10 tips for anxiety that helped me a lot
Disclaimer — I am not a health professional nor am I reducing anxiety to something that can be resolved by just “thinking differently” or any other “practical step”. These are genuine realisations that I came to on my own and also with the help of professionals I’ve seen over time.
While I’ve been pretty introverted and shy for most of my life, the anxiety — like many other people, started in uni. Part of this was due to the newness of everything; a new city with none of my friends, new dynamics and surrounded by people and academics that I felt I had to prove myself to. I would overthink every conversation, interaction and every assignment. Some of the thoughts I would have sound so silly to me now but they would genuinely devastate me. “Oh no there was a typo in that email. That lecturer is going to think I’m stupid and have this mindset when marking all my assignments”… Things like that amongst more serious and intrusive thoughts.
Uni was such a bad experience for me that on the day of my graduation, after not being on campus in four months, I had a full on panic attack. You can definitely see that my smile doesn't reach my eyes in all the pics! This article won’t address panic attacks or anything on the extreme side of anxiety. The best thing for anxiety is to seek professional help because of how devastating and crippling it can be. What I will explore are the genuine eureka moments that now help my day to day. It’s still something I battle with but my quality of life has greatly improved and I want to share how with as many people as possible.
Here we go…
Sonder — you are the main character in your story, everyone is the main character in theirs. Nobody cares and as harsh as it sounds, this is a good thing. Just as complex as your life is with multiple storylines and a host of characters, so is everyone elses. A conversation you have with someone where you’re anxious about what you’ve said and how you’ve come across is probably one of twenty other conversations they’ll have in a day. Combined with their other tasks, worries, goals and responsibilities, dissecting everything you’ve said, or your hair or clothes or speech impediment etcetera etcetera is probably the last thing on their mind. One day while obsessing over a conversation I just had I thought to myself, imagine the other person is doing the same thing… Imagine I was stressed out over what they thought of me, meanwhile they were equally stressed out over what I thought of them. I haven’t dissected them at all so why would they dissect me? It’s been a lot easier to let conversations go since I had this epiphany and I’ve felt more at ease since.
Think about how kind you are and project that onto everyone else. Most people are actually very kind. As much as the media portrays the world as evil and there definitely are wicked people out there, most people you meet on a day to day are quite decent. I mean you are, right? If someone fell in front you, your first instinct would more than likely be to help them out and hope they’re okay. Even if it’s to laugh, that might be because the timing is a bit comedic rather than it be from a malicious place. If you were an interviewer, you would expect an interviewee to be nervous and not say everything completely correctly and so would give them some grace, right? Assume the same from others where you can. Not to say leave your walls completely unguarded but give people grace to act their best within the boundaries you set for them.
What people think about you is none of your business. I covered this more extensively in the article I wrote about boundaries but you can only control your own actions, inactions and thoughts. What others think of you and the problems they may have with you have nothing to do with you until they’ve been voiced. Free yourself from the shackles of guessing games that you can’t win and have no prize.
People forget. Even the most scandalous stories only have a limited amount of time to live in people’s minds. Think about a truly shocking situation you’ve heard about somebody else. When was the last time you even thought about it before now? How much do you care? Exactly. Even when things go wrong it’s not the end of the world. It is never as bad as it feels in that moment. Life goes on.
Don’t assume, ask! This one I’ve only started doing in the last six months and as simple as it is, it’s greatly helped my relationships and friendships. I saw a tweet that said “would you rather disappointment from clarity or disappointment from an assumption?”. Often along with the disappointment, there’s the stress and turmoil of figuring out if it’s true or not; looking for more “evidence” to back this assumption up, creating a bigger story, upsetting yourself. The best way to get clarity is to simply ask. More time the truth is not as bad as the story you’ve created in your head. And if you don’t trust that the person you’re asking is going to tell you the truth or is going to scold you for asking a simple question, you need to reevaluate that relationship as a whole. How they feel about you asking is none of your business. You’ve done what you had to do for your own sanity.
What are people going to do? Ask yourself what the consequences and the worst case scenario would be. “I’m eating alone in a restaurant” — and? “People will think I have no friends” — AND? Even with bigger fears, the potential consequences are never that bad and are often unrealistic. This exercise also helps you get to the root of your fears. When I would be anxious over submitting assignments in uni, in hindsight the worst case scenario for me was that I get a bad grade, fail my course, not get a degree and my parents would be disappointed, hate me and disown me. Unrealistic as that is, my true fear was that love from my parents was contingent on how well I did in uni which makes sense as my identity was rooted in how well I did in school for much of my life (I’ve never made this connection until writing this). When I opened up to them about this years later they affirmed that they would always love me no matter what, which has greatly relieved a lot of my childhood-related anxiety.
Will this person, situation or conversation matter in 5 hours/days/years? Think about something you did or said once that made you cringe really badly. How did it affect your life long-term? Did it affect your life at all even. I’ve learned to expedite the may the ground open and swallow me up feeling. Feel what you feel but if that is causing you pain I’d recommend learning this skill. Put yourself where you’ll be in an hour, a day or a year when you know you won’t care about this embarrassing moment and walk in that.
Challenge your thoughts and ask for evidence (CBT tip). When you have intrusive, self-depreciating thoughts that have you doubting yourself and feeling imposters syndrome, challenge them. Literally put these thoughts on trial. I’m going to get a bad grade in this assignment. What is the evidence for that? You’ve completed many assignments before and gotten to this point, why would this one be any different? Your thoughts influence behaviour and action which reaffirm your feelings which reinforce your thoughts. To get out of this cycle you must first change your thought patterns. This is easier said than done of course. Sometimes it helps to remember that there are people with less talent than you in the positions you want to be in and the only difference between you and them is that they don’t go through this destructive cycle. All that’s left to do is to work on changing it.
Everybody is winging life. If you get quite anxious about your future just remember that no one has all the answers even if it looks like they do. Some people just have more resources and knowledge at their disposal. They weren’t born knowing what to do. You’re free to make mistakes, pivot your career and create the life you want. Separately, you didn't sign up for this in the first place. You didn’t beg to be here on earth so why should you feel pressure to achieve certain things that you’re told is the standard to achieve. We’re literally put on here and given a list of things to achieve in order to feel “accomplished”. Do you know how random that is? Decline that and live life for you by your own standards.
Rate yourself! Increasing your self esteem over time through different avenues will increase your belief in yourself, in what you deserve and your expectations from other people. You deserve to have healthy interactions with people that respect you as a human being and care about you. You deserve to expect that you’ll receive the best from people. You deserve to expect that when you fall people will want to pick you up. You deserve to expect that when you make a mistake people will graciously correct you in love. You deserve to know that your value is not based on whether you succeed or fail.
There are probably more tips but I think ten is a good, round number to finish on. I’m also starting the book Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Made Simple by Seth J. Gillihan soon, kindly gifted to me by @jmulannn which I know will have loads more helpful tips from a cognitive behavioural perspective. Do the thought exercises I mention anytime you start to feel anxious about something. My tips have honestly really helped me and I’ve gotten to the place where nobody can tell me anything about myself. Braces also helped.
@ me on instagram and twitter @valerieoyiki and tell me what you think about this article and if any of these tips help you.