Did you know about a survey which showed that 33.7% of people had anxiety? There was a survey by The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) which showed that 18.1% of adults and 25.1% of young adults were influenced by anxiety.
So, it is important to us to explain about anxiety from various perspectives and also how to overcome it. You are able to read about anxiety below where the source is from Kampus Psikologi site in an article written by K. Lintang Mahadewa.
How to Overcome Excessive Anxiety
Here are 5 ways to overcome excessive anxiety that you are able to do now.
- Recognize and Name Your Feelings
When you feel anxious, you have to feel it as a normal emotion and name it. For example, the words like “I am afraid”, or “I am worried about Z” can be said by you where it is done to make an object from the experience.
If you do not name it, you will be the subject and you will be lost in your own heart that beats fast, your body may be stiff suddenly and your anxiety does not stop. If you feel as if there is a ‘flight’ reaction, it means that your reptile brain is in control. In this stage, you become an observer.
The thing that you have to do here is to put the prefrontal cortex in control again. When you name your feeling, your “reptile” system will quickly disappear and after it disappears, you can access your perception, creativity, and your conscious judgement for the best response.
- Calm and Control Your Emotions
If you have named your feelings, thoughts, and conditions as explained earlier, it is good for you because you will feel good gradually. To calm yourself, you are able to try to relax your facial muscles, massage your neck and shoulders, exhale and pause, take a cold shower, sing or find someone that you are able to hug.
You have to learn the ways to focus your attention on your body or your breath. Whenever your mind starts to flee to anxiety, you have to bring it back gently by inhaling and exhaling.
- Control Your Breath
When you feel anxious, you may be asked to take a deep breath. But, do you know that it is not good because it can make you more anxious? Well, shallow, fast, mouth breathing may combine with holding breaths and sighing and these all are signs of hyperventilation. When it happens, your anxiety will rise.
So, the thing that you can do is to relax your body or you can lie down, close your eyes, relax the muscles in your face, body, other limbs, and exhale all your breath. You have to pause for a moment and then inhale through your nose. You can do a breathing pattern for ten seconds. You can do 4 seconds of inhaling air, and 6 seconds of exhaling.
You have to keep your stomach and chest relaxed and then let your lower ribs and your stomach rise and fall as you breathe.
By doing two or three minutes of slow nose breathing can have a big impact on yourself. If you do this breathing for 8 minutes a day, your vagal tone will be stronger and your brain will focus more and be agile as well.
- Framing Differently or Reframing
Reframing is the conscious and deliberate selection of different states. Here, you will bring your body from a previously stiff state to a relaxed state. You will also encourage your feelings to change from fear to calm.
This concept is from CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy). This is a concept that you can reframe your mind, emotion, or body in a different way.
The term “comfortable with uncomfortable” is used by The All Blacks. These words are used by Ceri Evan: “Red or Blue? Decide! Do!”. It means that when approaching a difficult decision, you have to be aware of the fear (red), step back, move forwards to focus on your goal (blue), and take your actions consciously and deliberately.
If you practice it again and again, then you will be able to master the way to reframe in seconds.
- Play!
There is nothing more fun than finding a way to be involved in trouble with curiosity and a sense of play. In games, we voluntarily get involved with difficult situations. We run, wrestle, chase, and develop the ability to be able to do it under pressure.
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- Make a habit to use a playful approach, even when you find difficulties.
- Feel the feeling that appears and name it.
- Breathe out and relax your body.
- Take a step back and forward again to see the situation around you.
- You have to say to yourself: “This is interesting. There must be 7 ways to play it.”
- Make your decision.
- Do your decision.
If you practice this again and again, your nature and habits when you are faced with difficult situations will change from a threat to a fun opportunity.
Viewing Anxiety Disorders from Psychology
According to the DSM-5, anxiety disorders can be seen from excessive anxiety and worry which is difficult to control with a large frequency of occurrence over six months. The symptoms are extreme anxiety, fatigue, difficult to concentrate, irritability, and sleep disturbances.
Psychologists give it various names such as anxiety disorders, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, specific phobia, and separation anxiety disorder.
The treatment that is able to be done is counselling, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) or drugs that reduce anxiety.
Anxiety disorders or panic attacks will not kill you, but you have to be careful if you experience excessive anxiety in the long term. It is because it can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and inflammatory diseases such as asthma and severe rashes.
Excessive Anxiety Disorder from a Biological Perspective
Anxiety is generally associated with fear where this feeling is preserved in human evolution because it can increase our chances of survival so that we can continue the generations.
It means that fear is very important and flight reactions to threats are strong and automatic. Flight reaction even can appear before you can think about it. For example, a cat will jump when it is surprised.
When you detect a threat, the amygdala and hypothalamus of your brain will turn on the “sympathetic nervous system” where it will fill your body with adrenaline, blood starts running out of your brain, and then your skin and instincts will energize your leg and butt muscles so that you can run fast.
When you find a threat, your body will automatically try to save itself. How about mild anxiety? Generally, it is known as “doubt” and “uncomfortable” where it is a reaction from fear response that makes you feel uncomfortable, tense, and with your eyes wide open. For example, there is a suspicious voice. When you hear it, you will pay attention to it and prepare yourself for potential dangers.
There are two dimensions of anxiety, namely its severity and its duration. A fear that rises quickly will prepare you for the threat and focus on overcoming the situation. However, we have to be calm, focus and aware of the situation so that we are able to control our fears. If you have too much fear, it will only make you panic and stiff.
When fear persists and it happens like acute anxiety and consistent anxiety, it does not have adaptive value. Acute anxiety will damage your life and health.
Anxiety Can Be Understood from a Physical, Emotional, and Mental Perspectives
From a Psychology perspective, when you experience excessive anxiety, your body will be activated by adrenaline that influences blood circulation, muscle tension, breathing flow, and heart rate. Now, see it as a physical experience for you. Your body can be understood as a feeling or emotion towards fear. You can also learn these emotions and mark them accurately.
Fear directs our attention to an impending threat. If you often think like “That kind of situation is scary, huh.” This thinking is useful because it can help you to prepare and plan. However, if you think more like “It is so bad”, “What if this happened?”, “They will hate me”, this thinking is a worry and it is not able to help you in overcoming anxiety.
Your brain resources will be switched from the real situation.
Now, after you recognize anxiety and read the explanation from psychology and biology perspectives, you have to be able to turn the anxiety into happiness.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
