Welcome to Exan's Wellness and Life Skills Program

Five tips to help you overcome anxiety

  1. Understand the difference between stress and anxiety. When someone lacks the coping skills to deal with stress, their thoughts become extreme and their emotions grow inflamed. They keep imagining that some sort of catastrophe will happen, such as getting fired, failing a critical test, losing their partner and so on. The resulting psychological state created is known as anxiety -- an oversized or irrational fear that something bad will happen.
  2. Identify and challenge your extreme thoughts. First, write down the extreme thoughts that are churning through your mind. Second, list all of the evidence that shows that the thought is not true. For example, if your thought is that you will lose your job over missing a deadline for a report, list all of the times that you had difficulty at work and still managed to overcome it.
  3. Address the sources of your stress. Stress leads to anxiety, so one way of reducing anxiety is to address the sources of your stress. If your friend always shows up late whenever you plan to go out, set a boundary, and tell them politely and firmly to arrive on time. You should also work on building your stress resilience through rejuvenation and improved coping skills.
  4. Learn to practice relaxation exercises. Techniques such as deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation or creating a peaceful mental image (visualization) all stimulate relaxation, which helps to reduce and conquer anxiety. A therapist can teach you relaxation techniques or you can search out and read some of the many books on the subject.
  5. If you continue to feel overwhelmed, seek professional help. Sometimes, anxiety can become so all-pervasive that it begins to harm your physical and mental health. If this happens to you, you may have an anxiety disorder. Recovery is possible, but you need to have the courage to ask for help. Treat yourself with the compassion and care you deserve by seeing a qualified mental-health professional. They will be able to give you a proper diagnosis and prescribe a suitable course of treatment.