There are so many things that make people anxious every day, such as the end of the day, the road is jammed; the office inside the various hooks and so on, so how do we deal with anxiety?
Anxiety and anxiety disorders
Anxiety is an emotional response, always in the face of difficult or stressful times, people inevitably anxiety, but it is not at all beneficial. Many good people are also anxious, because being in a situation of proper anxiety can be proactive, early detection of problems, embankment vulnerability, as if patching our heads.
Moderate anxiety also excites the sympathetic nervous system, making the mind more active and responsive.
Anxiety disorders, on the other hand, are disorders in which the level of anxiety lasts for a long time and the symptoms are severe, and greatly affect life or work. It is generally impossible to solve the problem by self-help, and it is recommended to seek help from a professional psychotherapist or psychiatrist.
Here are some techniques, mainly for anxiety
I. Positive cognitive therapy
Positive cognitive therapy is one of the techniques of positive thinking therapy, which can help individuals to perceive their inner self as an observer, learn to objectively evaluate and accept themselves, and also divest people from anxiety, mainly including the following three techniques.
1.Body scan: Close the eyes, follow a certain order to notice the sensations of different body parts and shift the attention to focus on somatic feelings, thus anxiety is reduced.
2, meditation: is the most core, basic, and main technique of positive thinking techniques. With a focused attention, non-avoidance, non-judgmental attitude, to feel the rise and fall of the abdomen when accompanied by breathing, notice the body’s feelings, listen to the surrounding sounds, pay attention to changes in thoughts. After repeated practice, you will be able to perceive the generation and flow of dimension in your brain, and achieve a perfect combination of stillness and movement.
3. Three minutes of breathing space: close your eyes, take a sitting position, and experience your thoughts, body sensations and emotions at this moment.
Is this therapy very much like Buddhist meditation? The answer is yes. This therapy is the most central meditation technique in primitive Buddhism, which promotes the unification of mind and body by noticing our thoughts, emotions and behaviors in a consciously aware, non-judgmental way, and also enhances concentration.
II. Acceptance Techniques
Whether it is Morita Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy’s Noticing Technique, or the Acceptance and Commitment (ACT) technique, all emphasize acceptance of anxiety. Sometimes anxiety cannot be eliminated, and whenever we try to resist or avoid it, it often leads us deeper into it. Instead, try to accept it and learn to make peace with it, and work and live with it, and it may help you succeed!
III. Imagery Technique
Sometimes, we always have some negative images flashing in our mind, usually very brief, but distracting and anxiety-provoking. For example, you need to give a speech tomorrow, and then your mind floats to the image of yourself holding your red face on the podium and spitting out words like constipation, which is imagery, a kind of visualized automatic thinking. Take speech anxiety as an example, how should I break it?
1, complete the entire imagery: in the mind actively imagine the environment of tomorrow’s speech: I am standing on the stage, holding the slide controller in my hand, facing the audience, hundreds of eyes on my body, feel my heart rate is getting faster and faster, face is getting redder and redder, lips are getting drier and drier, head is blank, the whole person is almost frozen.
But I will not stop there, immediately pick up the speech outline in hand to scan a glance, in the audience eye interaction at the same time to organize their thoughts, slightly slow down the pace of the speech, and finally the speech ended with no danger, the audience reported a warm applause.
Finish the speech in the imagery, as if in a crisis, so that the anxiety will be much better?
2, change the imagery: your imagery you make the decision, in the imagery of the speech can be carried out according to your wishes, by changing the imagery, to achieve the desired results to reduce anxiety.
3, in the imagery rehearsal: by carefully inside the mind to recall the speech scenario, carefully consider the possible problems in the speech, to find solutions, can eliminate some of the negative automatic thinking that leads to anxiety.
Fourth, problem-solving skills
For the lack of problem-solving ability of people, for the upcoming things to do, often feel uncertain and anxious. For such anxious patients, it is better to train problem-solving skills, such as pointing out the problem – design a solution – choose a program to implement – evaluate the effect and summarize – improve problem-solving skills.
However, in this process, you first need to identify and resolve those who prevent you from designing or implementing a bad thinking.
V. Exposure to anxiety level by level
Many people cope with anxiety by avoiding it, believing that adopting avoidance behaviors will ward off anxiety and achieve immediate relief, not realizing that anxiety is always there.
Similar to dealing with phobias, first sort the different levels of anxiety events in order from mild to severe, and then place yourself in a mild level of anxiety in the order of imagination first and then reality.
If anxiety arises, use relaxation techniques to cope, repeatedly perform exposure until the anxiety level decreases significantly, and then work your way up the hierarchy.
VI. Self-affirmation
Some people tend to lean toward the negative when evaluating themselves and prefer to compare themselves to their ideal self. These wrong patterns can aggravate their anxiety.
1, need to change the object of comparison, they should pay more attention to the progress they have made from the worst time to now, rather than just focus on how far they still have to go from the goal.
2.Create a self-affirmation list, record your work or life worthy of affirmation, such as the completion of a project, get a big appreciation from the boss; home cooked a dish, the husband and children a strong give praise.
3. After establishing a self-affirmation list and constantly reviewing those excellent things you have done, you can activate positive cognitive patterns and become more positive and optimistic when analyzing problems.
It should be stressed again that the six techniques listed above all require repeated practice to achieve the desired results.
In the case of anxiety disorders, professional psychiatrists or psychotherapists may also be required to help.