Blog

How to switch off anxiety

Lockdown, social distancing, self isolating, in our life time, who would have thought it?

And yet, here we all are, in it together.

We all have our worries, our fears around keeping our families safe, what about our jobs, our businesses, how long will this go on for and the list goes on. 

Yet, how we respond to this now will shape how this plays out in our life. 

So what can we change? 

It is what it is. It has happened, we can't change that.

What we do now, here’s two simple steps to help you switch off anxiety.

1.     Plan your Future.

The truth is that if you are worrying about your future then you are planning it, just negatively. You are fast forwarding and seeing it all go wrong, this is what causes the panic and anxiety, the feeling of overwhelm and loss of control. Anxiety is an emotion of the future, it is impossible to become anxious about something that has happened and had resolution. 

When a routine check found a lump inside my left kidney, I had a week to wait for the Consultant to let me know whether I had cancer or not. I had a choice, I could either freak out and focus on having cancer or run a movie of the Consultant telling me I was in the clear. I chose this option, I slept better, ate better, was much more relaxed and resourceful.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not about just being positive and hoping that will change the outcome, it didn’t in my case, I was still diagnosed with cancer. However I was much better equipped to deal with it because I was calm, resourceful and rested.

Think about how you want your future to look, what is your movie, how will this play out? You give yourself a better chance of planning, creating and being much more resourceful, plus anxiety can not breed here, which is an added bonus. 

We have also developed a FREE online 25 minute course to help you with anxiety. It’s here for you.

2.     What is the quality of your self talk?

How are you taking to yourself inside your head? What you say will directly effect how you feel, thoughts become things and we have around 64,000 thoughts per day and on average 80% of those are negative. Catch yourself, notice when you talk negatively and stop yourself in your tracks. Instead ask yourself this question;

“When this is all over, what will I wish I have done more of?” Asking this question will take you to a more positive place and interrupt the negative spiral, which creates anxiety and stress. Instead you will  get some good feedback how to use this time well.

Spend 25 minutes going through our FREE online course about anxiety and understand more about it.