| Coping
With Anxiety
Each and every day will bring some
sort of stressful situation into
your life. Stress can make it difficult
for us to function in certain situations
making us less than productive or
even angry. It can ruin our health,
our happiness and our sense of well
being. Stress causes anxiety and
if we remain anxious for too long
a period it can lead to panic attacks
and other disorders. Before that
happens you need to learn some ways
of coping with anxiety.
What
Causes Anxiety?
Anxiety is caused when we feel
the demands placed upon by our jobs
or individuals are greater than
our ability to cope with those demands
effectively. While a certain amount
of anxiety is expected when we face
new or unexpected situation, more
and more people are suffering from
constant anxiety making them feel,
unhappy depressed and even fearful
to the point where panic attacks
begin to rule their life. Coping
with anxiety that causes this daily
worry is important for both your
long term health and your happiness.
Identifying
Stress
Identifying the causes of stress
and anxiety is the first step in
being able to cope with it. Keeping
a diary will help you to identify
the situations that are causing
your anxiety. The diary should list
the event that caused you to feel
anxious, the physical and emotional
symptoms you felt and what you did
to correct the situation and how
well it worked.
Coping
With Anxiety
Once you know what situations bring
on your anxious feelings you can
begin forming ways of coping with
anxiety that will lessen its impact.
There are four general things you
can do. You can avoid the situations
or the people who are causing your
anxiety. You can find a way to alter
the situation. You can adapt to
the situation or you can accept
that the situation as what it is.
Coping with anxiety by avoiding
the situation means saying no to
extra demands. Saying no to extra
work or social obligations this
will make you feel less anxious
and may even eliminate situations
that cause you to have panic attacks.
Coping with anxiety by altering
the situation is also possible.
If doing your errands on your lunch
hour makes you feel anxious due
to time restraints or heavy traffic,
then do those errands when you have
more time or there is less traffic.
Altering the situation may prevent
panic attacks caused by this kind
of stress.
Adapting yourself to stressful
situations simply means trying to
look at the situation more positively.
A more positive outlook will lower
the amount of anxiety you feel significantly.
Instead of stressing because every
Monday morning you get a desk full
of files, concentrate on the fact
that by Wednesday your desk will
be mostly clear and you will have
a lighter work load the rest of
the week.
The last way of coping with anxiety
is simply by accepting that there
are some situations you cannot change.
Focus instead on those things you
can control.
Managing your stress is simply
a matter of applying whatever techniques
allow you to feel better about the
situation and your way of handling
it.
|
