Emotional Intelligence applied to anxiety management

Anxiety problems are a constant in the lives of many people, but they are not more inevitable because they are common. The truth is that human beings have a not inconsiderable capacity to manage their states emotional, and with proper preparation, it is possible to suffer much less under the effects of excess of anxiety.

Yes, it is true that no one can totally control the emotions of the here and now, or even foresee their appearance with 100% reliability. But between nothing and everything there is a healthy middle ground that we must be aware of, and that shows us that Through the skills associated with Emotional Intelligence, it is possible to influence what we feel and how it sorry.

Therefore, throughout this article we will see some of the keys that make Emotional Intelligence very useful when managing anxiety.

• Related article: "Generalized Anxiety: Living in Continual Worry"

What is emotional intelligence?

Let's start with the most basic: what is Emotional Intelligence? As it is already intuited from its name, it is a

set of psychological skills that allows us to adapt to the different situations that life presents us, many of which are new and therefore we must solve them without always applying the same strategies or solutions. Thus, as with the concept of "intelligence" to dry, Emotional Intelligence goes hand in hand with notion of flexibility, the ability to vary our behavior patterns depending on what is going.

However, unlike what happens with intelligence in its more conventional meaning, Emotional Intelligence is not expressed through the recognition and manipulation (in our mind) of ideas and concepts expressible through language and / or mathematicsRather, its contents, what he works with, are feelings and emotions. And anxiety is one of those types of content.

On the other hand, everything indicates that Emotional Intelligence can be trained and, consequently, improved through experience. This is very important, because it means that certain learning processes allow us to reinforce our emotional management skills in a consistent and stable way over time, such and as would happen with someone who learns a subject at the University and from that moment is able to take advantage of that knowledge during the following years without having to start from zero each time.

Emotional Intelligence: this is how it helps us manage anxiety

These are the ways in which Emotional Intelligence helps us manage our anxiety levels.

1. Helps to recognize anxiety

First of all, people with a good level of Emotional Intelligence are capable of distinguish between anxiety discomfort and other types of discomfort. This is more important than it sounds, because one of the most troublesome aspects of excess anxiety is that, in the first place, it is not always easy to understand that this is the source of the discomfort that sorry. For example, it is relatively common for people to confuse anxiety with hunger, which makes them not uncommon the cases in which someone without hunger goes over and over to the fridge to try to "cover" what they feel by savoring the food.

• You may be interested in: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

2. Helps detect the emotional states of others

On Emotional Intelligence the skills of recognizing one's own emotions are combined with those that have to do with recognizing those of others. This allows, for example, to remain calm when someone confronts us but at the same time we can notice that that person is more nervous than we are. The more information we have, the less likely we are to fall into fear or anxiety where these emotions are not necessary.

3. It helps us reduce our anxiety "from the outside in"

Most of the ways in which we can reduce anxiety in those cases in which it is excessive, do not come from within our mind. That is, private and subjective psychological processes do not arrive through introspection. On the contrary, they come from outside: through the way we interact with the environment, causing it to affect us in one way or another. Emotional Intelligence helps us exploit this potential.

For example, if we feel bad because we have not yet started writing a project, it may be that the same anxiety paralyzes, leading us to postpone the moment to get down to work to try not to think about what makes us feel bad. But by adopting certain strategies of interaction with the environment, we are able to break this vicious circle of anxiety. For example, removing from the room any element that may distract us or may be an excuse to postpone our responsibilities: our smartphone, bags of snacks, etc. Emotional Intelligence leads us to detect risks and opportunities in what surrounds us, when it comes to affecting our experimentation with emotions.