Why is it so important to know how to overcome anxiety?

We all know the feeling of becoming frozen due to anxiety. This problem can multiply – and it can affect us in our everyday lives. If you are a particularly anxious person, it’s of the utmost importance that you learn how to overcome it – this is because without this ability we can come frozen in place.

Anxiety and other similar mental health problems are also often the causes of being stuck in a fixed mindset, instead of a growth one. That means that our mental health is now affecting our ability to grow into the people we were meant to be.

Take your time to identify the problem

Anxiety is often caused by the unknown.

Not knowing either the outcome of something or whether it will happen or not can keep us up for hours at night and totally destroy any sense of productivity. This is a problem both in our professional and personal lives.

That is why, one of the main things I like to do, is to take a moment to actually try to identify what it is that is causing me anxiety – and whether it is actually a cause for concern or not.

Another thing that can trigger anxiety is living in the past.

The problem is often we have no control over either the future or the past – and therefore worrying about it or allowing our anxiety to be triggered by it is simply not the best way to proceed.

Identify what it is and call it out – say it out loud to ourselves – it will almost immediately feel less scary.

My favorite personal exercise to help with my anxiety

Once I have identified the problem exactly, the next step is to overcome it. But this can seem like an almost impossible task. Overcoming fear is incredibly difficult.

Let’s say you feel scared of failure – write down the word failure on one side of a piece of paper.

On the other side of the piece of paper – write down 3 things that you have succeeded in.

The point of this exercise is to overcome your fear of failure (or your anxiety about failing) by showing all the times you have already succeeded. This can be a very helpful exercise when trying to overcome anxiety.

This works because when we are anxious about something we tend to overfocus on that thing, we become fixated.

Go back to when you were at school and think about how you felt the night before an exam. This is a perfect example of this in effect.

But the truth is – it’s not the only important thing happening in your life – and by writing down 3 things that are the opposite of your anxiety – you can start to broaden your mind and stop narrowing down on that one thing.

Put yourself in your future’s shoes

Another great task to do when you’re feeling anxious is to try to understand what your ideal outcome from this situation would be.

For example, let’s say you’re in a relationship and you’re anxious it is going to end. Put yourself in the future – 9 months from now – how would you exactly like it to play out, can you visualize the outcome, and then try to manifest it.

By thinking about all of the different potential outcomes, and by honing in on your exact proposed outcome – you can start to get a feeling of being lighter – and stop fixating on that one possible outcome (which might not even happen anyway!)

Try not to focus on the one thing that is causing us to write negative stories about our lives in our heads – and instead focus on the other potential possibilities or outcomes from the situation.

Take your mind for a mental holiday

One of the most crippling things about anxiety is our tendency to not be able to think about anything else. But of course, that is true if you’re sitting on the sofa and have nothing to distract yourself with.

When I’m feeling anxious I like to take a mental holiday, by either picking up my hobby, or just simply going outside and feeling the trees, the leaves, the breeze, and the sun.

Something as simple as going for a walk by yourself in nature can work wonders for distracting your mind from the anxiety-inducing problem, and by giving your mind a break – you can start to think about different things.

You’re not avoiding the problem – you’re just allowing your brain to relax for a while so that you can think about what is going on in a different mode – the observer mode – a more objective view can often work wonders for a problem that is destroying your mental health.

Conclusion

There are many, many more techniques than the ones mentioned in this article. But if you use these few simple tricks in your daily life I can guarantee that you will start to notice changes in how you feel about anxiety in general.

One of our biggest problems is allowing ourselves to be immersed in our own thoughts – when what we really need is some time to ourselves to really consider the problem and think about it in a logical and objective way.

Best,

Dr. Asha Prasad
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