Anxiety is a very normal but very unwelcome feeling. Most of us would choose not to experience If we can.
In some ways, it’s like a smoke alarm, says Natasha Reynolds, a psychotherapist at Toronto’s Broome Center for Psychology and Wellness. A smoke detector will alert you to actual dangers and allow you to leave your home safely, but it will also alert you to things that aren’t actually dangerous, like how a smoke alarm goes off on a piece of toast.
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Likewise, “the threat-detection part of our brain … may trigger when it perceives a threat, but that’s not an actual danger to us,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said when smoke alarms go off frequently for things that are not dangerous, it may be a sign to seek support and develop tools to manage stress responses. Additionally, common thoughts, behaviors, and actions can cause your anxiety smoke alarm to go off more often than it should. What are they:
black and white thinking
“A common unhelpful thinking pattern may be called black-and-white thinking, or also known as all-or-nothing thinking,” says Reynolds.
Reynolds explained that this could mean looking at the good or bad aspects of a situation without considering the gray areas.
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“So, for example… if I make a mistake in an email, it must mean I’m incompetent and everyone else thinks so,” she said. In fact, it doesn’t mean you’re incompetent; Mistakes mean you are human and the person on the receiving end thinks so too (i.e., if They even noticed the error).
These thoughts can bring you down and even make future communications very stressful, causing you to feel anxious every time you have to email this person, or even causing you to stop sending emails altogether.
avoid
When it comes to stopping doing something entirely, therapists say that’s another habit that can have a negative impact on you.
“I think the No. 1 behavior that makes anxiety worse is avoidance,” says Jennifer Anders, a Colorado-based psychologist who runs the The.Anxiety.Doc Instagram account. “This is actually counterintuitive to what most people believe. Anxiety gets worse when you avoid situations, places or people that trigger your anxiety.”
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Think about it: If you avoid checking your credit card balance because it causes you anxiety, you’ll be filled with anxiety when you do – and that’s after weeks of stress.
“This avoidance fuels the cycle of anxiety and intensifies the body’s response in a way that exacerbates anxiety over time,” Anders said.
Justine Grosso, a psychologist in North Carolina who also shares mental health insights on her Instagram account, says that instead of avoiding a situation, you should approach it gradually.
For example, Grosso says that for social anxiety disorder, instead of going to a large party, schedule a one-on-one coffee date with a new friend, or attend a party for 10 minutes and then leave.
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“We want to process things and be willing to tolerate a little discomfort in order to serve our values. That means if we value friendships… it would make sense for us to handle these social interactions rather than avoid them,” Grosso explained.
“After we do something that triggers anxiety, it’s important to take the time to tell our brains, ‘Hey, we got through this, we did this hard thing, we survived,'” Grosso added.
How you talk to yourself matters—therapists say negative self-talk can make you feel needlessly anxious. Masks from Getty Images
seek comfort
Constantly asking other people for feedback on the situation or even Googling your health symptoms can exacerbate your anxiety, Anders says. These behaviors are called comfort seeking.
“In the short term, self-reassurance will calm the worry feedback loop in your mind, but in the long term, it actually creates another negative feedback loop where reassurance is needed to feel good,” Anders says.
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In other words, reassurance is a quick fix but won’t do anything for your anxiety in the long run.
“I always encourage people to avoid doing this if possible,” says Anders, because it can significantly increase anxiety for many people in the long run.
catastrophizing
Are you worried that your anxiety will cause you to faint and not be able to get help from those around you? Or have you ever been late in sending your rent check and thought that meant you were about to be evicted immediately?
Reynolds says this is called catastrophizing, which is thinking about the worst-case scenario and believing that is the most likely scenario. As you might expect, catastrophizing leads to anxiety.
“Based on cognitive behavioral therapy, they believe anxiety is caused by us overestimating a situation and then underestimating our ability to cope with the situation,” Reynolds said.
It may be helpful to challenge these worst-case scenario thoughts by saying, “What if everything goes well?” Reynolds said. “Because anxiety is not thinking about the best case scenario.”
Additionally, it’s useful to think of possible ways to deal with a bad situation. “If the worst-case scenario happens, what are your strengths in dealing with that situation, and we may have underestimated that in that moment?” Reynolds said.
In other words, if you did faint, no one would help you? Can you discuss this possibility with your loved ones so they are prepared to intervene? Or, if you do mail your rent check late, can you pay your landlord a late fee?
The worst-case scenario usually doesn’t happen, but catastrophic thinking can make you believe it will.
negative self talk
It turns out that telling yourself you’re not good enough or that something won’t work out is pretty mean; Anders says it can also increase your anxiety.
“It’s a huge problem, again many people don’t know how they talk to themselves in their daily lives and daily activities and the words they use to describe themselves,” Anders said.
These words are often very harsh—harsher than when we talk to friends or family.
“I really encourage people to be aware of the words they use themselves, and the first step is not to change it. The first step is to make people aware of it,” Anders said.
Likeable
Anders believes that people-pleasing can also exacerbate your anxiety. Think about it: When you continually put other people’s needs and opinions ahead of your own, you’re setting yourself up for some uncomfortable feelings, including anxiety. What’s more, she adds, it can make you feel like you’re neglecting yourself, which can lead to anxiety.
Anders said many people, especially women, are conditioned to put the needs of others before their own, making the habit difficult to break.
“This really creates a dynamic of self-neglect, putting other people’s wishes and needs above your own, [and] This leads to unclear boundaries,” Anders said.
“The fact that you’re just developing self-worth that’s dependent on other people and what you do for other people creates huge anxiety,” she points out.
If these behaviors are regularly affecting your anxiety, it’s time to see a therapist. Fiordaliso, Getty Images
Ways to Fix These Anxiety-Causing Habits
To combat these behaviors, “grounding skills really help,” Grosso said. Grounding techniques can lower your heart rate and bring about a state of relaxation not present during anxious chaos.
Grosso said basic activities include walking and/or exercising. Additionally, Grosso said mindfulness skills can help. “It’s like being aware of your five senses—taste, touch, sight, smell, sound—and the connection to our five senses is grounded because it really brings us into the present moment,” Grosso said.
In addition, Reynolds said she likes to encourage people to practice abdominal breathing, “which is consciously taking deep breaths where when you inhale, you extend your belly forward and when you exhale, you tighten your belly.” This delivers more oxygen to the brain, which Reynolds says can help give you a sense of calm.
It is also helpful to name the anxiety-provoking behavior when it occurs. “The way to be aware of our thought patterns is to label them when they happen. ‘Oh, here I go, catastrophic, let me notice this,'” Grosso said.
Or, take a moment to name the negative self-talk or comfort-seeking situations that are occurring. “Then bring your attention to the present moment,” Grosso said.
Over time, you can learn how to distance yourself from these thoughts and become aware of them when they occur so that you can remind yourself that they are not helpful and, in fact, are not reality.
In addition to at-home tools for coping with anxiety, it can be helpful to seek professional help. Anxiety can be more complex than it appears on the surface.
“Another interesting take on anxiety is that anxiety may actually be a secondary emotion and kind of mask another emotion that you find unacceptable,” Grosso says.
You may have been raised to believe that anger is unacceptable, or you may harbor sadness that manifests as anxiety. In other words, there may be a bigger problem, and that’s where a therapist’s advice can help.
“I think therapy is a very powerful experience in understanding ourselves better, understanding our emotions and why we do the things we do,” Grosso said.
You can use databases like Psychology Today and Inclusive Therapists to find a therapist near you.
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Read the original article on The Huffington Post