Self-Help for Anxiety Course

Do you struggle with anxiety? And how does it affect you? Maybe you worry all the time, your mind racing with anxious thoughts, or you feel it physically in your throat, chest, or stomach. Maybe it even makes you avoid things or procrastinate.

Here are six evidence-based techniques I use with clients to relieve anxiety and in my own life that help by managing anxious thoughts, uncomfortable physical sensations, and counterproductive behaviors.

1. Acceptance

Often the best first step to reducing anxiety is to accept it. “I’m feeling anxious and that’s okay.”

Not because we want to feel this way, but because struggling against anxiety tends to make things worse. When we fight our anxiety, we create a second level of distress on top of our original anxiety. We become anxious or angry or sad about being anxious.

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up or resigning ourselves to feeling anxious. It’s about acknowledging our anxiety without reacting to it in ways that make it more intense.

Accepting anxiety is a natural human experience without treating it like a crisis we need to escape. Responding this way helps make the anxiety a little less overwhelming, which is why it can be such an effective first step.

Sometimes acceptance alone is enough to make our anxiety manageable. And even when we still need to do more, starting from a place of acceptance means that other strategies are more likely to be effective. Accepting anxiety is a form of mindfulness. We’re noticing what we’re feeling and just allowing it to be.

2. Observe Thoughts Mindfully

We can take the same approach with worries and anxious thoughts. Instead of getting caught up in them, we simply observe them coming and going like clouds passing through the sky.

Sometimes it helps to label our thoughts worrying, catastrophizing, obsessing, or to add the word “just” in front of the thought. “I’m just worrying.” “Just catastrophizing.” This creates a little distance and helps us observe the thought more objectively, which can make it easier to let go.

3. Postpone Worry

If we’re having trouble letting go of a thought, we can try postponing the worry. Unless it needs urgent attention, we just write it down and set it aside until a scheduled worry period later in the day.

When that time comes, we look over our worries and ask ourselves if any of these thoughts still need our attention. Often, they won’t.

Worries can feel really important in the moment because they trigger an emotional response or because we start worrying once we’re already feeling anxious. But with some time and distance, our worries often don’t seem that important anymore, especially if we’re less anxious now. So, we no longer feel the need to worry about them.

Postponing worry teaches us that worrying isn’t as uncontrollable as it feels. And the more we practice postponing worries, the more manageable they become.

4. Modify Anxious Thoughts

Now, when we’re anxious, our thoughts often turn towards worst case scenarios and we overestimate how bad things will be and underestimate our ability to handle them, which of course makes us more anxious. So, we want to modify these thoughts.

A good place to start is by asking ourselves some questions. What’s the evidence for and against this thought? “I’m always anxious when I have to present.” “I usually mess something up, but it’s never a disaster.” “I might feel embarrassed, but I don’t embarrass myself, and I always get through it.”

What’s most likely to happen? “It won’t go as well as I’d like, but it’ll be good enough.”

And if it doesn’t go well, how can I cope? “If I start messing up, I can pause and have a sip of water and gather myself.” “I’m always well prepared, so I can just read from my notes if I have to.”

Answering these questions helps shift our perspectives to something that’s still realistic and we can believe and that doesn’t make us as anxious. “I’ll probably be nervous, but I’ll settle in and get through it.” “It won’t be perfect, but I’ll do a decent job.” “And in the end, everything will be okay.”

5. Calm Your Body

And we often feel anxiety in our bodies. Panic attacks are the most intense example. We can feel like we’re having a heart attack or can’t breathe or like we’re having a stroke or about to pass out. And then our thoughts about what’s happening in our bodies increase our anxiety and make these physical feelings more intense.

Now, if you think you’re actually having a heart attack or stroke, you should seek immediate medical assistance. But panic and anxiety often lead to these types of body sensations, which can feel like a serious medical issue, even when we know they’re caused by anxiety.

So, when we have these types of catastrophic thoughts, we need to reassure ourselves. “This is just anxiety.” “These feelings are really uncomfortable, but they’re not dangerous and eventually they’ll pass and I’m going to be okay.”

And slowing down our breathing is often the best thing we can do in these situations. Breathing in through our nose for a count of two, pausing, and then breathing out through our mouths for a count of four, and just repeating this for a few minutes until our bodies start to relax.

This is really effective for relieving symptoms of a panic attack as it calms our sympathetic nervous systems and the fight-or-flight response that drives panic and anxiety. And it engages the parasympathetic nervous system and the rest and digest response which makes us more relaxed and reduces how anxious we feel.

And for less intense but persistent sensations of tightness or discomfort caused by anxiety, we can breathe with them. Breathing into the sensation, using our breath to bring our awareness to it as we inhale, and then breathing out of it and seeing if it starts to soften or relax as we exhale.

6. Adjust Anxious Behaviors

Addressing behaviors that contribute to anxiety is also important. Instead of avoiding things that make us anxious or just gritting our teeth and powering through, we try to go into these situations with an open mind so we can learn something from them.

Beforehand, we write down what we’re worried about and expect will happen. “Nobody will talk to me.” “I’ll say something stupid and embarrass myself.” “I’ll have a panic attack and make a scene.”

Then afterwards, we reflect on what actually happened. We’ll usually find that things weren’t as bad as we’d feared. “People were friendly and talked to me.” “I said a couple of awkward things, but no one seemed to care.” “I felt panicky, but took a break and calmed down.”

This helps us see that even though we feel anxious, the outcome might not be as bad as we fear, which gives us evidence to challenge and modify our worries and anxious thoughts in the future, making us less anxious the next time we face a similar situation. And even if it goes badly and we find it difficult to cope, we can still give ourselves credit for being brave enough to go in the first place.

And procrastination is another common behavior when we’re anxious. Instead of procrastinating when things feel overwhelming, we break things down into small steps so that each one feels manageable and then start working on them one step at a time.

We also want to watch out for behaviors like checking and reassurance seeking, whether it’s making sure we turned off the stove, repeatedly going over emails before sending them, looking up symptoms, or constantly asking others if things will be okay.

Frequent checking and reassurance seeking reinforces the belief that we can’t tolerate uncertainty or manage on our own. The more we depend on it, the more anxious and helpless we feel. So, learning to be okay with uncertainty and reassure ourselves is important. “I don’t know what’ll happen and I can live with that.” “If something goes wrong, I’ll deal with it then.” “Right now, there’s nothing more to do.”

So anxiety can feel overwhelming, but once we understand how it works and start responding to it differently, it starts to ease up. We don’t have to get rid of every anxious thought or sensation. We just need to stop feeding the cycle by accepting what we’re feeling, observing our thoughts more mindfully, postponing worries, and challenging and reframing unhelpful thinking patterns, calming our bodies, and changing the behaviors that keep anxiety going.