It’s 3.00 am and you’ve already been awake for an hour. All you can think about is work, or a problem with your children at school, did you pay the electricity bill on time, did you remember to book the car in for a service. Whatever the problem is, you just can’t get it out of your mind and before you know it, the clock has turned 4.00.
Now you start to worry about the morning, how will you function at work, you need to get to sleep but no matter what you do, sleep just doesn’t come.
Sound familiar?….That constant cycle of worry? The good news is that there are ways to cope with anxiety, techniques for coping with the worries and anxious thoughts that can drive us all to distraction. Some of the techniques may seem a little odd ball but give them a try, you’ll be surprised at just how effective they can be. Take a bit of time and practice these techniques to get to grips with anxiety.
Ways to Cope with Anxiety
Recognize the false worries. Do you get two hundred yards down the road and think that you’ve left the front door open or imagine that you’ve gone out and left a pot cooking on the stove. How many times have you walked back home, only to find that everything is okay, the doors locked and the house hasn’t burnt down. We do things on autopilot a lot of the time so don’t remember doing them. An anxious mind will soon create a worry out of these so learn to recognize some of your worries for what they really are, just a restless mind imagining problems. Have a bit of faith in yourself.
Try the boredom cure. If you are worrying about something, just repeat it over and over to yourself. It is almost impossible to keep worrying about something if you repeat it over and over again. It may take 15 or twenty minutes first time but your brain will switch off eventually and this one is great for those early hours of the morning worries.
Allocate some time to your worries. Give yourself permission to think about them, but not right now. When a worry pops into your head, welcome it, take a look at it and tell yourself that you’ll think that one through this evening. Set a time, make a note of it and then, at the allocated time, think it through. Most of your worries will have disappeared by the time you get to your “worry time”
Accept the things you can’t change. There is no pint in getting het up about things that you can’t do anything about. You can’t change the past so don’t dwell on past mistakes, you can’t change the weather, so why worry about it. What will be, will be is the attitude you want to try to adopt, if you can’t change it don’t worry about it.
Exaggerate your worries. Make them worse. What is the worst thing that can happen? That late electricity bill? Will you really get cut off for being a day late? Unlikely! A lot of our worries are actually quite insignificant, think them through to the worst conclusion and you take all the power out of them, perhaps they weren’t worth worrying about; and if they were then allocate some time to really think them through when your head is a bit clearer.
Breathe away your worries. When we are anxious, our bodies become really tense, we stop breathing properly, often holding our breath so do the opposite, take some long deep breathes in and out. Spend a few minutes breathing in to the count of four and then breathing out just as slowly. Practice this every day and you will soon be coping with anxiety far better as you train your brain to breathe properly.
Stop worrying about time deadlines, stop letting your anxious thoughts bully you into impulsive actions. Take your time to think things through before you act even when you’re panicking. Stop and think is a good habit to get into. It takes the power out of your anxiety as you quickly learn that nothing needs to be dome instantaneously.
Live your life despite your anxiety. There are millions of people who live active fulfilling lives despite their anxiety. Give it a try, enjoy what you can do without anxiety and learn from it. Anxiety doesn’t need to rule your life. The more you do and enjoy the weaker the hold that anxiety has over you.