How To Avoid Anxiety When Stressed

How can I avoid anxiety?

If you want to avoid anxiety, first of all you have to identify the kinds of situations that you feel anxious in. Then you need to look at those and say "what is it about this situation that causes me to feel anxious?" The next stage on from that is when you've identified that, you need to set a plan of action in place. For example, it could be some physical strategies like just some deep breathing, just calming yourself down physically, taking five or 10 minutes away just to think it through, going for a walk because that can help too, just to get things back in perspective. You then need to look at your thinking style. A lot of anxiety is brought on, we know this from research in cognitive psychology, from the way that we think. So, for example, if I am going to a meeting and I am stuck in a traffic jam, I am sitting in a car, going, "Oh my G*d, they are going to think this about me, it's going to be awful when I get there. How am I going to handle it?" I'm actually winding myself up and I'm more likely to make myself more anxious. If, however, I'm in the very self same car, and I'm going, there's not a lot I can do about a traffic jam. It's unfortunate there's no mobile reception. I'll just listen to some quiet music on the radio. I'll keep myself calm, because if I stay calm I'm going to arrive in a much better state. This happens to everybody. Now if you talk to yourself in the second way, you will reduce your sense of anxiety, rather than in the first way, which raises it. So, a lot of anxiety can be reduced by the way we talk to ourselves. Equally, we need to think about our lifestyle. If you are burning the candle at both ends, if you are rushing around like a headless chicken, if you are trying to please everybody, the likelihood is that you are going to get more anxious, so you really have to tackle those issues, too.