Is It Possible to Manage Your Anxiety?
You’ve worked for months or maybe years, to calm those shaky hands, your racing mind or occasionally that sweaty forehead. You’ve wondered if you’re a little crazy or if this might be what anxiety feels like. And if you are struggling with it, is it possible to manage your anxiety?
Can you really feel anxiety in your physical body? Isn’t it just a mental and emotional thing?
To put it simply, anxiety is an emotion experienced in many different ways including within your body, your mind and noticed within your behaviours as well. There is no one specific or “right” way that you (or anyone) will experience this struggle. And, there is no right or wrong way to experience it. Just as you are a unique being, the way you experience struggles (as well as joys!) will be unique.
I wonder if you find this to be a discouraging or encouraging thought? Your anxiety, the way you experience it, is unique to you. The discouragement might be that now you wonder how hard it could be to help ease or reduce it, if everyone experiences it differently. The encouragement could be that in our uniqueness, there’s similarity or unity.
One tip I can share is that healing begins by acknowledging. And, this might be hard if you were raised (or are currently) in a family where you didn’t talk about mental or emotional health. If you were raised in an environment that celebrated stoicism or “high capacity” individuals, you might wonder if struggling with anxiety makes you weak.
The bravest thing a person can do, is notice there is a struggle. This is a part of being human.
And, if you can step into that bravery just a little, pause, and meanwhile begin noticing how and where your anxiety might be affecting you, then you can begin to heal. How can you begin noticing? As well, slowing down and pausing when you notice any of those physical symptoms will then help you begin managing your anxiety. If you can manage, this simply means you won’t feel that it is controlling parts of your life. This could mean a relief from some of your symptoms or uncomfortable experiences.
In his book, When the Body Says No, Gabor Mate overall addresses the unfavourable results of pushing these symptoms away. To experience some relief and begin to understand, process, manage and heal your anxiety here is an expansion of some of his (and my!) suggestions.
Breath work. It may seem simple, although breath work is one of the most powerful and healing practices for your body. It helps to regulate your sympathetic nervous system. Specifically, this means you can begin to calm down some of that “fight, flight, freeze, fawn” response you might often have.
I quite love the daily practice of taking a deep breath in.
Hold it for a few moments and then release it.
I will encourage clients to practice this for at least 5 minutes a day. Taking deep breaths down into your belly is what’s really important. Furthermore, practicing daily, even though you’re not noticing anxiety, is helpful because then when you really need to use it, it will feel familiar (and even calming)!
Engage your five senses. Look around and identify five things. Now quiet yourself to hear four things. Use your fingers and feel three things. Take a deep breath in (through your nose) and the smell of two things. Now, pop something in your mouth and taste one thing.
The practice of engaging your five senses, slowly, and in detail, will regulate your nervous system as well as that level of anxiety you might be noticing. For example, you’ll begin to slow your breathing, then your mind might feel like it’s slowing in thought, and finally you might notice those shoulders drop! Don’t rush through this practice. When you notice those five things with your sight, afterward further go to a granular level. If it’s a tree you see, really dig into the detail. What colour are the leaves? What does the bark, branches, trunk, etc look like.
Slow. Yourself. Down.
Move! Movement is a powerful healing tool and helpful to manage your anxiety. You can stomp out stress, anger, overwhelm. As well, you can move your arms into a hug around your body for comfort if you’re noticing worry as the cause of your anxiety. Biking, walking, jogging, yoga, as well as swimming…anything you can do to move those emotions around and especially out of your body, is healing. Of course, increasing your heart rate a little can overall increase access to some of those amazing anti-anxiety chemicals that already exist in your brain!
Counselling. Talking with someone you don’t have a personal relationship with is healing. It will help you manage your anxiety and get to the heart of the discomfort…to heal. I invite you to reach out and connect with me to book a consult or first session. I take a direct, conversational, gentle, nonjudgemental approach and I love connecting with individuals struggling with anxiety. It’s my deepest privilege! Often, traumatic experiences and things that have happened to you can be the reason you’re struggling in this way. Finally, counselling can help understand some of this and where to go from here.
