Anxiety Self Help Tips

I often tell my clients that anxiety loves to feed on the unknown. It gives us the illusion that the more we think about what terrible thing could happen the better we’ll be at preventing it from happening. As a result, we end up on a merry-go-round of worry, clinging to the motion of our minds, but neglecting to do anything productive. In this blog post you’ll find some anxiety self help tips.

Anxiety Attack

His heart had been racing for weeks. He had trouble sleeping at night. At times he wondered whether he was going to have a heart attack as he’d never felt it beat like this before. His worry was specific but vague. He worried about his sons—one in a bad relationship, the other drinking too much. His wife was worried too, but instead of supporting her husband, she took it out on him—he’d been too lax, hadn’t been an involved enough father so “no wonder they’re in trouble,” she maintained. As a result, Mark felt alone in his worry.

Mark didn’t know exactly what could happen, but often feared that one or both of his now adult children could die. He worried about what they were doing at night, whom they were with and where they were hanging out. Mark sometimes texted and called them incessantly and when he got no response, he paced the house and worried more, unconsciously looking for soothing. He felt helpless to do anything about their less than optimal situations. In their early 20s, both sons were out of the house now and he had no jurisdiction over them.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Mark tried deep breathing, meditating, walking, and telling himself things could be worse—that in the grand scheme of life, everything would be okay. But nothing he did or said affected the consistent, rapid heartbeat. It continued to pound in an erratic and relentlessly uncommon pace, making his already worried mind become even more worried. Perhaps, he was developing heart disease, he thought. He went to the medical doctor. He was prescribed a heart monitor which he wore for a week. The test result rendered the following diagnosis: Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Mark was prescribed Lexipro (an anti-depressant that also treats anxiety) and Clonapin (an anti-anxiety medication).

Anxiety Self Help Tips : Looking at the Cause

The story of Mark is the story of many. We all seem to have something to worry about these days. But, while medications can certainly help, they don’t solve the problem. In order to solve the problem, its necessary to look at the root cause. While no one person’s anxiety is exactly like another’s, there are three categories of anxiety I believe Americans suffer from most these days:

1) everyday worry about not keeping up in a world of information overload;

2) social anxiety, meaning the worry of being criticized or ostracized by others;

3) death anxiety or the worry we’ll die prematurely due to addiction, gun violence, terrorism, disasters related to global warming or any number of things

In the case of all of these anxieties, is the underlying feeling of not being able to control the imagined threats and, therefore, not being safe. We could say that a root cause of anxiety is insecurity.

Taking action

Anxiety festers in us like trapped energy begging for action, but we don’t act, we just keep thinking about the problem until we can’t concentrate on anything else. So, what kind of action are we supposed to take if the thing we’re worrying about it is out of our control? Let’s look at what Mark did.

After a couple of months on the meds, Mark decided to take action. While the severity of his symptoms had abated with the medication, he knew he was masking the source of the problem. We talked about what made him feel secure.

Certainly, the lack of support from his wife hadn’t been helping. But instead of day-dreaming about how he wished she’d respond, Mark decided to go toward his wife with the compassion he so wished for from her. He told her he could understand why she was frustrated with him–that he does appear to be lax because he often doesn’t know what to do.

He empathized with her worry about their adult children. She felt acknowledged, blamed him less and Mark felt less alone Then Mark called his kids with one purpose–to offer support and presence. Instead of asking them where they were and what they were doing, he invited them to dinner.

“Be the change you want to see” said Ghandi. Simple, but true. If you’re wishing your kids would talk more about their lives, talk to them more about yours. If you’re scared of global warming destroying the planet, take better care of it. If you’re afraid of others’ judgment, stop judging yourself. Be the change you want to see or as the poet, Maya Angelou said, “try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.”

Anxiety Self Help Tips: Conclusion

This may not have been the action you were thinking I’d direct you toward, but it is a powerful one. If you can go toward that which scares you, with compassion and engagement, not only will the anxiety start to ebb, but your feeling of estrangement will too. And, if we are less estranged from ourselves, each other, and the planet, we feel more secure.

Ultimately, Mark moved toward his wife with compassion, and toward his sons with invitations for dinner vs questions regarding their whereabouts. All three family members avoided him less. He didn’t judge his wife’s reaction nor did he try to control his sons’ behavior. But he did act. He acted with compassionate engagement which brought the family closer and interrupted Mark’s anxious rumination.