Managing anxiety in our everyday life can be a challenge. When we are faced however with a crisis, managing anxiety can seem impossible. Learning a few techniques to shift your thinking can really help to master your emotional health!
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The recent COVID-19 health crisis in the United States has put most Americans in a similar stressful environment, which can have dire consequence to our mental health. Now it is imperative that we learn ways to manage our thoughts to help us cope with the crisis we face.
Acknowledge the Anxiety
Give your thoughts credence. Sometimes our fears have value…especially in the face of a crisis. When we acknowledge our feelings, we can validate our emotional reaction in response to a life altering event such as a crisis or traumatic event. There is a value in being able to say that our emotional reaction to a stressful event is warranted.
Being able to express our fear, our sadness, our worry about an event, especially to a supportive individual in our life can be invaluable. There are times when our anxiety is a normal reaction. Accepting these emotions and giving permission to ourselves to feel the way we feel can be powerful. When these thoughts and emotions however begin to impact our ability to function, overpowering our reality that it becomes essential to be able to push back by gaining the skills to restructure our thought patterns.
There are times however, that emotions that have value become so elevated that they no longer are helpful and can actually become harmful. This can frequently occur in response to a significant crisis, but also can result from allowing ourselves to develop harmful patterns of thinking.
Examine Your Thoughts
Slow down and examine the thoughts you are experiencing throughout the day, especially when you are experiencing heightened anxiety. Write these thoughts down to raise your awareness to the thoughts, allowing you to examine them more closely. Look at patterns in your thoughts. Thoughts feed feelings and in learning to manage your thoughts will give you more control in being able to manage your emotions.
In examining your thoughts, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions:
- Is it true?
- What is the evidence to support the thought?
- Is it something I can control?
- Is the thought helpful?
- What is the pattern?
Journal
Starting a journal is an excellent way to help track your thoughts and foster more awareness. Often, it is easy to over-complicate the art of journaling. I like to use a stream of consciousness approach to journaling. Just write all of the thoughts and feelings that pass through your mind. Do not worry about spelling, punctuation, or the end product. Just write everything you think.
Circling back and rereading your journal entries and examining the patterns of thoughts that emerge can help promote your awareness of negative thoughts.
Patterns of Thinking
When emotions become heightened, these feelings can distort your thoughts. Distorted thinking results when we stop looking at our thoughts in a rational manner and lose the ability to reality test or “check” our thoughts. I often think of anxiety as a skipping record, what once was beautiful and purposeful becomes distorted and noise.
Cognitive distortions follow patterns, such as thinking only in black and white terms, over generalization, jumping to conclusion or catastrophizing. Anxiety tends to heighten many of these cognitive distortions and quite often cause us to jump to conclusions or catastrophize.
When feeling anxious, it is easy to jump to conclusions. This further “feeds” the anxiety, elevating the fears as well as the thought distortions creating a vicious cycle. When jumping to conclusions, your mind interprets things negatively without any evidence to support the conclusion.
Catastrophic Thinking
Another cognitive distortion elevated by anxiety is the tendency to catastrophize. Catastrophic thinking is when you tend to ruminate about negative outcomes or worst case scenarios, often with an irrational sense when there is no evidence to support the suspected outcome.
The danger of catastrophic thinking is a type of paralysis against taking action to the fear or anxiety. In the face of a crisis, this often happens impacting the ability to respond to the concern in a purposeful manner.
When we allow ourselves the permission for those thoughts run without governance, they can have dire consequences. When faced with a crisis, thoughts may arise about the worst case scenario.
For an example of how this works. Imagine your doctor calls and leaves a message about the need to discuss your recent blood work. You automatically begin imagining all of the bad news your doctor may be sharing with you. You believe that you will receive a death sentence. Your mind whirls, heightening your anxiety. You can’t sleep and postpone calling the doctor back. Being able to challenge these thoughts will help you to manage your anxiety and prevent avoidance behaviors.
We need to be able to disrupt distortions in thinking. Allowing these to run unabandoned can have a negative impact on your overall mental health. Allowing anxiety, in the form of catastrophic thinking, to overrun our thought process can lead to anger, increased distress, disruption to sleep cycles and eating patterns. This in turn impacts our success at work, our relationships, our ability to parent, and the ability to relaxation and unwind.
Restructuring Thoughts
Learning to manage anxiety requires an awareness of negative patterns. The art of becoming mindful of one’s thoughts is the first step in being able to change them. Once you become mindful of the thought pattern impacting your emotions, you can begin the process of pushing back against the thoughts.
Cognitive restructuring is the practice of disputing irrational or maladaptive thinking, ultimately being able to transform the thoughts into healthier ones. The technique of cognitive restructuring is a foundation in many therapeutic practices such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Once you learn to restructure thoughts, it is really quite easy to do. I will share with you some of my favorite methods.
Labeling Distortions
When you develop an awareness of the types of cognitive distortions you frequently experience, you can combat them by identifying or labeling them as they arise in your mind. Through labeling the thoughts when they bubble up, it becomes easier to dismiss them.
With this cognitive restructuring technique, it becomes easier to identify, “That thought is black and white thinking, where is the middle ground.” Seeking out more balance in your thinking allows more empathy for yourself and others. You can approach yourself with more compassion and less judgement. Being kind to yourself is key in managing anxiety.
Knowing something exists is the first step in fighting it.
Examining the Evidence
Once you identify feelings of anxiety about a stressor and the fears about the outcome of the the situation, you can examine the evidence that supports those outcomes. Look at the outcome and then imagine a lawyer in your mind arguing the facts that support the outcome. Taking a step back, you can “check” your thinking to be able to discount the thoughts that are fed solely by fear and anxiety.
Decatastrophizing
Decatastrophizing is a method to challenge anxious thoughts and what if scenarios. Instead of dismissing the worst case scenario, ask yourself what would happen if it did occur. Often, we exaggerate the severity of the problem and under-estimate our ability to cope with the problem. In being able to entertain the problem coming to fruition, we also come to realize that we have the skills and ability to deal with it if that became the reality. This gives us power over our anxiety. Anxiety is distressing as we feel powerless to manage the problem. When we can dispel this, we gain the control back.
These skills take practice to master and gain the control in managing our anxiety. Thoughts however, are under your control. They are like leaves floating in a stream, allowing them to float past you. Acknowledge them, assess their validity and value, then redirect them.
Benefits of Managing Anxiety
Anxiety is a useful emotion and has value in helping us to navigate life. When it becomes overpowering however, it affects our ability to function. The key to managing anxiety is in the management of your thoughts.
The challenges of life can truly test our resolve. But armed with the ability to challenge our thoughts, to give value to our emotions- we become masters over anxiety.
Disclaimer- Sometimes, anxiety requires the help of a mental health professional. If your inability to manage anxiety is impacting your day to day functioning, your relationships, or your work seeking professional assistance to manage anxiety is recommended.
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