I want you to read this as many times as it takes for you to believe it: the pattern behind your anxiety can change, and you can replace it with calmness and peace of mind. Anxiety is very real, and I know how debilitating it can become — but I promise you it can be treated. Let's look at how.
You are not hardwired — you can change
You might be reading this thinking, "yes, but I've had this forever and nothing's worked." That's part of the problem: you're believing a thought over a fact, and facts will always outweigh thoughts, because thoughts only feel real. Go on, search for anxiety success stories right now, and you'll find people from all over the world who've beaten this. The simple answer for why you're not yet one of them is that you haven't found the right way to do it yet.
The health service in the UK has a lot going for it, but its record on mental health specifically has plenty of room to improve — so it's worth doing some research and making some calls, because there are therapists who deal with this every day and are very experienced at helping people through it. You'll likely be surprised at how quickly they can see you and start helping. You can change. That's a fact, and it's a matter of finding the right support to help you get there.
Take five
When anxious thoughts start to spiral, it can feel impossible to stay in control, so we need to cut them off as early as we can. We call this "take five." First, be realistic and find somewhere you can be alone, away from other people. If you're in a shopping centre or on the street, look for a shop with a toilet and get into a cubicle. If you're at work, find somewhere quiet. If you're at home and alone, that's fine too. We need to get back in control before it turns into a full-blown anxiety attack, and remember, we're the only people who can control what we do and think — so just look around, find a quiet space, and don't assume everyone is watching you. Once you're there, we go through the following steps, remembering that at this stage all we're doing is getting back control of our thoughts.
Once you're there:
- Close your eyes.
- If your heart rate rises or your palms start sweating, don't fight it.
- Stay where you are and simply feel the panic without trying to distract yourself.
- Place a hand on your stomach and breathe slowly and deeply.
The goal is to help your mind get used to coping with panic, which takes away the fear of the anxiety itself. Once your breathing and heart rate settle, refocus and regroup. The anxiety or panic has come and gone, and the fact is, you're still standing. The world didn't end. You just rode out some difficult thoughts.
Look at fact versus thought
We need to challenge negative thought patterns by pitting them against cold, hard facts. Facts are black and white and hard to argue with. For example, someone once told me they panicked at the thought of an ex, convinced they'd never meet anyone like that again — so the thought becomes "I'll never be happy again." Looked at as fact rather than feeling: with around 7 billion people in the world, and roughly half of them women, that's still billions of potential partners out there. Put that way, the odds don't look nearly as bleak. Take that logic and use it against whatever negative thought is fuelling your anxiety.
It's also worth remembering: nobody has to be perfect. The mind gets so used to thinking one way that we start believing we should be flawless, and when we fall short, it feeds the anxiety. Work, relationships, parenting, social life — mistakes happen in all of them, and that's normal. As long as we can accept mistakes and learn from them, they don't have to be a negative. Life is about learning and growing.
Take time to talk
Don't bottle it up — the longer you do, the worse it tends to get. Friends and family will often listen, and if that doesn't feel possible, doctors, helplines and therapists are available too. Rather than sitting and overthinking yourself into a panic, reach out and talk, or try writing your thoughts down. Once the anxiety has eased a little, go back and look at what you wrote, and run it through the fact-versus-thought check above. It's about relooking at and rethinking how you see the problem, so it becomes more manageable day to day.
