What is Anxiety?
Anxiety feels like fear! It can cause palpitations of the heart, sweaty hands, knots in the stomach, a feeling of being uneasy, an inability to function properly. It can come into our lives and take us over to the point of not being able to cope at all. Anxiety is uncomfortable, feels uncontrollable and when anxiety is in charge what can you do to make is stop!
Anxiety is a process within the brain resulting in behaviour and physical responses. Anxiety feels uneasy, such as when you are worrying about the safety of a loved one. Is this something familiar that you recognise? Anxiety is a normal emotion and something we all experience and it is a natural part of ‘being human.’
What does Anxiety feel like?
Anxiety is a complex emotional response that is similar to fear. Anxiety is felt in many ways as it affects us both mentally and physically. Feelings of anxiety can be:
- Stress
- Panic
- Restlessness
- Racing thoughts
- Agitation
- Trouble concentrating
- Trouble sleeping
- Lack of concentration
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Less able to cope
- More difficulty controlling emotions than usual
- Increased negative thoughts
- Physical feelings in the body such as in the stomach or shoulders
- Unusual fear of going out
- Sweating
- Increased heart rate
These are some of the feelings experienced with anxiety. Living with anxiety can feel very difficult and may prevent people from living their life as they want to. Anxiety may prevent you from being able to work, see friends and in extraordinary cases stop you leaving the house. It is a very powerful emotion.
How to manage Anxiety?
There are many proven and effective techniques, which will help manage anxiety, here are just a few:
- Getting a good nights sleep
- Ironically, getting a good nights sleep may be easier said than done as when we are feeling anxious it may be difficult to feel relaxed enough to get to sleep! However, when sleep deprived, feelings of anxiety can further increase.
- Mindfulness meditation
- Anxiety involves the emotion of fear and mindfulness meditation will help to focus your attention on the here and now and in doing so will calm down the physical response to fear such as increased heart rate and sweating. There are many apps available for guided mindfulness and within these apps there are also breathing exercises which will help with relaxation and can help you relax and sleep.
- Exercise
- It has been shown that regular exercise can be an effective method to manage anxiety and depression. Find an exercise that you enjoy!
- When you feel anxious the body often has cortisol running through it, exercise is a great way to help the cortisol out of the system resulting in the anxious feelings reducing in that moment.
- Distracting yourself
- If you feel that your anxiety it increasing and you want to calm it down, find something distracting and really concentrate on it; for example:
- Choose a colour and look round to see how many things you can see which are that colour
- Do a crossword puzzle
- Cook something
- Make something or draw something. Hobbies and arts and crafts are great ways to reduce anxiety.
- Find something which you can focus and concentrate on, watching TV will not be as effective.
- If you feel that your anxiety it increasing and you want to calm it down, find something distracting and really concentrate on it; for example:
Anxiety Support
Anxiety is a ‘gremlin’ of an emotion and if you are experiencing anxiety you are not alone, there are many people who are here to support you. As a counsellor listen and support you and will offer tools to support you in managing your anxiety. Please contact me if you want my support.
There is a lot of information available on help for anxiety, which ironically can feel overwhelming if you are experiencing feelings of high anxiety, so I have collated a list of charities who are there to support you. You will find their links here – www.carolineellisoncounselling.co.uk/anxiety-counselling
If you are in crisis and want immediate support please call the Samaritans who offer a free 24 hour helpline – Phone: 116 123 – Website: www.samaritans.org
Written by your local counsellor in Fleet, Caroline at Caroline Ellison Counselling – this is my experience and these are my opinions. Carpe Diem.