Fear, nervousness and anxious thoughts grip my mind, sometimes about everyday situations, sometimes about particular situations. I can feel my heart racing and my body temperature rises, wherein I begin to sweat. Seems too cliché for anxiety? But the truth of the matter is, it is anxiety. The other day, I texted a friend and with no reply from her side, there were these thoughts racing through my mind doubting myself strongly over a reason from my side that could probably be the reason she would not respond.
Another thought that keeps running in my mind is that, maybe me over-thinking emotionally about situations, might very well lead to a lot of fear that is created within. You may have resonated with me on this. Fear, intense, excessive and persistent worry about everyday situations has become the natural response to anything stressful we face and especially if it's not in our favor. We all struggle with activation of the fight response in a flight or fight situation, instead the freeze response is activated. When this happens, not only is the stressful situation ignored or avoided, but our minds become habituated to blocking this fight response, instead of resolving it. We think a lot about how we will act when faced with a stressful situation, but the irony is that we never act when are in actual risk of a conflict. We would rather sit in the corner and try to put it away from our mind than to understand what the problem is, and where it is rooting from. What we forget is that , all this time these maladaptive thoughts have been building within the unconscious mind and we are eventually brought to a state of underlined fear, leading to anxiety and anxiety driven thoughts, feelings and emotions.
In a way, fear and anxiety can be said to have interrelated factors possibly leading to a similar physiological and psychological response. The only distinction of it is that one is a by-product of the other. A rare possibility in that it could occur at the same time. We should not take away the focus that fear is a core human emotion and in itself can have a lot of symptoms, but again is classified under Anxiety leading disorders. Like the saying goes we may not have the answers to everything but we can open our eyes to see the patterns of our daily life and how this interplay may affect us. When it interrupts your routine, we might want to think of it seriously, because ignoring the issue may only lead to many things that we may never have wanted in the first place such as misunderstandings between families, a disturbance in work life and so on. At times I have been successful at ignoring it, so I thought, and that has definitely developed into a worse event. This is when it struck my mind, that if it is not resolved it may create ounces of fear and anxiety in the mind that might show up in ways we may not expect.
How do I work with these nerves, jitters and fears which crop up when I’m in a stressful situation you may ask?
· Well, the first step in managing anxiety is to learn as much as you can about it, as a thorough understanding of your anxiety can in itself reduce its frequency and intensity. When anxiety comes, accept it. Do not try to escape from it, but simply wait for it to pass. Easier said than done, of course, but it is important that you should try.
· One effective method of coping with anxiety that is related to a specific object or situation is to make a list of problems to overcome. Then break each problem down into a series of tasks, and rank the tasks in order of difficulty.
· If a particular task or situation is very anxiety provoking, use deep breathing to manage your anxiety.
· If you continue to suffer with severe anxiety despite implementing some of these measures, get help!
Resolving an issue may not entirely take it out of the mind but the relief that comes from knowing that we have dealt with it in some way or the other is the best feeling.
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