Like all human emotions, anxiety is adaptive and purposeful. If your anxiety is not sufficient to be at a clinical level,  but you do find it restricts your participation in some activities and / or achieving goals, then this article might help. If you want to be less affected by anxiety, then the tools below will help you in getting to know your own individual anxiety, and to look at challenging and changing the underlying fears and resulting behaviour.  

Why do we have anxiety ?

Anxiety is a   feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something. Like all feelings it is purposeful. Its purpose is to spur us to action to avoid future  threats that in the past have resulted in fear and / or stress for us.

Anxiety exists in a continuum and for some people it is so distressful and / or impacts normal life so severely that it is referred to as being at a clinical level, and referred to as a mental health disorder. For these people I would recommend contacting your doctor or a mental health professional for therapy and / or medication.

For those who are not at this level, it is still useful to know your anxiety. To understand what things trigger it, and the underlying fears it carries. Armed with this information, anxiety can remain become purposeful, but less distressing and less constraining.

Everyone’s anxiety is different as it is something that evolves as part of our life experience. Sometimes there is a hereditary aspect to it, but not necessarily biological. Things that our parents are anxious about many be transmitted by what they say, or their actions. For example, if our parents are scared of air travel they might tell us bad stories about airplane crashes. This makes us feel anxious when the thought of air travel is bought up, even in adulthood.

Or anxiety provoking situations might be the result of one bad experience at a job, with a friend, or doing some particular activity.  Whilst the intention of this type of anxiety is protective, there might not be a real risk to be protective of. In fact it might limit our options or constrain us from taking action to achieving particular goals we have. Or course in some cases it might protect us from repeating further risky behaviour. Not walking in a part of the city  late at night that is dangerous, and not slowing down on a particular road in the wet.

So how do we get to know our anxiety.

Well actually the same way we get to know a person. We ask questions and we listen.

Find yourself a quiet space and ask yourself the following questions:

• What are the things I get anxious about.
• On a scale of 0-10, where 10 represents maximum anxiety and 0 represents no anxiety, what rating do I give each of these things.
• For each of these, what is the fear behind the anxiety. What do I think will happen or not happen that results in the rating.
• What is the impact of my having this fear. How does it constrain or limit me.

This might seem strange, but when you have finished the above, thank your anxiety for looking after you and giving you this information.

What next ?

Now you know your anxiety and what it fears, when you are ready you can choose one or more of the above and take the next step. This step is to challenge your thinking behind the anxiety, and progressively put yourself in situations that re calibrate your anxiety level.

Challenging the thinking involves looking at the fear behind the anxiety and seeing how accurate it is in terms of past evidence, probability of occurring, and what is the realistic outcome if it did.  Once you have the evidence you can review the fear statement and rate the anxiety level based on the revised fear statement.

You can then progressively face your fear. Let’s say you have a fear or meeting new people and your rating was a 9. This historical rating was based on going to a party by yourself and spending the whole night by yourself.  So maybe a first step might be going out with a friend and asking them to invite someone you don’t know.  If it is about speaking in front of a crowd, maybe you can give a speech in your room by yourself and record it then watch it.

You can be creative as you wish with designing activities but the aim is to progressively face the fear but not to overwhelm yourself.

In finishing….

I have found this process works with clients in therapy and can profoundly change their anxiety and remove restrictions on their life. If you find this overwhelming or it triggers more severe anxiety symptoms, please see a mental health professional for assistance.

Further Reading

Re-storying Can Change Your Life

Self Schemas – Redefine Yourself and Change Your Life