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Anxiety, or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, can start with a stressful situation that goes on for a while, and then continues for an extended period of time. It really elevates the levels of tension within your body. It requires a medical diagnosis, so if worrying about circumstances has started to take more and more of a toll on your mental health, then it may be classified as anxiety by a medical or mental health professional.
Worry and Stress are Draining
Worrying is one of the many triggers of anxiety. Sometimes, the habit of worrying is passed down through generations of families. You see your parents and grandparents worry about you as a child and teenager. There are some cultures where worrying is a constant part of the familial structure, and the people who love you the most are the ones who worry the most about you. Some personality types absorb that worry as their own more than others. You start to absorb that piece of misinformation that worrying equals caring.
Unfortunately, worry doesn’t usually involve any action. It is recycling a feeling of doom that something will happen when it very rarely does. It doesn’t do any good, for the person or for the situation that you are worried about.
Stress leads to worry leads to anxiety (or in any other order), and around and around we go. None of which help you lead a healthy life. If you’re stressed – and you get a chance to rest and take care of yourself – then you will feel like the stress is over (at least temporarily).
Anxiety is quite the roller coaster. When some innocuous detail or situation pops up on your radar, you start to seek information to confirm it. Your mind swirls with all the horrible things that can go very awry as it stressfully searches for this information. It is emotionally and physically draining to go through this process.
Coping Strategies are Restorative
There are ways to preserve your energy and participate more proactively and positively in your own health and mental well-being.
Worry and stress need a resolution, to close the cycle and release the tension from your body. If you’re worried that something tragic will happen – but then it doesn’t – then you will feel relief at some point. But, in the meantime, while you are worrying, you are in this imagined state of mind where you are thinking something has happened, and your body is reacting to that. It is genuinely exhausting, emotionally, and physically to go through these cycles.
When you start to learn coping strategies, you are having thoughts and responding to them with consciousness and rationality. Emotions will never go away. They are the self’s way of speaking to you. Fear is a way to survive and to keep you from doing “dangerous” things. But, the modern world is so full of recurring stressors, that if you are predisposed to worrying or allowing stress to overtake you, it will start to have an impact on you. Don’t take the steps to anxiety up and then back down again, exhausted. You have to take deliberate action and get conscious about preventing it, as well as responding to it – with a response that is healthy as it relates to mental health. A response that helps you regulate your emotions and your life.
Cognitive Therapy is Restorative
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is a common treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. CBT is a way to improve mental health. There is also dialectical behavior therapy, which is a type of CBT. You are basically retraining your mind and gaining healthy coping strategies so that when situations come up, you are not spiraling out of control, alone in your mind.
There are many books available for sale, and at the library on CBT and dialectical behavior therapy. Many of those books have workbooks, journal prompts, and thought-provoking questions. It’s worth it, as a first step, to get one of those books and work every single exercise. For some people, just those steps raise awareness and lead to positive change.
Lifestyle Changes are Calming
For others, notice what helps manage your stress and anxiety and do as much of it as you can, as consistently as you can. Maybe meditation is too difficult, but taking deep breaths can really help. Limiting alcohol and caffeine helps a great deal. If your anxiety is challenging, but not debilitating, a combination of CBT (whether following a book or going to see a professional) with basic lifestyle changes can bring a whole new sense of calm to your life.
