An anxiety disorder may cause chronic worry, fear, constant nervousness and make completing even a simple everyday task seem daunting.
These unpleasant feelings can easily make your life challenging and relaxing an impossibility affecting your physical and mental health, work, relationship, and other important aspects of your life.
Here are some useful and effective tips that may help you cope with everyday fears and worries:
- Take a break
When your mind is full of worrying thoughts, and you are feeling overwhelmed by them, the first thing you should try is to take some time out.
Pause and distract yourself from those thoughts. Take a 15 to 20 minutes break, whether it means taking a coffee or a tea break, watching some funny videos, or taking a walk to a local park.
- Face your fears
Once you feel rested and a bit calmer, it is time to face your fears. Fear comes from a situation that you are worried and unsure about, for instance, an upcoming presentation, submitting your final dissertation, or even simple as asking a question to someone.
It helps to plan out what you need to do to make the task easier to manage and let go of some of your worries. Does it help to practice run the presentation in front of someone? or if you make a list of questions you need to ask? or if you re-read and check your dissertation two or three times before submitting it?
It is best to face your fear than avoid it altogether. Avoiding and stalling it will make the situation even seem bigger and scarier.
- Ask yourself, “so what?” and challenge negative thoughts.
Think about the worst scenario that could happen and how that would affect you.
For example, you’re worried that you would forget something during your presentation, mess up what you are saying and look like a fool in front of your classmates. But so what? Everyone messes up now and then.
Or if your colleagues are talking badly about you, so what? Does that mean you’re not working hard? Does that affect or disvalue your skillset in any way? Does that cross out what you have learned and achieved so far? Absolutely not!
The key is challenging these thoughts. You can even try reviewing the evidence in front of you. Are your colleagues actually talking about you, or are they busy getting on with their tasks? Did the people even notice that you missed the point during your presentation?
- Focus on positive outcomes and remember perfection doesn’t exist
A lot of times, doubts are the main source of fear. You will ask yourself questions such as; “what if I haven’t good enough job,” “what if I fail,” or, “what if I miss something important”. When these thoughts come to your mind, remind yourself, perfection does not exist. We are only humans, after all, and we all make mistakes sometimes.
Another way to deal with this is to remind yourself of what may go right. For instance, “I made a fantastic presentation,” “I worked hard and got things completed on time,” “I have revised everything mentioned on the syllabus, so I feel prepared,” etc.
Focusing on positive outcomes will deter you from negative thoughts, whereas remembering perfection does not exist allows you to express much-needed self-kindness and self-compassion.
- Talk about it
Talking to someone about your worries can help a lot. It allows you to listen to other perspectives and enables you to let go of some of the unrealistic scenarios you have. Just expressing and discussing your fears and worries with someone you are close to and trust can be a powerful way to beat fears.
Talk to someone you trust, whether that be your family member or a close friend. Or, if you would rather keep your privacy, consider help from a professional therapist or a counsellor.
Our last but most crucial tip is to focus on developing courage. When fearful and worrying thoughts form, we tend to give them a lot of our time, making them our primary priority. Instead of focusing on those thoughts, focus on developing courage, work on self-confidence and think about the best and healthiest approach you can take to overcome those fears.
Ready to overcome fear and worrying thoughts? Why not book an appointment with one of our qualified therapists at Mynurva? Our therapists are available to help you understand the cause of your anxious thoughts, put them into perspective, and help you plan step-by-step realistic actions towards addressing and overcoming them.
