From Useless Worry To Anxiety There Is A Well-traveled Path (generalized Anxiety)
Your day to day is full of worries. You keep thinking about what has happened throughout the day and why. You try to find solutions to situations that are already in the past and cannot be modified. “And if I had done this instead of this…” Or if not for that, you are worried about what comes next. You don’t stop thinking about what to do after reading this article.
Or what comes when you finish eating. And what will happen tomorrow and the day after and the next … And in a month! The fact is that you spend the day thinking about threats in your past and your future, looking for solutions to dangers that may not even exist … What can we do to stop worrying? Cognitive behavioral therapy gives us some ideas in this regard… Read on!
What is this Generalized Anxiety?
Generalized Anxiety is characterized by the fact that the person is constantly restless or worried about areas of daily life. That is, it constantly anticipates and does so thinking that as the day passes something is going to go wrong. You may think, for no real reason, that you are going to do poorly financially, that you are going to be fired from work, or that your children are going to suspend you.
But not only that. Daily chores, such as cleaning or repairing the house or car generate anxiety, overwhelm and worry. In addition, they can spin your head about past fears and mistakes. Thus, one enters a loop of negative thoughts in which the person constantly seeks solutions to problems, but without actually starting any.
When you have Generalized Anxiety, restlessness or impatience may appear, as well as muscle tension. Difficulty in staying focused or clearing the mind is also characteristic. Sleep problems appear, either to reconcile it, to maintain it or to make it restful. But they are also more fatigued and irritable.
As you can imagine, it is difficult for them to relax and they fear those situations in which they believe that their anxiety will increase. So what do they do? They avoid them, so that their nerves momentarily calm down. The bad thing about that is that in the long run they tolerate anxiety less and less and avoid more situations, so their life is more affected.
What about my internal dialogue on Generalized Anxiety?
The point is that these people perceive most situations as dangerous. Reality is constantly interpreted in a harmful way, drawing negative conclusions even if there is no evidence that something is going to be bad for us.
Cognitive biases, irrational beliefs, and automatic thoughts play a role in the whole process. These people tend to attend to negative stimuli, interpret information negatively for them and value current situations based on past ones that were bad for them.
In addition, there are a series of beliefs about how the world should work that do not fully conform to reality. But not only that, a series of thoughts jump to situations that we do not question and are not functional for us.
Therefore, it is necessary that we learn to identify them. Once we have done it, we can ask ourselves what evidence we have for and against them. That is, looking for information that is consistent or inconsistent with them. Thus, we can seek more realistic interpretations of reality, in such a way that we will remove the temptation to think catastrophically.
Learn to relax and make decisions!
The reality is that learning to locate and modify our thoughts is somewhat complex and requires the help of a good psychologist so that we can carry it out effectively. But we must not only work with our thoughts. It is necessary to control anxiety from more fronts.
I also suggest that you learn to relax, in order to lower muscle tension and physiological activation. A good way to do this is to practice abdominal breathing, which we can use in any situation once we have acquired the skill. Another technique that may be interesting would be progressive muscle relaxation.
In addition, we have already said that these people are dedicated to looking for possible solutions in their heads but they do not get to implement any. Therefore, it will also be good for them to learn to make decisions and carry out the solutions they have thought of without anything happening because it is not the right one. The case is to try until you find the right one … Making mistakes is human!
As we have already discussed, avoiding those situations is not the strategy that benefits us the most. Therefore, it is relevant that we stop escaping from it. If we get nervous, we can put into practice the relaxation strategies we have learned. The way to overcome this discomfort is not easy, but with the help of a qualified professional we can recover our quality of life. .. Let’s go!
Images courtesy of Ryan McGuire.
