How to make Anxiety something constructive for me?

Coming face to face with anxiety can be a difficult task. In fact, at times, approaching our emotions and allowing ourselves to accept them, experience them fully and with compassion, seems counterintuitive. When reading lines like this, someone is probably wondering: why should I accept something that hurts me so much? The reasoning that guides this question is not entirely equivocal, since, in fact, the physical and subjective sensations that accompanying anxiety—palpitations, sweating in the hands and face, difficulty breathing, etc.—are very unpleasant.

Anxiety is an emotion, and therefore, its function is to anticipate the possibility that a threatening stimulus, whether real or hypothetical, affects us negatively (and what better way to warn us of a threat than to put our nervous system in a state of alert, right?). Despite this, what many people tend to ignore is the fact that anxiety can be constructive in certain circumstances; And if we are not, we also ignore that we are capable of doing something valuable even in the presence of that emotion. For these reasons, in this article we will see

how to make anxiety something constructive for our lives.

• Related article: "What is anxiety: how to recognize it and what to do"

The difficulties in getting closer to our emotions

The American writer Elizabeth Gilbert points out that, on some occasions, “emotions about our emotions become an even bigger problem. If you feel scared or anxious and then you throw shame on it because you should be managing your emotion better (…) now you have multiplied the suffering.” It is very complex for people to remain With our difficult emotions and not throw them away. In fact, this is the substrate on which some mechanisms for avoiding our most uncomfortable thoughts and emotions are based, such as procrastination or substance consumption.

Let's observe these phenomena with a magnifying glass. Procrastination, for example, involves the progressive postponement of a task, replacing it again and again with other activities that are much more pleasant or rewarding than the initial task. The reason why a person procrastinates on a task is because, Every time you face it, you experience certain emotions or thoughts that are not easy to deal with.. Such is the case of someone who feels anxiety and fear of criticism from a superior when writing a report for work and, consequently, chooses other substitute tasks to relieve anxiety quickly and effectively, such as opening the refrigerator for snacks or wasting time on the phone mobile.

• You may be interested: "Emotional management: 10 keys to master your emotions"

When our response to anxiety is destructive

Now: is this impersonation of activities useful to solve the task? Definitely not. In fact, if it is a very important job, the person could put their employment situation at risk. But, above all, is the mechanism useful for getting rid of anxiety? Neither is it! There will always be another situation in which anxiety can be triggered (another challenging job, another delicate conversation, etc.). This doesn't have to be hopeless: anxiety It is a normal and universal emotion, which turns us into flesh and blood human beings..

Furthermore, in some situations it can give us very enriching messages, worth hearing. For example, when we feel it on a dark street due to the presence of a strange shadow, it can be useful to listen to the call of anxiety and flee from that place. Also, when we choose to say no to a second date in which we warn that we do not want to get involved with that person in the future.

Therefore, we will see that the problem does not lie in anxiety per se, but, contrary to what we normally believe, it needs to be there, accompanying us. The reasons why we feel anxiety in certain situations and not others will depend on the stimuli we face, but also on our personal history, the sociocultural context in which we live and the language that the people around us have used since we were children.

The proposal It is not about denying the reasons why we feel anxiety —some experiences leave us traces, marks, that will accompany us forever and that must be recognized—but the point is to decide what we do with that anxiety. Here there are two alternatives. One of them, as Gilbert pointed out, is to add a layer of suffering to the anxiety that did not exist before, prohibiting us from experiencing it or pretending as if it were not there. This is what causes our anxiety to be destructive, since it ends up distancing us from building a life worth living.

• Related article: "Positive stress or 'eustress': how to take advantage and get the positive side of stress"

The way to make anxiety something constructive

Another way is to choose the path of approximation to our emotions, the path of making space for anxiety in our body, it and the physical sensations that accompany it, no matter how unpleasant be. This can be very liberating, although it can also exacerbate our emotion. Whatever the case, approaching the emotion seems to be a more useful strategy than replacing it with an avoidant activity.

Also, allowing ourselves to feel anxiety without denying it It teaches us that this is temporary, that it has a curve, a culminating moment and then it fades.. In other situations, recognizing and accepting the emotion allows us to do things that are important to us even in the presence of anxiety—for example, sitting down to write that report. With our anxiety instead of watching television in order to eradicate it—; In other words, recognizing the emotion teaches us that we have the ability to decide what we do with it. This is what makes up a relationship with constructive anxiety.

There are specific practices such as Mindfulness practices that can be very effective in focusing attention on the physical sensations that are occurring in the present, without the need to change them. Contrary to what is often said about Mindfulness, its objective is not relaxation, but rather the expansion of the attentional field. Metaphorically, “it opens our eyes”; It trains us to stay with the emotions and thoughts that we are experiencing at this precise moment, without judging ourselves, in order to make wiser decisions, far from automatism.

It is also necessary to note that practice is not always easy. Nor is approaching anxiety, although we know that doing so has scientifically proven to be a great strategy for developing a constructive relationship with it. In some situations, such as recurrent anxiety attacks, or social or specific phobias, going down this path on your own can become more complex. Therefore, consulting with a psychotherapist specialized in the subject can help in the process of establishing a different way of connecting with one's own emotions in the best possible way.