What to do with all this anxiety

What to do with all this anxiety

We have officially passed the halfway mark of 2024 – somewhat unbelievably if I’m honest.

I intentionally wanted to create some anxiety with this reminder, but not because I’m trying to be a horrible person. Last week I took my girls to the movie theatre for the first time. Although I intended to have them experience a movie on the big screen, I wanted to see it myself. We saw Inside Out 2 and it was fabulous. The way they show the complexity of emotions and how our minds mature to create a belief system is impressive.

One of the fantastic additions to this sequel is the emotion of anxiety. The movie depicts anxiety as the protector. “She” protects the now-teenage Riley by carefully calculating and predicting everything that could go wrong. I don’t want to spoil the movie for those who still want to see it, so no spoilers.

This got me thinking, as I do. We often spend much of our time and energy trying to avoid anxious thoughts and quieting our inner critic. We bottle things up and hide them in our innermost vaults to “simplify” our lives. But what if we need to be making friends with that anxious inner voice? The film does a great job reminding us that feeling an appropriate amount of “anxiety” at the right time keeps us alive.

Disclaimer: I am not referring to an anxiety disorder here where people experience anxiety in situations or to levels that are not the appropriate response. I am referring to that feeling (sometimes quite strongly) you get when something is new, novel or uncertain.

Anxiety helps us become aware of possible unwanted outcomes, and consider the long-term impact that our decisions and choices may have. It may even help steer us toward better relationships and opportunities. But only if we learn how to listen to the subtle cues rather than wait for them to become alarm signals that throw us off course. We should consider befriending our inner critic to allow it to become a trusted advisor and not a dictator. This helps us to be less controlled by this powerful emotion and to rather use it to our advantage.

When I speak to people who are particularly anxious about something, I usually hear them playing out all the worst-case scenarios around what might happen. They imagine how things can go horribly wrong rather than how they can potentially go right. Again this is the emotion’s way of trying to prepare and activate us, but it isn’t always particularly useful. Learning how to reason and challenge with both best and worst-case scenarios in mind can help make a friend of that inner voice. And potentially stop the automatic negative thoughts before they become lasting core beliefs about ourselves and others.

Panic and anxious thoughts are not the same thing. Panic often occurs when we have not been able to listen to the subtle cues or reason effectively with the inner voice. By hitting the panic button, we trigger our brain’s fear response: fight, flight or freeze. We feel out of control and this manifests psychologically and physically. This usually requires some additional intervention, which I am not going to go into here. The reason I am sharing this is that we need to become more deliberate in learning to listen to what is happening in our innermost thoughts to harness them for good. Our automatic negative thoughts (ANTS) are seeds for anxiety and depressive disorders and we have to learn to kill ANTS. Why? Because prolonged anxiety can be immensely damaging and our brains are the most expensive piece of real estate in our bodies.

Here are some ways you can look after your brain so that it can look after you:

• Build and maintain healthy, positive social connections. This way you have a soundboard to quality-check your thoughts against.
• Learn something new. This builds confidence and self-belief, making it more difficult to fall victim to ANTS.
• Pay close attention to your diet. What you eat is either helping you or hurting you. The Amen Institute has done many studies confirming how a bad diet contributes to a higher risk for anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Sleep. A consistent sleep routine builds your mental reserves.
• Exercise. Movement helps release the hormones we need to fight the negative effects of stress and increase our feel-good hormones.
• Argue with yourself. Don’t believe every stupid thought you have. Rather question your thoughts to test whether they are plausible and true.
• Be more deliberate about gratitude. Cultivating a consistent gratitude practice can be a fantastic antidepressant and anxiety relief mechanism.
• Take deliberate action. Anxious thoughts often lead to analysis paralysis – plenty of thinking with very little action. Often the best way to counteract these thoughts is to take meaningful action in the direction that will change your situation for the better.

Winter is a time when many people experience a dip in mood and negative emotions come to the fore. Instead of ignoring or succumbing to them, take the steps to use what they are telling you to your advantage.

If you would like to learn how to build a healthy relationship with your inner critic, get in touch. You can reach us at info@purposeworks.co.za.

At PurposeWorks we are all about Making You and Your Work Rock. Our focus is on Organisational Health and Design, Employee Centered Culture, Leadership Development and Performance Coaching. For more information on how we can help you create a work environment that rocks, develop a great team, become an inspiring leader or unlock your personal excellence talk to us at info@purposeworks.co.za.