Anxiety

Anxiety—the word has been used so widely nowadays, even kids are aware of this word and somewhere as parents we keep feeding these heavyweight words like Anxiety, Depression, Stress to their minds.

Sometimes I wonder, the generation of our mom and dad never knew these words, and yet lived their life and achieved great amount of satisfaction. In-fact, they still seem to be more content and satisfied with their life. Probably,” SATISFACTION” is the key word.

Nevertheless, in this blog, I am going to discuss Anxiety.

Contradictory to the general belief, which is being promoted and propagated by the social media and channels nowadays, Anxiety is natural and necessary emotion for our survival. It is a natural instinct to be aware of the situation and respond accordingly. Our body responds and manifests it, in various ways like raised heartbeat, sweat, increased sensitivity etc. As mentioned, the purpose of this natural emotion is to “raise awareness” and “respond”.

As long as both these actions are taking place, there is nothing to worry, but the moment you stop “responding” and only keep the “awareness”, the problem starts to happen. Relating it to day to day life, if you only keep pondering about a particular situation, and do not take evasive action, the problem will persist and more thoughts will keep adding to it, making it more significant. Its only you who is making it bigger.

6 well known factors causing Anxiety

• Fear
• Worry
• Stress
• Tension
• Shame
• Angst

Additionally, it may also be related to our past experiences, or hearsay, but mostly it is deeply connected to our thought process.

Consider two people A & B, using an elevator. A is scared of using elevator whereas B is not.

Thought process of A: What if elevator doors do not open, or there is a power cut and I get stuck inside the elevator without food and water, or the worst, what if elevator wire snaps and it falls under gravity and I die…

Thought process of B: No thoughts at all about elevator, he did not even notice when he entered inside it and when he came out of it.

Difference—your thoughts. Only the thoughts. In this particular case, it’s all about worry, which is causing fear, which is causing stress, leading to tension followed by body reacting to it and manifesting by increasing your BP, Pulse, dizziness, nausea, sweating, stomach pain…phew

Let me ask, all the possibilities that A thought, may happen, are completely beyond his control, yet the worry. WHY? Typical example of how a basic day to day routine, can be made life threatening only by adding your thoughts.

There can be various examples and I am sure everyone has his own.

Now, lets learn how to control our anxiety.

As explained, Anxiety is the result of thought. We must learn to control our thoughts and for that we need to control our mind. Notice, when you are anxious, your mind is working at a superfast speed, your breathing is rapid and shallow, you are unable to do basic tasks, muscles are stiff, all because you can’t control your thoughts. You start loosing control on the present scenario.

Let’s learn some very basic techniques to control our thoughts or at least slowdown (Refer earlier blogs on SLOWDOWN).

There are two tried and tested breathing patterns as below:

1. 4-7-8: Inhale for count of 4, Hold for count of 7 and exhale for count of 8
2. 4-4-4-4: Inhale for count of 4, hold for count of 4, exhale for count of 4 and hold for count of 4

Anyone who feels, Anxiety is causing a concern in his life and effecting his day to day life, shall start practicing any one of the above for 5 minutes daily. Keep increasing the duration and in one-month time, you shall be able to do this practice for at least 20 minutes daily.

Once you reach this milestone, and next time, you start to feel anxious or you anticipate yourself to be in a condition which makes you anxious, start your breathing pattern. Now, you mind is trained to calm down immediately. Your mind will not give signals to your body and your body will not manifest any symptoms.

Long term effects of Anxiety are really bad. It messes up your entire system. You will develop multiple health issues and keep popping pills for your Life. Instead, let’s try to make this little effort for our self and live a better life.

NLP also has many tools, using which, Anxiety and Phobias can be cured immediately within 1 or 2 sessions.

Do not suffer, ASK for help.  You deserve a better life.

Wish you all the very best. STAY HAPPY, STAY HEALTHY

www.deveshsinha.com