6 Steps to Calm Your Anxiety

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There are about 9.5 million people in the United States alone that suffer from anxiety. Anxiety is an intense state of worry or stress. Everyone experiences anxiety to some degree or another, but there are also times when anxiety becomes too overwhelming for one person to handle. This exercise can help you with any amount of anxiety.

Each section has a few questions. Be sure to write your answers down and keep a record. Do this exercise multiple times, not just once to really start to understand and then regain control of your anxiety.

1. Understand the Situation

Ask yourself questions such as: what is happening? where are you? who are you with? 

After writing down your answers over time you might notice that certain situations are similar or many of the same people might be involved in your severe anxiety states. Once you find a similar pattern you might be able to make some life changes surrounding certain situations and people. Hopefully you might be able to complete get rid of certain anxious situations, but if not you can learn ways to calm your anxiety before you go into these situations. 

2. Process your Emotions

Questions: What emotions are you feeling right now? What is the intensity level of your emotion on a scale of 0% to 100%.

Emotions affect your thinking, behavior, and actions. Emotions and feelings are incredibly powerful and a lot of people tend to cover them. These emotions have an important purpose of sending us a message. By processing and understanding your emotions you will become to understand your anxiety and yourself a lot better. One important thing to remember is do not bottle your emotions but process them because too many intense emotions make your anxiety worse.

3. Notice What’s Happening in your Body

Notice what is exactly happening to your body right now? Where are you feeling your anxiety? What happens to you normally and what might be different about your body specifically in this situation?

Our bodies react to everything that happens to us. Anxiety might even affect you the most in your body and create severe physical and even painful effects. By understanding your body you can take control of individual anxiety symptoms by knowing how your body responds and then how to combat each and every symptom.

4. Think about the Unhelpful Thoughts

Ask these questions: What is going through your mind? What is disturbing me? What do these thoughts mean to me? What do these thoughts say about me in this situation? What am I responding to? What ‘button’ is this pressing for me? What is the worst thing that could happen from this situation?

These are the thoughts that probably plague your mind the most. These thoughts are also the underlying and typically unstated thoughts. Make sure that you are truly understanding and processing every aspect of this situation as well as the underlying thoughts about it. The unhelpful thoughts can hurt us the most and by processing these thoughts you can get to the root of the problem and make necessary changes to alleviate these thoughts in the future.

5. Create a Balance Perspective

Use these questions: Is this fact or opinion? What would someone else say about this situation? What’s the bigger picture? Is there another way of looking at this situation? What advice would I give someone else in the same position? Is my reaction proportional to the actual event? Is this really as important as it seems?

It’s the unhelpful thoughts that really exacerbate the anxiety; these questions above can help you balance out or even possibly get rid of your anxiety all together. Create a balanced perspective about what is making you anxious. Think about both sides of this situation. Normalize what is happening for yourself. For example, if social situations are what cause you anxiety think to yourself “Of course I’m anxious about talking to a large group of people! This is a scary thing! But just like every other time, I can channel my anxiety and turn it into a positive and get through this one meeting. Then everything can go back to normal.” Balance is where you can take control of your anxiety.

6. Understand How You Handled the Situation

While you are in the moment ask yourself: How am I handling the situation? What are the consequences?

This is where you would decide to act. Really think carefully about how you are currently handling the situation. Learn to take control enough that you can analyze both the good and bad consequences of your behavior in response to the situation.

After when the situation is over and in a non-anxious state ask: What could I have done more effectively to contain my anxiety? What things might be more effective in the future?

Learn to handle anxiety in different ways. Research others ways people have handled their anxiety and try it out for yourself. By trying a myriad of ways to control your anxiety you might find ways that help you or other ways that aren’t as helpful. Do what works for you!

By using these 6 steps in severe anxiety situations, making a record, and answering each question you will slowly be able to regain control of your anxiety. Continued practice will make this process easier each time you complete these questions.