom of an anxiety condition.

Symptoms

Normal anxiety tends to be limited in time and connected with stressful situations or events (e.g a job interview). The type of anxiety experienced by people with an anxiety condition is more frequent or persistent and impacts on their quality of life and day-to-day functioning. Some of the most common symptoms can include the following:

Physical: Panic attacks, hot and cold flushes, racing heart, tightening of the chest, quick breathing, restlessness or feeling tense, wound up and edgy

Psychological: excessive fear, worry, catastrophizing, or obsessive thinking

Behavioral: avoidance of situations that make you feel anxious which can impact on study, work or social life.

Managing anxiety

There are many ways to manage anxiety and the sooner people suffering from anxiety get support, the most likely they are to recover.

You can take this quick checklist to measure your experiences of anxiety during the past two weeks:

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Feeling Anxious_ A Checklist for a Panic Attack.jpg

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10 Strategies to try

Slow breathing. When you’re anxious, your breathing becomes faster and shallower. Try deliberately slowing down your breathing. Count to three as you breathe in slowly – then count to three as you breathe out slowly.

Progressive muscle relaxation. Find a quiet location. Close your eyes and slowly tense and then relax each of your muscle groups from your toes to your head. Hold the tension for three seconds and then release quickly. This can help reduce the feelings of muscle tension that often comes with anxiety.

Stay in the present moment. Anxiety can make your thoughts live in a terrible future that hasn’t happened yet. Try to bring yourself back to where you are. Practicing meditation can help.

Healthy lifestyle. Keeping active, eating well, going out into nature, spending time with family and friends, reducing stress and doing the activities you enjoy are all effective in reducing anxiety and improving your wellbeing.

Take small acts of bravery. Avoiding what makes you anxious provides some relief in the short term, but can make you more anxious in the long term. Try approaching something that makes you anxious – even in a small way. The way through anxiety is by learning that what you fear isn’t likely to happen – and if it does, you’ll be able to cope with it.

Challenge your self-talk. How you think affects how you feel. Anxiety can make you overestimate the danger in a situation and underestimate your ability to handle it. Try to think of different interpretations to a situation that’s making you anxious, rather than jumping to the worst-case scenario. Look at the facts for and against your thought being true.

Plan worry time. It’s hard to stop worrying entirely so set aside some time to indulge your worries. Even 10 minutes each evening to write them down or go over them in your head can help stop your worries from taking over at other times.

Get to know your anxiety. Keep a diary of when it’s at it’s best – and worst. Find the patterns and plan your week – or day – to proactively manage your anxiety.

Learn from others. Talking with others who also experience anxiety – or are going through something similar – can help you feel less alone. You can also check out Online Forums to connect with others.

Be kind to yourself. Remember that you are not your anxiety. You are not weak. You are not inferior. You have a mental health condition. It’s called anxiety.

Treatments for anxiety

There are a range of health professionals and services that provide treatment, support and information for anxiety conditions. More information about these can be found in the link below!

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Sources:

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/anxiety⁠

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