As a therapist who specialises in working with anxiety it saddens me to see the impact that anxiety has on people's lives.
Sometimes things happen and you start to feel your anxiety rising, you get that uncomfortable feeling warning you that anxiety is on the horizon, but you seem able to get control of your anxiety.
However there are also many times when your anxiety gets out of control and you are unable to calm yourself down.
Being able to manage your anxiety can take a lot of practice and the work I do with my clients helps them to:-
A) Understand why they are feeling anxious about things
B) What might trigger their anxiety
C) What their personal early warning signs are for their anxiety
D) Introduce tools and strategies into their life that help them manage their anxiety
E) Learn how to use these tools and strategies effectively
F) Find new coping strategies
G) Break the vicious cycle of anxiety
H) Start to lead a life where anxiety is manageable
Working with my clients on a one to one basis can really help to change things however some people, for whatever reason, may not be ready for counselling, but
that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to learn some ways to help manage your anxiety.
This blog will introduce you to some strategies that my clients and I work with and will hopefully help you cope a little better in those moments when anxiety becomes too overwhelming for you.
(If you feel more guided tuition on these strategies will be helpful to you then you can sign up for my e-mail course with video guidance and information sheets.
These techniques are not going to work instantly for you, but if you spend some time practising them and introducing them into your daily routine then you should start to see a difference in how you can manage those anxious feelings.
It's not about getting rid of your anxiety but knowing how to live with it so it does not control you.
Here are 3 ways to help you in those moments of anxiety
1. REMAIN IN THE HERE AND NOW
Anxiety is driven by the fear of the future, what might be, all the what if’s that you ask yourself.
One of the most effective ways of being able to manage your anxiety is to stop yourself worrying about what MIGHT happen and instead bring yourself back into the present time, the HERE AND NOW, where you have some control of what happens.
Often you will find it is not the situation you are in that is causing you the anxiety, but your thoughts that something terrible is going to happen because of the situation.
We call this magnifying or catastrophising. These are cognitive distortions, distorting the facts through opinion, conjecture and your imagination.
You will very likely be getting out your crystal ball to predict the terrible things that are going to happen.
Putting your crystal ball away and bringing yourself back to the here and now, acknowledging and accepting how you are feeling, and putting it into context with what is happening for you in the moment will help stop your thoughts running away with you.
Anxiety is fuelled by the inability to control what happens in the future and the inability to control what other people might do, focusing on yourself and the present moment gives you more control.
Living in the present moment has huge benefits in reducing anxiety.
But how do you bring yourself back to the present moment if your anxiety has started to run away with you?
2. BREATHING AND GROUNDING TECHNIQUES
Never underestimate the power of controlled breathing
Breathing a little deeper than usual will help to calm you both mentally and physically.
It can help reduce your adrenaline rush and reduce your stress hormone levels.
When you focus on your breathing it distracts you from your thoughts and feelings.
allowing you to start to moving back into that important place, the here and now.
3 Breathing techniques you can try
1. 4, 7. 8 breathing
Breathe in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8.
2. Box breathing
Draw a box as you breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, and hold for 4
3. Buddha belly breathing
As you breathe in push your belly out and as you breath out feel your belly relax in.
This takes some practice but it means you are not just chest breathing but using your diaphragm and allows more oxygen to fill your lungs.
Once you start to calm down do some simple grounding techniques, this helps switch back on your rational brain.
Counting-objects around the room or where you are ie how many clocks can I see, how many cars can I see etc
Using all your senses-what can you see, hear, smell, touch, taste
Looking around the room for objects beginning with certain letters, something beginning with A. something beginning with B etc
Grounding helps you switch on your rational brain and brings you back into the here and now.
Once you are calm and grounded you can put away your crystal ball and deal with your cognitive distortions
A good way to remember what you need to do is with the
3. STOPP PNEUMONIC
The stop pneumonic gives you the space to make a choice about what you want to do.
Viktor Frankl a holocaust survivor but also a psychiatrist and neurologist said
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
STOP
TAKE A BREATH
OBSERVE
PULL BACK
PROCEED
Stop- just pause for a moment, Say Stop in your head or out loud as soon as you feel your early warning signs. The earlier you say STOP the easier this will be for you.
Take a breath-notice your breathing and take your time to regulate your breathing-see tip 2
Observe- observe yourself,
what are your thoughts? Where is your focus of attention? What are you reacting too? What physical sensations are you aware of?
ground yourself-see tip 2
Pull back and put in some perspective- Your thoughts are likely to be distorted, those cognitive distortion we talked about in tip 1
Take a helicopter view, that is observe the situation from above so you can see the whole thing, not just the piece you are focusing on.
What advice would you give to a friend in the same situation? Is what I am thinking fact or opinion? How important will this be in 1 month, 6 months, a year.
This moment will pass
Practice what works for you and proceed- what is helping you feel calmer, do more of it. What is the most helpful thing I can do right now, not later right now,
Where do I need to focus my attention right now. Be in the here and now and do what works for you in that moment.
Practicing STOPP gives you the choice about what to do rather than your anxiety being in control
This will not come naturally to you, you will need to take time to practice it
Practice the 1st 2 steps daily, maybe more than once a day.
Read through the steps often to remind yourself
Practice how you will do it-several times a day when you don’t need to.
Start with small upsets and situations
As you get better at it you will be able to use it for distressing moments
Maybe carry a card to prompt you or put it on your phone to remind you
If you would like to look at these strategies in more detail than why not sign up to my 6 week e-mail course.
6 e-mails
over 6 weeks
Video tutorials
Information sheets
Guided workbooks
guiding you step by step through the STOPP process
helping you to practice the breathing and grounding techniques
Talking you through how to reframe your cognitive distortions
Laura Knight is a qualified and experienced Counsellor and a registered member of BACP (The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)
She is an approved Anxiety UK Therapist and has her own private practice SeeClear Counselling, in Poole Dorset.
She can offer face to face, telephone and video counselling sessions
Laura also spent some time working with Dorset Mind delivering education to local employers on how to identify and manage stress at work reducing the impact that work stress can have on people's everyday lives.
Laura found that many of her clients would present with Anxiety and because of this enhanced her training to include CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) as there is evidence to suggest that CBT is effective in the treatment of anxiety and depression.
Laura now focuses on working with adults who struggle with Anxiety within her private practice, working with them to reduce the scary physical and emotional symptoms they experience and help them change their negative thinking patterns so they can lead a calmer life.
For more information about Laura please visit her website https://www.seeclearcounselling.co.uk
Or visit her Facebook page https://facebook.com/seeclearcounselling
e-mail laura@seeclearcounselling.co.uk Tel 07975733029
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