Some tips on how to deal with that voice in your head.
I'd like to say I speak for most of us when I say that having anxious thoughts is something everyone has felt before to some degree. Some of us experience very little, and some of us have our lives completely interrupted - It's a broad spectrum, but in this article, I will be giving a few of my personal tips for dealing with these beasts.
- Feel out what you are worrying about, just for a bit. Immediate repression of any anxieties in order to "remain positive" may prevent you from working through and processing what you're anxious about which might do more harm in the long run. Feel your emotions and worries, you are human.
- Talk/write it out. Whether with a friend or noting it all down, getting your worries out of your mind and expressing them into the physical world in a healthy way can help relieve some of the stress and make you feel understood.
- Is there anything you can do? Anything to change the situation that is making you anxious? If so, try work on getting that change done, one step at a time at a pace right for you. If not, try keep that rational thought in your head that nothing can be done. When stress and emotions are high and fueling the moment, it's not easy to do, but any semblance of rationality during those times can help immensely. That friend you talked to using the last point? They can help keep you level-headed when you can't.
- Keep going. Once you've allowed yourself to process your anxieties, that is the time to try keep the worries at arm's length by resuming your life. Whatever you were doing beforehand (hobbies, relationships with people in your life, responsibilities, tackling the thing you're anxious about etc), keep doing, or maybe even do something new. Don't stare at the ceiling keeping your life on pause for too long, you can't do that forever.
- This will pass. Know that whatever the outcome of the situation (short of actual death) you're anxious about, you'll live. We can get so engrossed in our fears that we lose our visions of our future, immediate and long-term, and catastrophize. The sentiment of this point can be very hard to take to heart, I've been there and will be there again at some point, but it is one to be realised eventually. That's hope in itself really, knowing that you will eventually know that you'll be fine no matter what happens.
Depending on the severities of your anxieties, you might cycle between these tips and that's fine. It will always pass in the end no matter the outcome so just go through what you need to go through. I hope this will be of use to you.
