How To Deal With Anxiety - My Top Strategy

Hey everyone,

Like many of us, I suffer from anxiety, and this affects my performance at work and personal life. However, over time, I have developed coping mechanisms that help me deal with this issue, allowing me to stay in touch with reality and remain calm, focused, and balanced. Today, I want to share my strategy for you to try out! Let's dive in.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is generally known as a feeling of being really worried or uncomfortable about something that might happen in the future, but why? Anxiety is like an old alarm system from our early human days, helping us stay safe from dangers like wild animals. Our bodies react to threats by getting ready to either fight or run away, causing our hearts to beat fast and making us super alert. This reaction comes from parts of the brain like the amygdala. But nowadays, we're often anxious about things like work or relationships, not predators, so this old alarm can go off too much. Even though it can be helpful sometimes by making us ready for challenges, it can be a problem when it happens too often or too strongly.

My Strategy

1. Practice Breathing: Take a few minutes to breathe deeply. Inhale slowly for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four and start again.

Square Breathing, also known as Box Breathing, is a technique often associated with mindfulness and meditation practices. It's particularly noted for its use in high-stress professions; for example, it's taught in the U.S. military, notably to Navy SEALs, to help soldiers stay calm and focused in challenging situations. The reason behind its effectiveness lies in its ability to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which counteracts the body's stress response. By focusing on the breath and creating a rhythm, it helps to reduce anxiety, improve concentration, and promote a sense of peace and relaxation.

2. Identify Your Triggers: Pay attention or remember what situations, thoughts, or feelings seem to trigger your anxiety. For instance, I've noticed that during my creative process, drawing tends to be where my anxiety gets triggered the most, or in my personal life when I need to deal with confrontational social situations, I get obsessed with this confrontation moment and sometimes it never happens.

When it's something I can address right away, I just do it, but when it's a situation in the future, I write down in my phone notes what exactly triggered the process.

3. Notice Your Thoughts: When you feel anxious, write down what you're thinking. Don't judge these thoughts, just look at them. Anxiety often makes us think scary or negative things, like worrying about failing or what others think of us. It's normal to try to ignore these thoughts, but that can actually make them stronger. It's important to just admit they're there and that's normal.

Remember, everyone has anxious thoughts sometimes; they don't make you a bad person. When you see these thoughts for what they are, just thoughts, not facts, you can start to handle them better. This helps you make decisions based on reality, not just because you're feeling anxious.

4. Negative and Positive Affirmations: When managing anxiety, it's important to be aware of our inner dialogue. Negative thoughts, like 'I'm not good enough' or 'I always fail', can often surface. These thoughts, while challenging, can be useful if we approach them thoughtfully. Instead of spiraling into self-criticism, we can use these thoughts as cues to ask specific, constructive questions. For instance, questioning 'What does being good enough look like for me?' or 'How can I learn from this failure?' turns a negative thought into a starting point for self-improvement.

However, it's crucial to balance this introspection with positive affirmations. Continuously focusing on negative thoughts can deepen anxiety, so incorporating positive, realistic affirmations is essential. Rather than using broad, potentially insincere statements like 'I'm perfect,' opt for affirmations that acknowledge your efforts and growth, such as 'Sometimes I face challenges, but I am consistently growing and learning'.

This approach uses affirmations not to deny difficulties, but to frame them in a way that motivates and encourages resilience. By balancing realistic assessments of our challenges with positive reinforcement, we can manage anxiety more effectively, staying grounded in reality while promoting a mindset of personal development and strength.

5. Set Realistic Expectations: In the past, I've received this advice when I aim for a goal that seems idealistic and setting high expectations might be risky based on the possibilities of failure, but I want to reverse that advice to address low expectations as well.

List all the pros and cons of this future situation that is troubling you. This is in order to set realistic expectations. By default, we will run to all the possible reasons we might fail, these can be easily confused with "negative thoughts" and therefore we must avoid, but beyond that, there is some utility there, especially when managing risks (cons). Nevertheless, a way to reduce anxiety and getting in touch with reality is also listing the positive outcomes (pros), that way you can also contemplate other options that the anxiety state may not be letting you see.

6. Execution in Small, Achievable Goals: One of the practices I often share here on Patreon is for you to dissect the challenge into different small steps:

• The 30min daily sketch to improve your skills daily, slowly yet efficiently.
• The list of information points for you to develop concepts for your new art.
• The structure of technical execution while creating a piece.

This strategy has helped me tremendously in the past, especially when the challenge is so overwhelming I barely can't start. The same applies to daily life situations. If you feel anxious about a future possibility, write down what's the worst possible outcome and come up with a potential solution, but also think about other options based on past experiences that not necessarily involved a negative outcome, as our worry thoughts might just drive us into a very narrow view of the subject.

Don't forget to celebrate your successes along the way.

7. Voluntary Exposition: If you know what triggers you, you are aware of the thoughts and feelings that arise, and you have come up with ways to deal with these thoughts and feelings to some degree. Gradually expose yourself to things that make you a little anxious, but aren’t overwhelming.

The point is not to just avoid "bad" situations. Life is difficult, and we encounter anxiety inevitably. What I want for you is to become brave. Self-exposition in a careful and thoughtful manner will help you build that confidence one step at a time.

8. Seek Support: You are not alone. Share your experiences with friends, family, or support groups. Sometimes, just talking about your anxiety can make it feel less overwhelming. Drop your thoughts in our Discord group; we are eager to help!

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This approach is inspired by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), one of the most extensively studied and effective treatments for anxiety. It involves identifying and challenging negative thought patterns and beliefs that contribute to anxiety and replacing them with more realistic and positive ones.

Conclusion

If you find yourself busy on a daily basis, take 5-10 minutes of your day to sit, close your eyes, and quietly pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. This little exercise might be annoying (my case) but after a while, I've noticed how my awareness rises, allowing me to understand not just anxiety but many other processes I was not in control of. It's important not to demonize anxiety, as the key is to see the value in this process and be aware when it's truly justifiable and when it's not. After that, make calm and thoughtful decisions to get that balance back and keep going. I hope this helps.

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