How to cope with anxiety if you can’t influence the situation

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This condition has many names: anxiety, anxiety, panic. You constantly scroll through an endless stream of frightening thoughts in your head and at the same time you feel fear, uncertainty, nervousness, and doom. Here are a few steps to help you structure these emotions and find a way to deal with them.

Important: you can’t always cope on your own. If your anxiety attacks have developed into an anxiety disorder or you are experiencing panic attacks, it is best to deal with it with the help of a professional. Otherwise you can only make things worse.

Admit the problem

Since stress resistance has become an integral point of any resume, it has become somehow undignified to worry. Everyone copes with crisis situations differently: some get a second wind and become incredibly productive. Well, someone spends half of their resources worrying and can’t pull themselves together. Both options are normal reactions to stress. A sort of “freeze or flight”, only in an urban jungle, not a real one.

It happens that while some people are buying buckwheat and dollars in a panic, others are laughing at them: “They’re stupid, they’re panicking, I’m not like that.” This does not mean that the latter are not worried: attempts to ignore the problem are also a reaction.

Once you admit to yourself honestly and without embellishment that you have a problem, you can begin to solve it.

Understand the reasons for your anxiety

You’ve admitted to yourself that you’re worried; it’s time to get to the bottom of the source of your anxiety. Let’s say you are worried about a global crisis, which for obvious reasons you cannot influence. But this is a rather abstract concept. If you think about it, it’s not the crisis that’s scary, but the possible consequences it can bring. Therefore, it is important to talk about (or better yet, write down) real fears. For example it could be:

• job loss;
• deterioration of financial situation;
• inability to pay loans and increasing debt;
• loss of savings.

On the one hand, these worries, translated into practical terms, can frighten even more. On the other hand, the enemy turns from abstract to real and close to you. And perhaps here you can already influence the situation.

This approach will help structure the chaos in your head and formulate the real causes of anxiety.

Act if the situation can still be influenced

Perhaps you have articulated your real fears and discovered that you are not powerless. As in the example with the global crisis: you have no control over the economy of the planet, but you can lay out a straw for yourself.

The unknown is scary. Once the enemy becomes familiar, it will be much easier to fight him.

Switch if you can’t change anything

Easier said than done. Moreover, it is not possible to escape anxiety in any condition. That is why at the beginning we already talked about the need to consult a specialist if you cannot cope with anxiety on your own. When fears poison your life, but have not yet taken over it, you can still fight them, although you will need to work hard for this.

The switch has nothing to do with well-wishers’ advice to “just stop worrying.” It doesn’t work like that: you can’t just stop. But you can try to stop an anxiety attack. To do this, you need to monitor your condition and slow yourself down if you are plunging into a funnel of frightening thoughts. At this moment it is better to be distracted by something else. Here are some options.

Workout

Willpower is not always enough to distract yourself. Joy hormones endorphins will cope with this much better. They are the ones are being developed when playing sports. You don’t have to set records. Any physical activity will do.

Concentrate on sensations

Think about what you see, hear, feel with your fingers, what you smell around – use your senses.

Hug with loved ones

Tactile contact with people you like stimulates the production of oxytocin – one of the four hormones of happiness. Accordingly, mood improves and anxiety levels decrease.

Breathe deeply

It’s important to focus on the process.

Switch to what you can control

In the film “Radio Day”, in a critical situation, one of the main characters said: “We now have two problems – the Ministry of Defense and the button. Can we find a button? Purely theoretically we can! But we can’t do anything from the Ministry of Defense. Conclusion: we need to look for a button.” And this is one way to cope with anxiety.

At the same time, it is important not to switch from one disturbing thought to another: swapping sewing for soap has never been a profitable deal.

Rationalize the situation

Returning to disturbing thoughts, albeit from a different perspective, is not suitable for everyone. But if you are one of those who are reassured by numbers, statistics, evidence, you can try to explain to yourself why the situation is not as terrible as it seems.

These are just a few examples of what you can switch to. Find ways that make you feel calm and happy and use them. Whatever you do, it is important to follow the following algorithm: catch yourself having disturbing thoughts → tell yourself “enough is enough” → switch. Remember that any frightening situation has not only a beginning, but also an end.