Dr Catherine Frogley, Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy, UK) with the Lighthouse Arabia discusses how to manage anxiety whether in the workplace or at home.
Dr Catherine Frogley, Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy, UK) with the Lighthouse Arabia.
We all have anxiety. Every single one of us. In fact, being a human being means feeling the full range of emotions, including the ones we find most difficult: anxiety, jealousy, anger and sadness.
As is the case with all emotions, anxiety serves a vital function. It ensures our safety and survival, and alerts us to what really matters. For example, if we are experiencing anxiety around Covid-19, it is a clear reminder that our health is important to us. Alternatively, repeatedly checking our work before hitting send to a client, anxiety is telling us that producing our reputation for high quality work is important to us.
Now, as with all emotions, anxiety exists on a spectrum. Those with too little anxiety are going to be reckless, careless and put themselves in danger. On the other hand, those with clinically high levels of anxiety are going to allow anxiety to dominate their decisions and actions. The optimal place is therefore to be somewhere in the middle: not reckless, yet not restricted through anxiety.
There are many people, especially in corporate environments, who could be described as high-functioning high-anxiety individuals. Although successful, they tend to overthink, people please, fear failure and procrastinate.
Anxiety has numerous physical, mental, emotional, behavioral and performance symptoms. Below are some examples:
● Physical
o Cardiovascular (pounding heart, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, blushing)
o Neurological (dizziness, headache, sweating, tingling/numbness)
● Mental/emotional
o Excessive fear and worry
o Decreased concentration and memory o Irritability
o Impatience
o Tiredness
● Behavioral
o Withdrawal/avoidance of situations
o Distress in social situations
o Increased use of alcohol or substances o Attempts to control situations
● Performance
o Decrease in effectiveness due to lowered productivity, stamina, motivation
o Impairment in judgment due to blocks to clear perception and perspective-taking
o Negative impact on relationships with co-workers
Getting rid of anxiety is never the goal. Instead, we should seek to develop a positive relationship with our anxiety and learn how to manage it. This means listening to anxiety without being consumed by it and feeling able to choose how we respond to something anxiety-provoking. Responses are reactive or proactive: reactive responses are emotion-based, feelings-driven, situational and inconsistent; proactive responses are values-based, choice-driven, strategic and consistent. We should strive to make proactive responses in the face of anxiety.
Below are some strategies for developing proactive responses to anxiety:
1. Acceptance
First of all, it is important to be aware of your anxiety and accept it. One way of doing this is using the 90-second rule. 90 seconds is the typical time it takes for the chemical process associated with an emotional reaction to move through the body. Therefore, this rule requires you to accept that you feel fearful in the moment. Look at a clock and allow yourself 90 seconds to feel terrible. Breathe deeply and envision the emotion moving through your body, and use the 90 seconds to accept and feel the negative emotions: self-pity or fear or anger or worry. When time is up, change your focus and let it go.
2. Know your triggers
It is important to identify and acknowledge your triggers. This will help you guard your energy and attention, and better control your thoughts and behaviors as well as set clear boundaries.
3. Practice deep breathing
A very useful and easy breathing exercise is ‘4-7-8 Breathing’ which involves breathing in for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 7 seconds and exhaling for 8 seconds. If you can’t do it in the time suggested, that’s okay. The trick is to slow down your breathing, particularly the out-breath, as doing so switches on the body’s natural ‘rest and digest’ system. This signals to the brain that you are safe and there is no need to keep sending out adrenaline.
4. Learn to defuse from your thoughts
A common mistake is believing you are your thoughts. It is a very useful skill to observe your thoughts instead of getting caught up in them. A great way of doing this is to create a distance between you and your thoughts by adding the following to the beginning of any thought…
“I am telling myself the story that… “ “I am having the thought that…”.
You can also self-distance and trick your brain that you are speaking about someone else by speaking to yourself in the third person e.g. “David is having the thought that…”.
5. Stay focused on what is in your control
There are many things out of our control right now such as travel bans and other people’s attitudes, expectations and demands. Anxiety will always try to plan and prepare for future unknowns but it is more helpful to focus on things that you can control: an optimistic attitude, setting healthy boundaries, planning fun-filled activities and following the rules.
When you notice your mind wandering to things that are outside of your control – notice it, bring it back to the present and ask yourself ‘what can I do right now?’
Dr Catherine Frogley, Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy, UK) with the Lighthouse Arabia
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Coping with anxiety and uncertainty
Dr Catherine Frogley, Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy, UK) with the Lighthouse Arabia discusses how to manage anxiety whether in the workplace or at home.
Dr Catherine Frogley, Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy, UK) with the Lighthouse Arabia.
We all have anxiety. Every single one of us. In fact, being a human being means feeling the full range of emotions, including the ones we find most difficult: anxiety, jealousy, anger and sadness.
As is the case with all emotions, anxiety serves a vital function. It ensures our safety and survival, and alerts us to what really matters. For example, if we are experiencing anxiety around Covid-19, it is a clear reminder that our health is important to us. Alternatively, repeatedly checking our work before hitting send to a client, anxiety is telling us that producing our reputation for high quality work is important to us.
Now, as with all emotions, anxiety exists on a spectrum. Those with too little anxiety are going to be reckless, careless and put themselves in danger. On the other hand, those with clinically high levels of anxiety are going to allow anxiety to dominate their decisions and actions. The optimal place is therefore to be somewhere in the middle: not reckless, yet not restricted through anxiety.
There are many people, especially in corporate environments, who could be described as high-functioning high-anxiety individuals. Although successful, they tend to overthink, people please, fear failure and procrastinate.
Anxiety has numerous physical, mental, emotional, behavioral and performance symptoms. Below are some examples:
● Physical
o Cardiovascular (pounding heart, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, blushing)
o Neurological (dizziness, headache, sweating, tingling/numbness)
● Mental/emotional
o Excessive fear and worry
o Decreased concentration and memory o Irritability
o Impatience
o Tiredness
● Behavioral
o Withdrawal/avoidance of situations
o Distress in social situations
o Increased use of alcohol or substances o Attempts to control situations
● Performance
o Decrease in effectiveness due to lowered productivity, stamina, motivation
o Impairment in judgment due to blocks to clear perception and perspective-taking
o Negative impact on relationships with co-workers
Getting rid of anxiety is never the goal. Instead, we should seek to develop a positive relationship with our anxiety and learn how to manage it. This means listening to anxiety without being consumed by it and feeling able to choose how we respond to something anxiety-provoking. Responses are reactive or proactive: reactive responses are emotion-based, feelings-driven, situational and inconsistent; proactive responses are values-based, choice-driven, strategic and consistent. We should strive to make proactive responses in the face of anxiety.
Below are some strategies for developing proactive responses to anxiety:
1. Acceptance
First of all, it is important to be aware of your anxiety and accept it. One way of doing this is using the 90-second rule. 90 seconds is the typical time it takes for the chemical process associated with an emotional reaction to move through the body. Therefore, this rule requires you to accept that you feel fearful in the moment. Look at a clock and allow yourself 90 seconds to feel terrible. Breathe deeply and envision the emotion moving through your body, and use the 90 seconds to accept and feel the negative emotions: self-pity or fear or anger or worry. When time is up, change your focus and let it go.
2. Know your triggers
It is important to identify and acknowledge your triggers. This will help you guard your energy and attention, and better control your thoughts and behaviors as well as set clear boundaries.
3. Practice deep breathing
A very useful and easy breathing exercise is ‘4-7-8 Breathing’ which involves breathing in for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 7 seconds and exhaling for 8 seconds. If you can’t do it in the time suggested, that’s okay. The trick is to slow down your breathing, particularly the out-breath, as doing so switches on the body’s natural ‘rest and digest’ system. This signals to the brain that you are safe and there is no need to keep sending out adrenaline.
4. Learn to defuse from your thoughts
A common mistake is believing you are your thoughts. It is a very useful skill to observe your thoughts instead of getting caught up in them. A great way of doing this is to create a distance between you and your thoughts by adding the following to the beginning of any thought…
“I am telling myself the story that… “ “I am having the thought that…”.
You can also self-distance and trick your brain that you are speaking about someone else by speaking to yourself in the third person e.g. “David is having the thought that…”.
5. Stay focused on what is in your control
There are many things out of our control right now such as travel bans and other people’s attitudes, expectations and demands. Anxiety will always try to plan and prepare for future unknowns but it is more helpful to focus on things that you can control: an optimistic attitude, setting healthy boundaries, planning fun-filled activities and following the rules.
When you notice your mind wandering to things that are outside of your control – notice it, bring it back to the present and ask yourself ‘what can I do right now?’
Dr Catherine Frogley, Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy, UK) with the Lighthouse Arabia
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