Buzz
Feelings of anxiety and fear are the body's natural responses when it detects a potential threat or danger to life. During this reaction, chemical compounds and a significant amount of energy are released, causing several uncomfortable changes within the body. While a certain level of controlled nerves can help you stay focused and boost your performance by enhancing strength and enthusiasm, excessive and uncontrolled anxiety can negatively impact your abilities and hinder your capacity to face upcoming challenges or risks. Learning to manage these physical changes and control the thoughts that accompany them will help you regain composure and handle stressful situations more effectively.
Steps
Prepare to Face Stressful Situations and Headaches
Assessing Your Nervous State. To manage your nervous state effectively, it's essential to recognize certain symptoms. This awareness will help you focus on the most effective methods to calm yourself. Some common symptoms include:
- Excessive sweating
- Dry mouth
- Trembling/shaking
- Restlessness
- Difficulty concentrating
- Stammering or shaky voice
- Racing heart
- Dizziness
- Shallow breathing
- Nail biting
- Self-protective body language (such as crossing arms and legs)
Practice before undertaking any task. Much like anything we do, we can improve our confidence and skills through practice. Try to visualize how things will unfold when you're ready to face what you fear or feel anxious about. Picture yourself succeeding and feeling confident in achieving your goals in this situation. Avoid overly rigid planning (or you may find yourself relying on it too much). While anxiety might never fully disappear, the period of nervousness will pass quickly, leaving you with valuable experience.
Focus on breathing. Try practicing breathing exercises to help you take deep breaths and relax. This technique can support you during preparation and also be beneficial when facing significant anxiety. Whether you tend to breathe shallowly, in a rhythm, or too quickly, deep breathing is the most effective way to breathe properly. Deep breaths provide more energy than your body needs to overcome moments of intense energy drain. Additionally, relaxed breathing stimulates your autonomic nervous system, promoting relaxation and comfort.
Turn anxious thoughts into affirmations. Anxiety is just the result of adrenaline—the hormone produced by the adrenal glands that increases your heart rate, stimulates the nervous system, and generates energy. So when you're anxious, you may feel overwhelmed with negative thoughts like "I can't do this" or "I'm not good enough." While you can't always stop these exhausting thoughts, you can replace them with affirmations. Write affirmations in the first person to positively describe your abilities. Here are some examples of affirmations to help you eliminate negative thinking and keep them in mind:
- "I am the best candidate for this job."
- "I have the capability to achieve this goal, and I will succeed."
- "I can handle this situation."
- "They want me to succeed in this test, and I will succeed."
Use visualization techniques. Imagine yourself in a situation where you're anxious about not completing a task successfully, but instead, you perform brilliantly, achieving the highest results you always hoped for. Picture yourself as confident and ambitious, focusing on the small details around you. Experience a series of successful events and savor the feeling of triumph. This method is often used by athletes and has been proven to boost their confidence during competitions.
- For example, if you're nervous about speaking to a crowd in a crowded place, imagine yourself impressing everyone with a humorous and engaging conversation that makes everyone laugh, while the crowd views you in a completely new light.
Accept yourself and your skill level. To stay focused on what you're doing rather than feeling shy or awkward in front of others, you need to accept your current skill level. No one is perfect, and if you're doing something challenging, it's important to accept that. Don't judge yourself for lacking certain skills.
- Identify what's essential to achieve and what's beyond expectations. You might have higher expectations than what the task realistically requires. For instance, if you only need 8 points to pass geometry, then while 10 points is better, 8 points is all you need!
- For example, if public speaking isn't your strength, don't harshly criticize yourself for occasional mistakes or losing your place. Unrealistic expectations based on skill levels often lead to self-criticism, which the nervous system tends to amplify.
- Avoid setting overly high expectations. In your first martial arts competition, it’s unlikely that you'll win the cup. So, putting too much pressure on yourself will only increase anxiety. Instead, a more realistic goal would be just to complete your first match.
- Accepting your skill level means honestly acknowledging both your strengths and weaknesses to better manage your expectations. Learn more about how to nurture self-acceptance here.
Embrace the feeling of anxiety. It might sound strange to suggest that you need to accept and welcome anxiety... especially when your ultimate goal is to avoid it! But the more you try to suppress this natural feeling, the worse it can become.
- Allow yourself to feel uneasy, but acknowledge that feeling uneasy doesn't mean you're incapable of taking action.
- Accept that anxiety is natural in certain situations, just as you may feel happy, sad, or angry in other circumstances. Rather than running from this feeling, embrace it without letting it control you.
- Feeling anxious indicates that you care. And when you care, your chances of success are higher than those who don't.
Stay Alert. Manage Your Nervous System State.
Start with clarity. Always be in a ready position, start clearly, and with strength to generate the momentum that will drive you forward. For example, if you're in a job interview, begin with a friendly remark expressing appreciation for certain aspects of the company.
Shift focus from yourself to what you're doing. People who are prone to worry and fear often think more about themselves than about the task at hand. Anxiety can increase exponentially when you realize the source of your agitation (e.g., during an interview or test) is overthinking about yourself and your abilities. Try to replace some of those negative thoughts about failure and what others think with reminders of what you're actually doing. This could be the material you're reviewing for a test, or certain lines in the piece of music you're about to perform.
Observe yourself. Your facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice are all indicators that can reveal whether you're feeling anxious. If you notice these signs while expressing yourself, you can create the necessary space to adjust your posture and gestures to appear more confident. By changing your outward appearance, you're teaching yourself to "fake it" until you make it, as if you're not anxious at all. When your body changes, your mind will naturally adapt.
- Some body language signals of anxiety that you can change include restlessness, slouching, defensive posture, avoiding eye contact, and touching your face or neck.
Make use of your time wisely. Rushing to complete tasks that make you anxious will only confuse others and show them that you're worried and afraid. If the situation calls for you to speak (which, most often, it does), remember to speak slowly. Speaking at a slower pace will help others understand you better, and lowering your voice can reduce the chances of your voice trembling with fear or faltering.
Always maintain the perspective you originally had. Remember, don’t break a sweat over minor issues. Most of what we worry about never happens, and the things we do rarely turn out as badly as we fear. Try to keep the broader scope of the situation in mind—to assess whether, even as late as next year, any mistakes or clumsiness might cause problems.
- For example, if you're anxious about giving a presentation in front of an audience, remind yourself that mispronunciations or relying on notes are unlikely to leave a lasting impression when the presentation ends. Furthermore, even if this presentation doesn't go well, one failure won't define your confidence—it's just one experience.
Implement Lasting Change
Allow yourself to fully experience your nervous state. If you often feel anxious or fearful, try slowing down and letting yourself naturally feel your nervous system's state. Instead of just letting the anxiety run free for a set amount of time, try not to impose a time limit on this. You might feel discomfort for the first minute or longer, but soon, the agitation will subside. This exercise is crucial for helping you realize that this state of agitation is not a long-term threat (as we often discover through repeated experiences).
Eliminate the habit of worrying. Do you often feel restless or tap your foot when sitting still? Pay attention to these signs or ask someone to point out behaviors and body language that show your anxiety. You can interrupt these behaviors intentionally, monitor them, and change your actions when they occur, or give yourself small penalties when you catch yourself worrying—such as snapping a rubber band on your wrist. This action can help soothe the restlessness caused by anxious behavior. Both of these situations will help you build long-term confidence.
Let go of perfectionism. Anxiety often comes hand in hand with exaggerating our imperfections, overlooking the good things we've done, and harshly criticizing our mistakes. Even if you make a mistake, remember that everyone does. Moreover, nothing is more impressive than starting over with grace and continuing to try.
Go for a run. Maintaining an active lifestyle is crucial for both physical and mental well-being. Running, or engaging in other aerobic exercises, helps burn adrenaline and reduce the symptoms of anxiety caused by this chemical. Regular exercise will help you find calm each day, relieve stress and pressure, and boost your energy levels. Consider this as a preventive solution when facing overwhelming stress.
Adjust your sleep schedule. Even if your sleep is disturbed by agitation or anxiety, aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night. Lack of sleep combined with fatigue will negatively impact your ability to cope with stressful situations, and you may find yourself feeling sad and unable to focus. Just like you need a good night’s sleep before confronting something you’re anxious about, restful sleep can alleviate feelings of unease.
Learn relaxation techniques. Instead of trying to relax by watching TV or browsing the web, try deep relaxation exercises that have a positive effect on your thoughts. For instance, deep breathing relaxes the main nerve running from the diaphragm to the brain, helping the entire body relax comfortably. This technique is particularly useful when preparing for stressful situations. Here are some common methods to cultivate a comfortable and relaxed lifestyle:
- Practice meditation with a repeated mantra
- Deep breathing
- Progressive muscle relaxation
- Yoga
Start journaling. When you're afraid that you’ll forget something important, keep repeating it to yourself. The brain tends to focus on worries more than necessary, often generating anxious thoughts. By writing them down, especially the ones that keep repeating in your mind, you’re freeing yourself from the burden of constantly remembering them. Journaling serves as a place to store unnecessary thoughts that you choose to forget, like self-criticism and fear of failure.
Connect with others. A supportive network that you can turn to at any time brings more benefits than simply distracting you from anxiety. By expressing your feelings, you'll realize that the way others perceive your anxiety is not as you imagined. Remember, others have also experienced agitation and anxiety. This means they too accept the presence of agitation, especially when we believe we are worthy of receiving genuine care and attention from ourselves.
Advice
- If you think you may be facing a more serious mental health issue, seek the guidance of a professional counselor to choose a treatment plan that can help you uncover the root cause of your anxiety and fear.
