In the mental health field, anxiety is akin to the common cold so everyone should know the top five coping skills for managing anxiety. At some point, everyone experiences anxiety and to a certain extent it is healthy. Anxiety prompts people to take action. Some anxiety about the term paper due for school, the midterm exam, the proposal for work, or the client meeting can increase motivation and a needed sense of urgency. However, when the anxiety is too great or irrational, it can be debilitating. Worries can persist for hours about health, job status a relationship or family members, effecting sleep, creating irritability and a chronic restless and edgy feeling. The anxiety can be so pronounced that one’s concentration and capacity to function or enjoy activities becomes hampered but using these coping skills for anxiety management can help.
Top 5 Anxiety Management Coping Skills
Anxiety coping skill — banish catastrophic thinking: often unproductive anxiety occurs when the individual is imagining the worst-case scenario regarding an outcome. For example, saying the wrong thing at work or making a mistake (such as forgetting an important fact in front of your boss) gets amplified into an unrealistic narrative about how you are going to lose your job. To manage catastrophic thinking, ask yourself what is the most likely outcome. Your anxious mind has manufactured the worst-case scenario, but realistically what is the most logical conclusion based on the information you currently have? What does your wise mind tell you? Sometimes thinking about what you would say to a friend if they came to you with the same catastrophic thought can give you the proper distance to think in a more balanced fashion.- Coping skill for anxiety — stop worrying: often people who are anxious believe that worrying is adaptive. In other words, if you keep worrying about a problem you will eventually find a solution. However, often the problem you are worried about only has a finite number of possibilities. Replaying the event over and over again has no adaptive utility and increases tension. Make a plan of how to manage the problem, write down all the possible logical options and move on. When the options are on paper they are then out of your head. Easier said then done, but give it a try. It may be hard to end your relationship with worry. If you can’t stop worrying and feel compelled to keep it around, compartmentalize and make a worry date.
- Manage anxiety with a worry date. A worry date is a designated time during the day where you will allow yourself to worry and feel anxious. You may decide that you will devote a half hour from 5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to worry. If it’s 2:00 p.m. and you notice your are worrying, don’t dismiss the worry, acknowledge it and tell yourself that you will worry about it on your worry date at the designated time. This compartmentalizes the worry and is an attempt to contain it to a constrained time period.
- Use mindfulness as an anxiety coping skill. Use mindfulness to watch the anxiety without acting on it. A mindful approach to anxiety is treating the anxiety as a weather condition. The anxiety, like the weather, will pass. You are not the feeling or anxious thought, rather, it is something you are experiencing. Try not to block the anxiety because this will make it worse. Allow it in with open arms. At the same time do not amplify the anxious feeling by analyzing, disputing or judging it as bad. Attempt to take a neutral stance towards the anxiety. You may say to yourself, “Hm, there’s my feeling of anxiety.” For more information regarding using mindfulness for anxiety see the mini mindful toolkit and audio-files.
- Anxiety coping skills: exercise, nutrition and sleep: Caffeine can increase your heart rate. You may interpret this elevated heart rate as anxiety and thus experience more anxiety. Exercise can create a calming effect activating your natural opiates. Good sleep is also very helpful, but often hard to do when anxious. When you are sleep-deprived your memory and executive functioning is impaired. This makes it harder to shift away from negative and anxious thoughts.
