Anxiety can act up in strange ways. Sometimes when you are attempting to make this feeling go away, it actually makes it flare up. This could be because you are applying coping skills incorrectly. If you tell your brain to calm down, it will register that something is wrong. Essentially, the attempt to calm down the situation is misinterpreted as an indicator of danger. In an article provided by Psychology Today, Ben Eckstein, LCSW explains how you can use coping skills the correct way.
Logically, the brain is doing its best with the information provided. Why would you be telling yourself to calm down when there is no danger? Obviously, you know anxiety can’t hurt you, but these self-soothing techniques unfortunately alert your brain. The more this feeling is fought, the worse it feels. The more you tell yourself that everything is okay, the more your brain panics over the perceived threat.
There is a solution to this phenomenon. The key is to allow yourself to feel whatever you need to feel so that you can demonstrate to your brain that the anxiety is a false alarm. Getting into this habit allows you to recalibrate your brain’s alarm system. You will learn that you are capable.
Anxiety does not need to be controlled. This is an interesting thing to accept considering it is such an uncomfortable thing to experience. Teach your brain that you are capable of getting through it. If you are willing to experience discomfort, you are learning that you have the capacity to get through anxiety without bending your life in order to avoid it at all costs.
Coping skills are wonderful in theory, but telling yourself that everything is going to be okay causes the opposite effect internally. Remember that the goal is not to control something that is generally uncontrollable. Feelings will happen no matter what, and anxiety is included in this. The goal is instead to learn effective ways for you personally to respond to your anxiety.
Many coping techniques allow you to still feel your feelings, while not pushing them away. Try writing your thoughts down in a journal in order to process your feelings while they are happening. Practicing mindfulness can also be helpful in reducing the inflated stress that anxiety tends to bring. These are a few examples of effective skills, but not everything is going to work for everyone. Try skills that do not immediately alert your brain of danger, but instead ease the feelings as they are happening.
The willingness to persist in the middle of uncomfortable emotions simply teaches your brain that you can get through them. You absolutely have the capacity to get through anxious moments, it’s just about teaching your brain this fact. Once you start learning you can get through it, the whole process of anxiety spiraling will be significantly less severe.