Despite anxiety or worry being a fairly ubiquitous experience, I’m often surprised by how many of my patients seem to realize for the first time that, it’s anxiety they’ve been battling all along, when I first highlight it for them. The post to follow will explore anxiety and what it is, suggest potential ways of managing it, and highlight when one might consider seeking out the help of a psychologist in relation to it. Managing anxiety, or the capacity to manage it, is an unavoidably important skill we all need to learn. This is because experiences of anxiety to varying degrees are common. You’ll notice as the article continues that I intentionally don’t equate anxiety and fear. This is important, I won’t cover fear in this article except to say that it is not the same thing as anxiety or worry.
The basic things to know about managing anxiety.
I want to start by dispelling the myth that anxiety, or any feelings for that matter, are bad. Anxiety or worry are perfectly normal parts of everyday existence (Hooda & Saini, 2017). Without getting into the various debates around feelings and their origin, emerging neuropsychoanalytic work suggests that feelings, anxiety included, have an immensely important role to play in daily life. Difficult feelings in particular help raise an awareness of things we’ve experienced that might be problematic. They then prompt us to attend to these issues in practical ways that are hopefully able to correct them (Solms, 2019). In short, they assist us in ensuring that we attend to our emotional and physical needs by making us aware that the need has arisen, is urging us to take some form of action.
Anxiety is a particularly interesting feeling. Although there are ongoing debates about the core set of emotions that are common to all people, anxiety or a subset of related feelings, is often tied to these core experiences in some way. It’s often first experiences where children, or adults, are faced with the possible separation from their caregivers or loved ones (Solms, 2018). Imagine the look on the face of a baby where mom, dad, or somebody important to them suddenly leaves the room, or imagine the anxiety in the pit of your stomach at the thought of never seeing somebody you love again.
An obvious question might come up in your mind in relation to this. You might say “But Tyler, I’ve felt anxious about an upcoming exam”, or “Tyler that’s all good-and-well, but how do you explain the terrible anxiety I feel in response to the presentation I have to give this afternoon to the CEO in front of EVERYBODY”. To this I would respond that we need to look more deeply at the prior example. The anxiety that the baby experiences, or that you experience is not about the person per se. It’s far more about the potential loss of that person. I’d go on to argue that loss, or the potential for loss, is the common factor between all of these examples.
The anxiety you feel about the upcoming exam, is likely far more about the consequence that failing would have for your average, or for your prospects of being able to pursue things that passing the course would allow. You’re anxious about losing out on opportunities for employment, entrance into courses for which this course is a requirement, the reputational damage that you believe a lower average will lead to.
Your worry about the presentation with your boss is rooted in much the same. The potential of your CEO being unimpressed by your work or losing out on him seeing you as competent or knowledgeable. It’s the reputational losses you believe might come from your colleagues hearing about a presentation where you choked, were unprepared, or where you didn’t measure up.
Like an anxious little human, who might cry at the sudden disappearance of their mom, dad, gran, or safety figure. Who might, if they were old enough, get up and try to follow. Our anxiety prompts us to try to take steps to prevent or mitigate the effects of the losses that we consciously or unconsciously perceive. Your anxiety about the exam, hopefully prompts you to knuckle down and study. Depending on when you start this preparation, you likely secure a previously uncertain good mark or ensure that you’re unlikely to fail.
You might similarly spend a few sleepless nights working on the presentation for your boss. Which potentially, and with enough time, leaves you feeling more confident that he’ll appreciate what you have to say. It might also mean that you reach out to colleagues where you find yourself stuck, to get their thinking on important issues you’re planning to cover.
What is important in relation to these examples is the fact that anxiety arises in response to potential losses we confront in our lives. Its function is to prompt us to prepare in ways that allow us to minimize the effects of those possible losses, or to prevent the losses completely.
In covering this section, I’ve largely explored the first few big steps in managing anxiety. These are to:
Notice that it’s anxiety or worry that you’re feeling.
Identify what is leading to your anxiety or worry.
Devise a plan to address the issue that gives you enough time to do so.
Act on the plan you’ve created.
You may need to repeat the above set of steps a number of times if it feels like your initial efforts have not been enough to bring you comfort.
The management of anxiety that is less straight forward
I’d imagine that you might again find yourself with questions that my content on this post does not seem to have adequately covered. You might ask “Tyler, if anxiety is so useful, why is it that I sometimes get so anxious that I feel paralyzed” or “How exactly are panic attacks, or social anxiety serving me.”
My answer to you here would be twofold. Firstly, to say that thinking about these seemingly irrational anxieties, still yields a useful and protective direction or path to follow. Your social anxiety possibly saves you the humiliation of a social misstep, or of causing offence and potentially irreversibly (unlikely) damaging a relationship. The panic attack makes known the gravity of the possible consequences of the financial situation you find yourself in, or the seriousness of the grief that might follow the end of your relationship with your lover or partner.
The issue with these “disorders” is not that you’re anxious about a particular thing, it’s that your anxiety has run wild and is no longer serving it’s developed purpose. Like a computer with faulty programming, the person with social anxiety has learnt to inappropriately feel anxious about social situations in general, rather than appropriately experiencing the momentary pangs of anxiety that might prevent him or her for making a particular statement about a specific person.
Rather than to remember that Joe just went through a breakup, and it might be worth avoiding that you’ve just seen his ex-partner on Instagram with somebody new. A socially anxious person might opt to avoid joe, and any situation that presents a similar possibility of making a mistake, altogether.
The second part of my answer would be to say that again, through ineffective earlier experiences, the anxious person has come to learn that social missteps are final. That they can’t be addressed, sorted out, or survived. In relation to Joe, that although this might be something hard for joe to hear, a simple apology might be enough to display that you in-fact care about him and noticed his heartache at the news. Even if you were unconsciously hurtful or offensive, that this is unlikely to be enough to bring the relationship with Joe to an end. In fact, that if Joe was upset enough about it, he might simply let you know that what you said wasn’t easy to hear, and the whole issue can the be spoken about and sorted out. The paralysis in this example, potentially arises out of a belief that once a mistake is made, it immediately has permanent and destructive consequences to the relationship.
Managing anxiety where it seems irrational is rooted in a gentle capacity to consider the degree to which the anxiety has merit, and what it may be pushing to achieve. While simultaneously, exploring and questioning unhelpful or inaccurate beliefs about the anxiety-provoking situation at hand. Although this intellectual exercise is necessary, it is insufficient on its own. There is also a need, to live through the anxiety-provoking situations at hand, in ways that challenge the prior experiences that created the beliefs in the first place.
The management of anxiety without an apparent source
The last question you might raise with me might be to ask me about situations where there does not seem to be any apparent cause. I would acknowledge that you are wholeheartedly correct in asking this and also tell you that you’ve asked an immensely important question.
I’d respond to you by telling you though, that such situations do not exist. Together we would go on to explore the possible sources of your anxious feelings which may stem from your current circumstances, relate to your past experiences, or both. In these situations, people have often not yet made the necessary links that allow them to adequately process their anxious or worried feelings.
Prior to the identification of anxiety as a cause of difficulty, these links can be as simple as just noticing that it is in fact anxiety that is the challenge or culprit. Afterward, it might also be starting a journey of identifying when your anxiety tends to flare, what you were experiencing at the time, who you were with, what you were thinking about, what you were talking about, and other relevant considerations. All in service of gently starting to make the necessary links that help you and me understand what you’re going through, and how to manage it in ways that make your life easier. I’d like to add that although these question might seem granular, in the hands of a competent and well trained psychologist they’re likely to yield immensely useful insights about the origins of your anxiety, and the various ways of approaching and dealing with it.
Conclusion and summary
Difficulties with anxiety range from somewhat straightforward to reasonably complex. Sometimes people are able to work through their anxieties on their own. The more complex issues become though, the more benefit there is from asking for help from a psychologist. We’re all (Psychologists) here to gently and thoughtfully support you through what you're struggling with. To sum up this post:
Anxiety is a normal part of day-to-day life, and when it’s operating in a healthy way, it can be immensely useful in prompting us to engage in necessary preparation.
Anxiety is primarily related to experiences of potential loss and serves to motivate us to take steps to minimize or completely prevent any loss.
Issues related to anxiety can be simple, but they can also be complicated. Anxiety is complicated by difficulties with identifying it as the culprit feeling, difficulties with identifying it’s cause, and conscious or unconscious beliefs or experiences that distort the given person’s evaluation of how anxious situations are likely to unfold.
Where anxiety becomes complicated, it’s useful to reach out to a psychologist to support you in the process of unpacking or processing it in ways that make it more manageable
In closing, I haven’t explored medication or psychiatry in the management of anxiety. This is by no means because these are unimportant or ineffective issues, they aren’t. Rather, my focus in the current post was to consider anxiety from a psychological standpoint. A psychologist should be able to assist you in figuring out whether medication is a helpful course to consider and making any necessary referrals, and at the same time, to work on the necessary psychological difficulties that might need to be addressed.
References
Hooda, M., & Saini, A. (2017). Academic Anxiety: An Overview. Educational Quest: An Int. J. of Education and Applied Social Science, 8(3), 807-810.
Solms, M. (2018). The Neurobiological Underpinnings of Psychoanalytic Theory and Therapy. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00294
Solms, M. (2019). The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Free Energy Principle. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02714
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