How to learn to manage anxiety? 5 practical tips

Anxiety is, for many people, a challenge that must be faced almost daily. While the ability to feel anxious is a resource that has allowed us to survive for thousands of generations, Sometimes it can be uphill for us to frequently experience the feelings and situations to which we give rise.

Fortunately, the human being is an extraordinarily adaptable animal, and for this reason, although we cannot totally control our emotions or avoid 100% their appearance, we do have the ability to manage them and channel them partly into one or the other address.

So that… How to learn to manage anxiety? In this short article we will look at several key ideas about this.

• Related article: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

5 basic tips to learn to manage anxiety

As we have known for a long time, it is impossible to pretend not to experience anxiety of any kind simply because it is an experience linked to a certain discomfort or discomfort. Not only is it biologically impossible, but it is also absurd from a pragmatic point of view.

And is that anxiety is a set of psychological and physiological processes that helps us to prioritize our objectives and predisposes us to react quickly to avoid problems that keep us away from them, and because of this, it is useful from the point of view of evolution: it helps us to survive.

But It is one thing to have or not to have anxiety, and another is our way of making it influence our behavior. In this we do have a respectable margin of maneuver, and that is why although we cannot suppress the content of this set of emotions, we can influence the "form" they take. And this is so because humans have a great facility to adapt to what happens to us.

We can not only learn; Furthermore, we can learn to learn, that is, apply strategies and techniques to facilitate the development of skills and the acquisition of useful knowledge, both on the environment and on ourselves.

So, when learning to manage anxiety, keep these tips in mind.

1. Develop the habit of self-observation

In order to gain freedom when experiencing anxiety, it is necessary to first know what those routes are the mental paths through which it usually leads us when we put "automatic pilot" and limit ourselves to living it in a passive. In this way, everything that will come after will be much easier.

Therefore, it is advisable to have a place where write down what anxiety makes us feel, when it arises, and the situations in which it appears. This takes some practice, but if you maintain a certain consistency over the weeks, it is easy to see progress in self-awareness.

2. Assume that you will have to learn by doing, not just theory

Anxiety rarely appears in isolation in the individual; Normally, it is a phenomenon linked to certain contexts: the University, a family dinner, an event in which you have to speak in public, a first date, etc. In all these situations there is a series of expectations (pessimistic) that can favor the appearance of anxiety.

Although it cannot be denied that expectations have a real expression in our minds, it cannot be denied that they are, in part, an imagined, subjective phenomenon. However, knowing that all those catastrophic thoughts that go through our minds are just ideas and beliefs, does not make us capable of mastering them.

Therefore, it is important to rule out the possibility of learning to manage anxiety simply by reflecting on the irrationality of our fears. We must prove to ourselves that we are irrational by interacting with what we fear.

3. Identify what costs you the least and what costs you the most

It is essential that you do not demand too much of yourself when exposing yourself to situations that generate anxiety. In turn, you can't always stay in what is usually called a "comfort zone": without a certain level of effort and discomfort, there is no progress.

That's why, First of all, you must propose yourself relatively simple and easy challenges. in which you will try to maintain a healthy attitude and behavior in the face of something that causes you anxiety, and when you get it consistently, move on to another slightly more complicated and difficult situation.

4. Detect unhealthy anxiety management patterns

Many times, anxiety problems are reinforced by what we do to try to alleviate the discomfort it causes.

For example, there are those who eat when they feel a lot of anxiety and stress, so that they develop an inappropriate eating pattern that makes them feel worse. Identifying situations of this type in oneself is key to progress.

• You may be interested in: "Learning to learn: what neuroscience tells us about learning"

5. Set short term goals

Treat this as if it were learning a new language: it will surely take months to master this new knowledge, but along this journey, it will be easier for you to move forward if you set specific goals in the short and medium term. In fact, this is one of the most basic motivational principles: Combining ambitious goals with those we can achieve on a daily basis helps us move forward.