Everyone has felt anxious before, be it before an examination or an interview, maybe even just before meeting a family member you haven't met in a while. The key thing to note here is that anxiety is always worrying in response to an event that is about to happen, or one that you think will happen soon. Our body activates its natural fight or flight response in reaction to this perceived threat, resulting in the uncomfortable feeling of anxiety. An anxiety attack, therefore, happens when these feelings of anxiety do not dissipate and become difficult to handle.
We all have different limits for anxiety; different events will give us different levels of anxiety, and how much we can handle before it evolves into an attack determines our limits. It is therefore important to learn some coping strategies to help us reduce the amount of anxiety we have to prevent it from turning into an anxiety attack.
Firstly, we should think less about the events that are making us anxious. This doesn't mean we should not think about them nor prepare for them in any way, this means to simply not think about them excessively. The idea is that the less you think about them, the less anxious you will feel because you don't overthink it as much.
It may be impossible to totally stop thinking about these events, and that's natural. Think of when someone says to not think about white elephants. Of course, the next thing that's on your mind would naturally be white elephants. Thus, instead of trying hard not to think about something, which may result in you actually thinking about it more, try to distract yourself with other calming activities, such as reading a book.
Finally, when we are anxious, we would start to speak louder and perhaps more erratically, and could become more irritable. However, these actions are simply making ourselves more anxious; it's a vicious cycle of never-ending anxiety. Luckily, to break out of this vicious cycle, we simply have to take note that these changes are happening to ourselves and slowly calm ourselves down by taking a more relaxed stance.
While we may not always be able to control the external circumstances resulting in our anxiety, we are able to control our own emotions through the several steps above. You would be able to avoid an anxiety attack if you follow these steps closely, regardless of the nature of the issue.
Category(s):Anxiety
Source material from PsychCentral
