Managing anxiety

Managing Anxiety | When we are struggling with anxiety, it can be difficult to know how to manage this.

Whilst we all have the physical warning system of anxiety, it can impact us all differently. We may only experience anxiety as butterflies in our stomach before doing an exam or speaking publicly, or we may experience more prolonged anxiety. If short term anxiety can be viewed as our internal alarm system, then prolonged anxiety can be viewed as an oversensitive car alarm. Anything could set it off, and it can feel incredibly overwhelming. The key thing is to try and manage anxiety (think about snoozing our alarm system or shutting off the car alarm).

There are several activities that you can do that may reduce the anxiety that you’re feeling:

As we all have anxiety and it is part of our physical warning system, how can we manage it when it becomes overwhelming or impacts on our daily life?

Anxiety becomes concerning when you find yourself worrying excessively more often than not over a period of at least 6 months. This worry may be very difficult to control using the above-mentioned activities. You may also be experiencing physical symptoms such as trouble sleeping or concentrating, feeling as if you are constantly ‘on edge’ or finding that your muscles are sore.

If you find yourself feeling this way, you should speak to either your GP or your wellbeing support network. It’s important to note that excessive worry can be described as excessive when there is no specific threat or that your worry is disproportionate to the actual threat.