How to Manage Your Fear Even if You’re Really Anxious!

Anxiety is a pain in the neck; in fact it can be a debilitating pain all over your body if you suffer from severe anxiety.

During an anxiety attack, it can feel like death is imminent, your heart races, your chest tightens, your breathing becomes labored, your body suffers oxygen depravation, you lose feeling in your limbs, the list of potential symptoms goes on and on. 

All of these effects add up to a great deal of fear from any sufferer. Who wants to expose themselves to the risk of feeling like they´re dying everyday. Most of us are not into self torture.  Therefore, we take the rational route; we seek to avoid anything and everything that may cause our panic.

This overkill approach causes you to associate any and everything with your panic, fear and anxiety.

If you were anxious in the cereal aisle of the supermarket, you might stop going to that market, might stop going to all stores of that name, or even all grocery stores completely. Moreover, you might start to avoid cereal, or stop wearing the shoes or scarf you were wearing that day because maybe they caused your panic.

Your mind races to connect the panic to your surrounding, often blaming things that had nothing to do with your anxiety and many times failing to find the right reason for the panic.

What if the reason you panicked in the grocery store was because you were nervous about making a decision about which cereal to purchase. You were worried about your kid´s reaction when you brought the cereal home and they decided they wanted something else. 

Did you even think of this as a reason for your panic? Probably not, you blamed the store, the aisle, the other customers, the noise level, the cereal itself, the shoes you wearing and anything else you could think of. 

This type of disproportionate response is entirely normal for anxiety sufferers and can be easily managed and controlled so that you are able to better rationalize the thoughts that enter your mind and your response to them.    

Anxiety or panic attacks can be about big things, job loss, family loss or turmoil, and personal difficulties but they can also begin with small, fleeting, disturbing thoughts. These thoughts suddenly flash through your mind and lead to another thought, another thought and another into you are stuck in an avalanche of worry. 

Most of the worries are unrealistic, unlikely or chance possibilities but that doesn´t change the intensity of your feelings.

Recognizing the likelihood that any of these fears would materialize is one way many people deal with these thoughts. However, being able to rationalize your fears in the midst of a panic attack takes practice, discipline and self confidence. 

If you can´t rationalize your fears away, simply trying to achieve a calmer state is your first step in dealing with anxiety. Once you have done this, the other strategies for eliminating, analyzing, confronting and accepting these fears can be utilized.

That is why so many people benefit from the use of relaxation techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, yoga and muscle relaxation.

Start off learning a relaxation technique you´re comfortable with and utilize it. It will provide you immediate relief and help you deal with longer term solutions to your anxiety.