What Gets Rid of Anxiety?
I have received a lot of messages lately asking what gets rid of anxiety.
First, you don’t want to get rid of anxiety.
Anxiety is your natural alarm to warn you of potential threats, allowing you to evaluate and respond to them in appropriate ways. This heightened state of readiness can also help you perform better and stimulate creative impulses.
You do want to quiet useless anxiety. This is anxiety about things you can’t control. It’s a waste of energy, and many of us suffer from it on a daily basis.
Today, anxiety is essentially being worried about something that may or may not happen in the future. We don’t have the same threats that our ancestors did two hundred thousand years ago. They worried about getting eaten by a wild animal charging at them or freezing to death in the middle of the night. These things could immediately be taken care of by hiding from the animal and finding shelter from the elements. When these threats were gone, their anxiety went away.
Most of what we worry about today can be categorized as future uncertainty… such as, “What if I’m spending all of this money on college and I can’t find a job when I graduate?”
The key is training your mind to live in the present instead of the future and to focus on the things you can control and let go of the things you can’t control.
What does it mean to live in the moment?
Well, first, let me tell you what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that you can’t plan or make a todo list or schedule appointments or set goals or dream of your next vacation. I encourage you to design the life that you want to live.
Living in the moment simply means being conscious, aware, and present. You’re not thinking about the past, nor are you feeling anxious about the future. All of your attention is focused on what is happening right now and letting go of outcomes.
This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes practice. But all the effort you put into training your mind to stay in the moment will seem minimal when you compare it with the benefits you receive by quieting useless anxiety.
Let me give you some tools that will help you bring your mind to the hear and now and allow you to live in the moment more of the time.
Breathing
Sit down, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing. This is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system and will ease your body and mind into a state of calmness and relaxation.
The formula that I prefer is:
Inhale for 4 seconds.
Hold your breath for 7 seconds.
Exhale for 8 seconds.
Repeat as needed.
Focusing on your breathing is a quick and easy way to pull yourself into the moment and ease your anxiety and can be done just about everywhere.
Meditation
Meditation is a great way to learn how to live in the moment more of the time.
I have personally been meditating daily for several years, and I highly recommend it. The key is to commit to meditating at least once each day for a minimum of 10 minutes.
What you are doing during these meditation sessions is training your mind to quickly focus on the present instead of the past and future. During meditation practice, nothing matters except what is happening right now.
More is better when it comes to meditation because the more you practice the more you condition yourself to live in the moment throughout your everyday life.
There are many apps that you can download that will help you begin meditating. If you use an iPhone, I recommend you start with the app “Oak”. It’s free, and it has solid instruction. If you want to jump in with both feet right away, download and subscribe to the app “Waking Up: Daily Meditation”.
Hypnosis
And now let’s talk about hypnosis to ease your anxiety. My personal favorite.
Hypnosis has all the benefits of meditation as well as some advantages that meditation lacks because hypnosis by nature anchors you to the moment and the experience of what’s happening right now, but hypnosis also changes your habitual thought patterns.
That means that you not only get the benefit of meditation but you also develop a brighter outlook on the future and learn to automatically focus on the things you can control and let go of those things you can’t.
It’s about learning to use your brain more efficiently and effectively and keeping all the “maybes” and the “what ifs” of the world firmly in their place, so you can really look forward to being able to relax and enjoy your life so much more as you do.
Each of these methods takes commitment and effort on your part. Ask yourself how much better will your life be when you ease the anxiety and take control of your life? What will you be able to accomplish when this happens? How much happier will you be?
