The 3 Keys To Overcome Anxiety
If you are currently experiencing anxiety, you should read the following keys to be able to face it and overcome it. If you have some type of treatment you can consult with your psychologist or therapist.
Key 1: Learn to change negative thoughts
Negative thoughts can be very varied, but usually pick up the central fear of the person. “I’m sure they suspend me”, “The plane is going to have a breakdown and it’s going to crash”, “It’s going to give me a heart attack”, “ My son has had an accident”, “If I do not give the switch a great misfortune will happen”, “I’m sure I’m left with a blank mind and I make the most terrible ridicule”.
Therefore, it is essential to learn to change the negative thoughts. This objective is usually one of the most important in the work of psychologists, not only for the treatment of anxiety but for any other type of emotional disorder.
The mechanics of the change of thoughts consists in learning to identify the negative thoughts that are usually quite automatic and therefore not very conscious. A person can immerse themselves in dialogues and negative thoughts without having a clear awareness of being “hypnotized” by the tyranny of thoughts.
To be able to make them aware we have to write them, if possible, at the same moment when they occur, if we can not at that moment, we will do it as soon as we can.
Later we have to make an effort to write rational and realistic thoughts as an antidote to the toxic negative thoughts. It is a literary exercise that is doing, that just as we can learn a language, our mind is learning to rectify and change encouraging more realistic and positive thoughts in our habitual way of thinking.
It is good to read the realistic and positive thoughts again and again. It is possible that although with the rational mind, we believe that they are true, with our heart we still do not believe it, and therefore, we must make a marked effort to speak with conviction with the new positive thoughts.
Key 2: Learn to change the fight against anxiety by accepting it
Psychologists call primary anxiety the one caused by the problems of life, such as work, the couple or children, the economy, health, etc … but when a person’s fear is directed towards their own anxiety, we have the secondary anxiety That is, a person is afraid of experiencing fear or anxiety.
And of course, secondary anxiety is about avoiding everything that causes anxiety. In the case of panic attacks, physical sensations that are associated with serious diseases, such as noticing the heartbeat, are avoided in the case of social phobia, social situations that generate anxiety are avoided, in the case of obsessive disorders, negative thoughts that generate anxiety are avoided, in agoraphobia, the street or closed places with difficult exit, etc.
Well, it is something well known to psychologists how fighting anxiety or avoiding the situations that cause it generates more anxiety. The person with anxiety tries not to perceive in his body the anxiogenic sensations and not to go to places where the anxiety can be triggered.
Therefore, the ability to overcome anxiety paradoxically requires an attitude of acceptance, of "surrender" and does not fight against the manifestations of anxiety. It is convenient that one dares to feel the manifestations of anxiety in the body fully, paying attention and not judging the symptoms of anxiety as good or bad, they are simply sensations to which we have to get used to again.
On the other hand, we must go to the avoided situations until we reach a level of tolerance and acceptance that eventually leads to normalization as we will see in the 3 key.
This key, that of acceptance, is favored by the practice of meditation or mindfulness and by the practice of relaxation.
3. Face your fears.
Even if you change your thoughts and get a good level of acceptance of the feelings of anxiety, you will not be able to overcome the anxiety until you face everything that scares you and can overcome it.
If you are afraid of the relationship with people, you will have to expose yourself, even gradually, to social situations. If you are afraid of touching things that can contaminate you, you will have to do it. If your fear has to do with being in closed situations, you will have to gradually expose until your level of anxiety decreases in these situations. If your fears have to do with unreal situations such as an accident happening to a loved one, you will have to imagine it repeatedly until this fear diminishes.
Psychologists are accustomed to prepare a scale of situations from lower to higher anxiety to generate gradual training in overcoming fear. For example, if your fear is of the agoraphobic type and you are afraid to just go out on the street for fear that you have an anxiety crisis and do not have anyone to help you, a list is drawn up starting with the situation that gives you least fear. Cause, for example, go out to the street door, continue distancing me a few meters, reach the corner, go around the block, walk 3 minutes distancing me from the house, 5 minutes, etc.
The cognitive-behavioral treatment administered by psychologists to overcome anxiety
Hypnosis Therapy for Anxiety is very varied depending on the type of disorder being treated. But these three keys are usually present in one way or another in all treatments. Exposure is a fundamental part of overcoming anxiety, because only when you demonstrate to yourself that you are capable of facing situations, can you have the confidence and confidence to feel good. It is necessary to insist in the expositions the time that is necessary until the levels of anxiety are nonexistent and the negative thoughts of threat and danger are not generated.
The emotional acceptance of anxiety is a very important section since it involves an important change of the person that supposes an increase of the tolerance to the negative emotional ones and with it an increase of the quality of life.
Finally, learning to change thoughts is a skill that goes far beyond overcoming anxiety. Not falling into negative thoughts, worries or pessimism implies an important change of attitude that entails the improvement of spirit and motivation for all to address the different vital objectives we all have.
