Anxiety is a mental health condition in which one may suffer from periods of worry, nervousness, sense of impending doom and fear about a particular event, events or an uncertainty. There are a number of factors leading to anxiety and aspects of life that keep it going.
1. In therapy, one may need to work on feelings and emotions that are suppressed or particular events in childhood that were significant. Uncovering these emotions and feelings can help with anxiety. Often, to aid in the therapeutic process one may support their work by maintaining a journal or diary. Feelings that are allowed to be expressed and shared may provide for a cathartic experience. Guidance from a psychotherapist or licensed professional may permit perspective shifts and insight.
2. Another aspect of one’s life that can contribute to anxiety is chronic stress. Managing stress in ways such as meditation and mindfulness are examples. Meditation has been proven effective in managing anxiety. As most anxiety results in shallow breathing or breaths that are inhalations of 2-4 seconds. Increasing the breaths to deeper breathing from 4 to 8 seconds aides in the oxygen cycling in ones body and mind. Simply starting by observing one’s breath is a technique.
Mindfulness involves a skill in which one is aware of each moment by observing one’s behavior or actions in a non-judgmental way. It is an active skill involving noticing and recognizing what one is doing and allowing thoughts to pass in and out without judgment. It is a skill that with practice gets better and better.
3. Grounding skills are broken into various categories. They include mental grounding skills, physical grounding skills and self-soothing grounding. One example of grounding involves actively describing in one mind, the environment in a non-judgmental way. So one may sit with one’s feet firmly planted on a carpet and sitting on a cushion in a chair. The walls are beige, there is a wooden desk that is oak, there is a door that has a window. The sounds of the birds are just outside the window. You may feel the cotton blanket on the chair and smell the sandalwood incense in the room. The room is 75 degrees. So in this example of grounding, one is describing what one smells, feels, sees and senses. Also, in this example the individual is noticing the current room and surroundings only.
Self-soothing grounding may involve gently repeating a kind statement to oneself such as “everything will be alright” or repeating a mantra such as “I have nothing to do, no where to go and no place to be.” This example of self-soothing involves working on one’s self-talk which can also keep anxiety going. One’s self-talk often has basis in belief systems or perceptions that may be distorted or not evidenced based.
Parveen Vohra 