{"id":189,"date":"2019-07-01T22:12:36","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T02:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=189"},"modified":"2022-04-14T17:04:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T21:04:22","slug":"how-to-control-anxiety-and-cope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-control-anxiety-and-cope\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Control Anxiety\u2014and How NOT To"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you feel anxious all the time? Do you have anxiety issues and have trouble coping? Do you want to stop worrying and being anxious?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a complete guide on understanding your anxiety, what it is, how NOT to manage your anxiety, and what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Basics of Emotional Control<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once we are aware of our emotional responses as we\u2019re having them, we can start to regulate them<\/strong>, working past emotions when they\u2019re not appropriate to the situation, soothing ourselves when we\u2019re experiencing negative emotions, and bouncing back quickly from setbacks. People who cannot manage their emotions expend a lot of energy fighting their emotional reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are 3 main emotions that are difficult to manage: anger<\/a>, anxiety, and sadness.<\/strong> Here we’re talking about anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are general rules for managing any negative emotion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Don\u2019t dwell on the emotion and keep mulling it over.<\/strong> Obsessing over an emotion doesn\u2019t manage it–it actually extends the emotional reaction and can even increase your emotional distress.<\/li>
  2. Self-awareness lets you catch a negative emotional response early<\/strong> and identify it. Once you do so, you can employ all the strategies you learned to deal with anxiety.<\/li>
  3. Most negative emotional responses are built on thoughts or assumptions that confirm the response–so you can manage almost any negative emotional response by challenging the thoughts and assumptions <\/strong>that made you feel it in the first place.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Understanding Your Anxiety<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    What <\/strong>Anxiety Is<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Anxiety is a form of worrying, a kind of rehearsal of what could go wrong and potential ways we might deal with it.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The goal of worrying is to come up with solutions by anticipating danger before it occurs.<\/strong> Too often it turns into a chronic, repetitive thought process, one that goes on and on but never actually gets to a positive solution because it keeps picking up new worries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Chronic anxiety is an emotional hijacking beyond our control: worries seem to come from nowhere or be inspired by nothing, they\u2019re impervious to reason, and cause the worrier to fixate on one or many anxiety-inducing topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There are generally two forms of anxiety to control: <\/p>\n\n\n\n