5 tricks to overcome anxiety
Anxiety is a natural response in humans and in a certain adaptive way, but it can turn into something very harmful and with serious negative consequences for the people who suffer it. There are many people who suffer from anxiety, the rhythm of daily life, work obligations, family and different social pressures, make us enter a response of excessive activation, which if maintained for a long time is harmful.
Anxiety is a serious illness and those who suffer from it can be affected without knowing very well how to get out of this situation.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is a natural response in human beings, it is a response that is triggered by an emotion of fear, and therefore is a defensive mechanism. When we interpret a situation as dangerous. The anxiety in these moments is adaptive, it activates us, it mobilizes the organism, it keeps it alert and it allows us to respond to the environment in an appropriate way and in this way safeguard the integrity before the danger.
The problem appears when this anxiety is generalized, this occurs when it is interpreted as threatening situations that really are not, when the anxiety extends in time and its intensity is high.
Maintaining a state of generalized anxiety to different situations and extended in time, involves maintaining a state of alert harmful to health, which manifests itself with symptoms such as: excessive worries, high tension, restlessness, irritability, difficulty sleeping and concentrating, etc. It can become a very serious disorder.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
For some people, anxiety can become a traveling companion, a way to interpret and respond to the environment. It is a constant state of alert and the interpretation of constant threats, is what is known as generalized anxiety disorder. This disorder causes a lot of suffering to the people who suffer it and it becomes a way to interpret and respond to the dysfunctional environment.
Overcoming anxiety can be a real challenge for those people who have generalized this defensive mechanism. However, overcoming anxiety is possible and is, above all, necessary for our well-being.
Tricks to overcome anxiety
To overcome anxiety, it is important to pay attention to the three components that give rise to this response: cognitive, physiological and behavioral and for this, it is advisable to work with cognitive strategies, relaxation and exposure with the help of a specialist.
1. Cognitive strategies.In the first place the anxiety starts from excessive worries or interpretations. It is about modifying the interpretations about the threat that each situation supposes or not.
2. Relaxation techniques.Relaxation allows us to control physiological responses (tachycardia, sweating, etc.), learn to relax our body, help us to get away from the situation and contribute to a more positive interpretation.
3. Exposure strategies. Finally, working on the exhibition consists of visualizing situations from a secure environment and learning to respond to them in an adaptive way.
To overcome anxiety it is fundamental to modify our way of interpreting and responding to the environment. A more positive vision, centered on the present moment, a vision free of subjective evaluations, is fundamental.
Celia Rodríguez Ruiz. Clinical health psychologist. Specialist in pedagogy and child and youth psychology. Director of Educayaprende.com. Author of the collection Stimulate Reading and Writing Processes.
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