During the month of May, the Mental Health Foundation are shining the light on anxiety through Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 (15th-21st May). But what is anxiety and how can you overcome it?
What is anxiety?
The NHS definition of anxiety is “a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe.” Anxiety can manifest in people in various ways depending on its severity. Sometimes people can feel tired or restless from it, but sometimes it can display itself more significantly.
Physical symptoms of anxiety
The effects of anxiety on your body can result in panic attacks, depression, headaches, and palpitations. You can also experience breathing problems, upset stomach, extreme fatigue, increased blood pressure and more.
Anxiety can become extremely limiting for people living with it if left unchecked. Stopping them from taking part in everyday activities and missing out on life events. It can become a like a prison.
Misconceptions about anxiety
When someone hasn’t experienced anxiety before, it can be hard to understand how bad things can get. Severe anxiety rarely follows logic, so trying to apply logic to it can become a fruitless activity.
When anxiety takes hold of someone, it can lose all sense and logic. It can completely take over someone’s ability to think rationally. People around need to be understanding towards those suffering from anxiety.
It’s more common than you think
In a recent survey conducted by the Mental Health Foundation around stress, anxiety and hopelessness over personal finances: “A quarter of adults said they felt so anxious that it stopped them from doing the things they want to do some or all of the time. Six in ten adults feel this way, at least some of the time.”
“In 2021, those aged 16 to 29 years were most likely to have some form of anxiety”, according to the Mental Health Foundation. In addition to this, more women were reported to be experiencing higher levels of anxiety than their male counterparts.
Recognising anxiety
Anxiety is a normal part of life. But when it starts to affect your everyday life or cause you distress, then it is important to address it. Like with most things, the quicker you act, the better. You are more likely to be able to manage anxiety and stop it from becoming severe.
There are warning signs to look out for:
- Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge.
- Being easily fatigued.
- Having difficulty concentrating.
- Being irritable.
- Having headaches, muscle aches, stomach aches, or unexplained pains.
- Difficulty controlling feelings of worry.
Another way that anxiety could be affecting you is through an upset stomach, either diarrhoea or vomiting. There are other ways that anxiety may be displaying itself, so if you are concerned you can always call NHS 111 to get advice.
How can you overcome it?
If you are feeling anxious, there are 8 techniques that you can try to reduce or eliminate anxious thoughts.
- Accept your anxiety – sometimes accepting it can be the greatest barrier to getting over something. Know that anxiety is normal and is something experienced by everyone at various levels.
- Adopt some relaxation techniques – at The Gifted we are great believers in mindfulness and have spoken about it in previous blogs. Practising different mindfulness techniques can help you to relax and reduce anxious thoughts. Read our Mindfulness in Nature blog for more guidance and access to guided meditation.
- Avoid stimulants like coffee and alcohol – sometimes anxiety can be related to food and alcohol, so you should try to be aware of how consuming certain things affects your body.
- Distract yourself – we can all be in our thoughts too much, creating a distraction it can help you to get out of a negative thought pattern that may be causing you to feel anxious. Again, a guided meditation could help with this.
- Visualise peacefulness – according to the Priory Group, “Visualisation brings together aspects of mindfulness and breathing techniques to give you another way to calm yourself down and stop anxiety from spiralling out of control.”
- Exercise – being active has so many health benefits, and reducing anxiety is one of these. Even just going for a walk can help you to reduce anxiety.
- Talk to someone – it has been said often that a problem shared is a problem halved. Just talking things through with someone you trust can help you to gain a different perspective on the problem you may be facing or on the thoughts you are having, often just saying things out loud can release a burden.
- Listen to music – this feed into the act of distraction, by focusing on the music you are listening to, it can take your mind off the anxious thoughts you are having. Just make sure that what you’re listening to is positive and will not have a negative effect on you, worsening your anxious state.
For more help with anxiety, you can talk to the Giftedbot, by clicking the icon at the bottom right-hand side of this page.
