Relieve Anxiety with Mindfulness

Do you ever get consumed by anxiety, racing thoughts, constant worry, trying to plan for every possible outcome? Or it shows up in your body, tightness, restlessness, even panic. The urge to escape anxiety can be overwhelming. But the more we try to fight anxiety, the worse it tends to get.

Mindfulness can be a really effective way to manage anxiety. Mindfulness involves paying attention non-judgmentally to whatever is happening in the present moment. Instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, we bring our attention to what’s going on right now.

When we’re aware of our emotions, thoughts, and body sensations without judging them, reacting automatically, or trying to push them away, they’re less likely to spiral out of control. And focusing on the present moment helps reduce worries about the future, which can be a big source of anxiety. So, let’s learn how to practice mindfulness to make us less anxious.

Acceptance

Acceptance can be a tricky concept to wrap our heads around. No one likes feeling anxious. So, the idea that we should just accept anxiety, it can seem counterintuitive. But acceptance doesn’t mean giving up or resigning ourselves to it. It means recognizing that anxiety is a common emotion that we’ll never be able to completely avoid.

So when it shows up, we allow it to be there instead of reacting in ways that make it worse. Because struggling against anxiety tends to make it more intense by creating a sense of urgency that we need to stop feeling this way or need to solve whatever we’re anxious about right now.

And it can add a second level of distress and we have an emotional reaction about our anxiety. What’s wrong? Why am I feeling this way? What am I going to do? This isn’t fair. So, instead, we acknowledge our anxiety. I’m feeling anxious. And accept it. And that’s okay. Not because we want to feel this way, but because fighting our emotions makes them stronger.

And our breath can help us practice acceptance. We slow down our breathing and pay attention to it, saying to ourselves as we inhale, breathing in, I’m feeling anxious. Breathing out, and that’s okay. Paradoxically, accepting anxiety usually reduces it. And once we’ve accepted it, we can use other strategies to relieve it further. But it starts with acceptance. We can’t begin to change what we refuse to accept in the first place.

Observing Anxious Thoughts

Anxiety often shows up in our thoughts, worries, what ifs, imagining worst case scenarios. Responding to these thoughts mindfully reduces how anxious we feel. Instead of getting pulled into our thoughts, we simply observe them as passing mental events.

We might picture them coming and going like clouds passing through the sky, acknowledging them without getting caught up in them. I’m having the thought I’m going to mess everything up. I’m worrying, what if something bad happens? I’m catastrophizing. I won’t be able to cope.

And then having acknowledge these thoughts, which we can’t do anything about right now except continue to worry about them and make ourselves more anxious in the process, as best we can, we just let them go.

Letting go of anxious thoughts can be difficult. So, it can help to start by labeling them. worrying, what if, catastrophizing, and we can add the word just in front of them. I’m just worrying, just what ifing. I’m just having the thought, I won’t be able to cope.

These strategies help us take a step back and create some distance between ourselves and our thoughts, which makes it easier to let our thoughts go and less likely we get caught up in a cycle of worrying and helps clear our minds.

Staying Present

And when we’re anxious, we can get stuck in the future, imagining all the things that could go wrong and trying to prepare for every possible outcome. Mindfulness reduces anxiety by bringing us back into the present.

One way to do this is with our breath, bringing our attention to our breathing and following the sensations in our abdomen as it expands as we breathe in and contracts as we breathe out. Once we’re feeling more present, we can ask ourselves, is there anything I can do right now about what’s making me anxious? If there is, we do it. But often there isn’t. And either way, we stay focused in the present.

And whatever we’re doing, we can keep a gentle awareness of our breath in the background as an anchor to help our mind stay grounded in the present instead of slipping back into the future and starting to worry again.

Physical Symptoms of Anxiety

It’s also common to feel anxiety in our bodies. It might show up as tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, or a racing heart, or stomach issues, or dizziness. These sensations can be intense and can trigger catastrophic thoughts. I can’t breathe. I’m having a heart attack. I’m going to pass out. And these thoughts increase our anxiety and make the sensations even stronger.

Now, if we think these are symptoms of a medical issue, we should get it checked out. But when we know they’re the result of anxiety, the best thing we can do is to respond to them mindfully with acceptance. This is just anxiety. It feels really uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous. Eventually, these feelings will pass and I’ll be okay.

And mindful breathing reduces the physical component of anxiety. Spending a few minutes paying attention to our breath and slowing it down. Breathing in through our nose for a count of two, pausing and then breathing out through our mouths for a count of four. This calms the fight or flight response and helps our bodies relax.

And we can breathe with our discomfort, using our breath to bring our awareness there as we inhale and then breathing out of the discomfort and allowing it to soften and relax as we exhale. Or we can silently repeat to ourselves, breathing in, I feel calm. Breathing out, I relax. In calm, out, relax.

Mindful Behavior

And we spend a lot of our lives on automatic pilot, not fully aware of what we’re doing and why and how it’s affecting us. We might avoid things that make us anxious or put them off indefinitely. Overprepare and constantly check and recheck everything or rush through something just to get it over with. Seek excessive reassurance from others and so on.

These behaviors might temporarily reduce anxiety, but in the long run they make it worse. When we’re mindful of how we’re acting, we take a step back and observe what we’re doing, which gives us the chance to ask ourselves if these behaviors are actually helping.

And if they’re not, we can choose to act in ways that are more effective, like doing something that makes us anxious, so we learn to cope with it and feel more comfortable. We’re breaking something down into smaller, more manageable steps so it’s less overwhelming and we can get started on it, taking our time to plan something, but also realizing when we’ve done enough and reassuring ourselves rather than always looking to others.

Conclusion

So mindfulness can be a really effective way to relieve anxiety. When we accept what we’re feeling and bring awareness to our thoughts, body sensations, and behavior and respond to them mindfully, we start to reduce how anxious we feel and our anxiety becomes more manageable.