Quick Anxiety Help

Posted: March 4, 2019

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in America and affects 40 million adults. This is about 1 in 5 adults that are affected annually. While Anxiety disorders are very treatable, less than 40% reach out for professional help. In order for the anxiety to be considered a problem, it usually causes some physical, mental, social, family, or career difficulties before person acts.

The following are some basic characteristics of anxiety:

Feeling nervous
Inability to stop or manage worry
Excessive fear about many items
Difficulty relaxing
Physical restlessness
Frequent irritability
Fear about future events
Being easily fatigued
Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
Muscle tension
Sleep problems (too much or too little)You may use a Likert scale, say 1-5 (1 indicates no problem and 5 indicates a severe problem). The higher you score, the more your anxiety is a problem.

Here are some potential anxiety management strategies:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is my specialty. Here are some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy steps that help most people:

Recognize that we start getting anxious when our negative self-talk takes over.
Recognize then that breathing accelerates, adrenaline is secreted, and our heart begins to race (flight or fight), which is needed to run away from a life-threatening problem
Challenge your negative self-talk (for example, I’m never going to resolve this problem, etc.)
Change the negative to a true thought such as the following:
I will get through this
I can do this
I can feel my heart rate slowing down
This feeling will pass
I am feeling anxious now, but I have the power make calm myself
Do not move to catastrophe mode
See what could go right
Do not beat yourself up
Tell yourself something that might be likely, truthful, and positive

You may also try items like the following:

Muscle Relaxation
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Positive Self-talk

We can go over details regarding each above in future communications if you wish.

Jim