“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”
– Charles Spurgeon
While worrying makes us feel anxious, anxiety and worry are not exactly the same thing. Worry involves thinking about specific things that are bothering us or that we are worried might happen. Anxiety is a more general feeling or state that we find ourselves in. It may not have a specific focus but still causes a person to feel very unsettled.
Psych Central defines anxiety as a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. We may feel anxious after we watch the evening news or throughout an exam season.
It is not helpful if we feel guilty about feeling anxious. Anxiety is part of the human experience and rather than being afraid of it we can just notice it and let it pass through us. As the Truth for Life blog points out, “Anxiety is part of the fabric of contemporary life.”
An unknown person stated that anxiety is when the mind goes to war with itself. This is a good picture of the state of tension that anxiety creates within our minds. We probably want to feel at peace about life in general, or a specific situation, but something within stirs us up and we find ourselves worrying and feeling anxious about whatever our minds have been focusing on.
There are a few practical tips we can put into practice when we are feeling anxious. One is taking a number of slow deep breaths, focusing on the simple act of breathing which temporarily takes our minds off of the source of our anxiety. Slow deep breathing also calms the nervous system down which will automatically make us feel less anxious.
Progressive muscle relaxation is purposely tensing and then relaxing the muscles of our body, perhaps from top to bottom of our bodies or just where we are feeling the tension of anxiety in our bodies.
A “grounding” technique you can try is the 5-4-3-2-1 method, which is naming five things you see, four things you feel, three things you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you taste. This distracts our brain and can settle our minds down.
Talking with a positive person in our lives is often calming and encouraging. Journaling about the things we feel anxious about can help process and release them.
Engaging in an activity we enjoy and find relaxing, perhaps music or reading can distract and calm our anxious minds.
Walter Anderson stated that, “Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.” Getting our bodies and our minds moving can displace anxiety.
Realizing anxiety is just a feeling and that we don’t need to be afraid of it can help us overcome it.
