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Hey friends, welcome back to the blog.  Today I wanted to talk in more detail about anxiety.  Anxiety is one of the most common things we see people in our clinic.  Symptoms of anxiety can range anywhere from whole body fatigue, racing thoughts, unwanted intrusive thoughts, hyper vigilance, irritability, excessive worry, fear, sense of impending doom, trouble concentrating or making decisions. Physical symptoms can range from heart palpitations, sweating, restlessness, tension, nausea, upset stomach, shaky, and trouble sleeping.                                     

Anxiety isn’t always bad and normal levels of anxiety can be helpful in everyday life.  As humans, from an evolutionary standpoint, anxiety has helped us survive.  Anxiety can be a natural response to feeling threatened, stressed, or under pressure.  It can help us stay alert, focus when something is important, make us aware of risks, and push us to solve problems.   Anxiety can negatively impact our well being and mental and physical health when it persists long after it is needed.  High levels of anxiety can include persistent and excessive worry, avoiding anxiety provoking situations, impair daily functioning, and cause high distress.  I would like to talk about a few things I have learned along the way that have not been helpful for anxiety and then some ideas on managing anxiety.                        

Things I have learned that don’t help my anxiety include; staying stuck in spiraling thoughts and letting them take over, not exercising or taking care of my body with proper nutrition, bottling up negative emotions, not going outside to breathe or get some fresh air, drinking more caffeine, and not managing stress.  Usually during anxiety it is the hardest time to reduce tension and focusing on breathing, and it is also when it is the best time to do exactly that.  So here are some of my tips for anxiety through managing it myself and also helping clients to learn to manage theirs.                                                     

1. Find someone to talk to.  It can help to have a sounding board when it comes to anxiety and anxious thoughts. Having someone you trust like a friend or loved one to talk to can help making anxious thoughts more rational and also can help to have another person help you challenge them.  Sometimes this may require finding peer support or reaching out to a therapist for help.  We use a lot of EMDR to help calm the mind and anxiety levels.                  

2.  Find an outlet like exercise.  This can include anything from walking, stretching, swimming, strength training, riding a bike, or yoga.
It can help to set small goals like starting with ten minutes a day or one outlet a day.                                                                              

3. Journal or write out worries.  Journaling can include writing down how you are feeling, identifying things that have added to anxiety, how you spend your day, and expressing gratitudes.  Some people like to write down the things worrying them prior to going to bed.  It can also be helpful at times to give yourself a set amount of time to spend focused on worries before moving on to something else.     

4. Consider habits that help improve anxiety and what makes it worse.  This can include the types of food you eat, caffeine, or substances.  I have found when I stress or have anxiety if I eat to cope or drink caffeine to cope it usually ends up making it worse in the long run.  It is also important to try and prioritize good sleep and getting rest.                                        

5. Practice mindfulness.  This can range anywhere from focusing on your breathing and how your body feels in the moment.  It can also include noticing your five senses.  It can help to go outside and ground your feet.  It can also include noticing areas of tension and practicing releasing the tension through progressive muscle relaxation.  Some people prefer mediation videos.                   

6. Challenge the thoughts.  I often find people struggle with this one a lot and I also find it to be one of the most beneficial tools for people to practice.  This can include catching the thought, check it for accuracy and ask yourself what else could be true, and then change the thought to something else that could be accurate and usually less anxiety provoking.  Getting out of spirals usually requires some level of sticking to truths and facts.  Some people have to remind themselves of truths to stop thought spiraling.  Most often anxiety stems from some sort of fear.  If you can identify where the anxiety provoking thought is rooted in, it can help address the root of the problem.                                       

Anxiety can range from helping us succeed to overwhelming to debilitating.  Trust me I get it, but there is always hope and the more we focus on working with our anxiety instead of against it, the easier it becomes to manage.   

Thank you for reading, until next time.                                            

Emilie Barragan, LCSW            

“Tackling physical and emotional pain” – Therapeuo Health