Anxiety, worry, or stress can affect your physical health and mental health (behaviour and feelings) and ability to work, study, and participate in social activities.
Common anxiety symptoms that affect your mental health (behaviour and feelings):
Irritability or constantly being in a bad mood
Worried or a constant feeling that something terrible is about to happen
Often ask many unnecessary questions and require constant reassurance
Being a perfectionist, taking a long time to complete homework because you try to have it absolutely correct
Being argumentative (but not usually aggressive), especially when trying to avoid a feared situation
Being pessimistic and easily able to identify what may go wrong in any given situation
Not answering questions and rarely volunteering comments or information at school or uni
Common ways that anxiety symptoms might affect your physical health:
Feeling dizzy, loss of balance, or instead, faint, lightheaded
Hot flushes or cold chills, numbness or tingling sensations
Headaches, stomach pain, shaking hands or legs
Difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, racing heart rate
Muscle tension, aches and pains, restlessness, or inability to relax
Dry mouth, sweating, nausea
At My Brain Map™ we can help provide the opportunity to:
includes learning about anxiety, relaxation techniques, correct breathing techniques, exercise, learning to be assertive, building self-esteem, cognitive therapy.
Learning about anxiety
The old adage ‘knowledge is power’ applies here – learning all about stress, worry and anxiety is central to recovery. For example, education includes examining the physiology of the ‘flight-fight’ response, which is the body’s way to deal with impending danger. For people with excessive worry this response is inappropriately triggered by situations that are generally harmless. Education is an important way to promote control over symptoms.
Relaxation techniques
A person who feels anxious/stressed/worried most of the time has trouble relaxing, but knowing how to release muscle tension is an important anxiety treatment.
The physical symptoms of anxiety/worry may be triggered by hyperventilation, which raises oxygen levels and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood. A person who suffers from anxiety should learn how to breathe from their diaphragm, rather than their chest, to safeguard against hyperventilation. The key is allowing your belly to expand as you breathe in.
You can make sure you are breathing correctly by placing one hand on your lower abdomen and the other on your chest. Correct breathing means your abdomen moves, rather than your chest. It also helps to slow your breathing while feeling anxious. You can also try to hold your breath for a few seconds. This helps to boost carbon dioxide levels in the blood.
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive therapy focuses on changing patterns of thinking and beliefs associated with and trigger anxiety. For example, a person with a social phobia may worsen their anxiety by negative thoughts such as, “Everyone thinks I’m boring”.
The basis of cognitive therapy is that beliefs trigger thoughts, which then trigger feelings and produce behaviours. For example, let’s say you believe (perhaps unconsciously) that everyone must like you to feel worthwhile. Then, if someone turns away from you in mid-conversation, you may think, ‘This person hates me’, making you feel anxious.
Cognitive therapy strategies include rational ‘self-talk’, reality testing, attention training, cognitive challenging and cognitive restructuring. This includes monitoring your self-talk, challenging unhelpful fears and beliefs, and testing out the reality of negative thoughts.
Exercise
The physical symptoms of anxiety are caused by the ‘flight-fight’ response, which floods the body with adrenaline and other stress chemicals. Exercise burns up stress chemicals and promotes relaxation. Physical activity is another helpful way to manage anxiety. Aim to do some physical activity at least three to four times every week, and vary your activities to avoid boredom.
Learning to be assertive
Being assertive means communicating your needs, wants, feelings, beliefs and opinions to others in a direct and honest manner without intentionally hurting anyone’s feelings. A person with an anxiety disorder may have trouble being assertive because they are afraid of conflict or believe they have no right to speak up. However, relating passively to others lowers self-confidence and reinforces anxiety. Learning to behave assertively is central to developing a stronger self-esteem.
Building self-esteem
People with anxiety disorder often have low self-esteem. Feeling worthless can make the anxiety worse in many ways. It can trigger a passive style of interacting with others and foster a fear of being judged harshly. Low self-esteem may also be related to the impact of the anxiety disorder on your life. These problems may include:
Isolation
Feelings of shame and guilt
Depressed mood
Difficulties in functioning at school, work or in social situations.
Would you like to find out how to boost your memory, mood, energy or focus?
Take our Brain Map Survey to instantly find out how healthy your brain is.