Managing Anxiety
What runs through your mind when you feel anxious? For me it’s the thought: “I know I shouldn't be reacting this way”.
According to TED talk speaker, author and anxiety expert, Tim Box:
Anxious feelings are something our mind creates of our perceived inability to cope with a situation. Anxious feelings are created by our mind and is not a result of something external happening to us.
Whenever we are given something to deal with, Tim Box shares that our minds tend to run an internal cognitive assessment as to if we have the resources and capacity to handle the task at hand.
If the answer to the self-assessment is yes, we will get on the task with minimal emotional impact.
If the answer is no, it is normal human response to feel slightly elevated levels of anxiety about the situation.
The self-assessment that our mind runs us through can be helpful and valid for most occasions. Yet, it can become an issue for us when our mind runs this assessment almost too regularly or use it in situations that does not require the assessment.
The 3 common results of anxiety:
Shut down: Individual decides that the work is too stressful to handle and does not work on it
Melt down: Display of emotional responses to show distress as an attempt to reach for external help
Break down: Natural human stress response: fight–flight–freeze coping strategy
What can we do prior to facing such natural bodily responses? Here are three mind-managing tools provided by Tim Box:
Ask yourself: How big the challenge is, how many are there? Is this something that will threaten and overwhelm me or can I overcome this?
Assess your ability: how good am I at dealing with challenges? *It will be helpful to have a list of memories or events from the past in which you demonstrated to yourself and others of your courage, ability and skills to overcome difficulties.
Check in: How close am I to my best self? Oftentimes when we think of a tough challenge, we can shrink ourselves and think less of ourselves than we actually are.
How do you cope with situations that trigger anxious feelings and thoughts?
What are your go-to strategies in a challenging situation?
Share your favorite method with us in the comments section below, you have wisdom and knowledge that can help another out.
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