Do you suffer from anxiety? Have you tried just about everything to get over it, but it just keeps coming back? Maybe you thought you had gotten over it, but the symptoms returned with a vengeance? Whatever your circumstances, there is a way to beat anxiety for good.
Anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, difficulty falling or staying asleep at night, or getting easily irritated. In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like you’re being judged or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing, or an upset stomach.
It can appear out of the blue as a panic attack, when sudden spikes of anxiety make you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack or lose control. Or it can be present all the time, as in generalized anxiety disorder, when diffuse and pervasive worry consumes you.
Most people experience it at some point, but if anxiety starts interfering with your life, your sleeping habits, your ability to form relationships, or your productivity at work or school, you might have an anxiety disorder. Research shows that if it’s left untreated, anxiety can lead to depression, early death, and suicide. Unfortunately, anxiety medication doesn’t always work in the long term, as symptoms often return or side effects can appear.
The way you cope or handle things in life has a direct impact on how much anxiety you experience. Therefore, tweaking the way you’re coping can help you manage your anxiety levels.
Here are some of the top coping skills that have emerged from our study at the University of Cambridge, which will be presented in September at the 30th European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology in Paris, as well as from other scientific research.
Successful Coping Skills
Do you feel like your life is out of control? Do you find it hard to make decisions or get things started? Well, one way to overcome indecision or get going on that new project is to “do it badly.”
This may sound strange, but as the writer and poet G.K. Chesterton said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” And he had a point. The reason this works so well is that it speeds up your decision-making process and catapults you straight into action. Otherwise, you could spend hours deciding how you should do something or what you should do, which can be very time-consuming and stressful.
People often want to do something “perfectly” or to wait for the “perfect time” before starting. But this can lead to procrastination or long delays, or even prevent us from doing it at all. And that causes stress—and anxiety.
