1. Accept your feelings
Feelings are an innate signalling system – necessary for survival. According to Neuropsychologist Jaak Panksepp,
‘We have feelings because they tell us what supports our survival and what detracts from our survival.’
So there are no good or bad feelings, just sensory information regarding whether something may be helpful to our survival or threatening to our survival. And yes sometimes the same situation can represent both, eg; having to make friends at a new school. And yes everybody has different feelings.
So Never never never never judge your feelings.
2. Breathe normally
If you are hyperventilating (20+ breathes/minute) practice diaphramatic breathing to lower your respiration rate. See various apps for helping to regulate your breathing. Eg; Breathing Zone, Breathe + Simple Breath Trainer.
3. Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness means;
‘A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.’
In practice:
- Try to focus on one thing at a time instead of multi-tasking all the time
- Spend some time doing non-goal-oriented physical activity such as exercise, walking, playing tennis
- Pay more attention to your body in the moment in relation to where you are and what you are doing now
4. Learn to tolerate uncertainty
Life is unpredictable. You control what you can but you can’t control everything.
Its okay to not know all the answers and to not always feel fully in control – in fact that’s where the learning occurs – remember how you learned to walk? Or ride a bike?
You will get lost. You will make mistakes and you will feel stressed about that – that’s normal.
5. Bilateral stimulation
Use bilateral stimulation to de-activate your worry circuit and calm down your stress response. See my app ‘Anxiety Release based on EMDR’
6. Think of anxiety as your superpower
Know that anxiety comes with many advantages in terms of survival;
- Increased attention to detail
- Increased determination
- Increased analytical capacities
- Better planning and preparation
- Increased awareness of danger
- Increased ability to sense and respond to needs of others
The Secret to transforming your anxiety into a super-power is to channel it into something useful. Many highly successful people (eg; Adele, Eric Clapton) have relied on these qualities.
Many Marvel superheroes also derive their powers from similar qualities eg; Professor X (mind reading), Iron Man (determination), Mystique (ability to appear as others expect), Spiderman (able to sense danger through spidey sense).
