Anxiety Series - Two Solutions
In this series we’ve viewed anxiety from a variety of different angles. All of which, can be put together in different ways to describe how one develops severe anxiety. For example, a child who never had unsupervised play, may grow up to rely on, and need, adult figures. Their internal adult (their left brain, perhaps) is poorly developed and they see the world in a too simplistic way. Always deferring to adults at times of social difficulty, will mean their view of human interaction will lack nuance. Social anxiety and emotional-brain dominance may result. Such a person may be very attracted to simplistic, good and evil ways of viewing the world and other human beings, making them targets for ideological and radical thinking. This is just one way what we have covered can be laid out, but it is certainly not the only way.
But what can be done about anxiety? Let’s take two common types and look into a possible solution, which can be applied broadly to many other aspects of anxiety. Firstly, anxiety induced by a traumatic event. Let’s say, as a child, you and your mum got stuck in a lift for a long time. As time went on, you watched as your mum became more and more panicky, resulted in an intense panic attack. She struggled to breath, couldn’t stand, she cried and you observed the whole thing. Ever since, lifts have been avoided at all costs. You don’t even think about it anymore, it is just something you avoid, a learnt pattern of behaviour whenever needing to ascend a building. But you’ve realised, it has started to creep into other areas of your life and now confined spaces are particularly, and increasingly, difficult to manage.
You go to therapy and rediscover the memory of the lift from your childhood. Hopefully, the therapist talks to you about exposure therapy – voluntarily exposing yourself, one tiny-step at a time, to the cause itself. You are willing to try. The lift, the thought of a lift, the idea of a lift, a picture of a lift, may all induce anxiety. So, you discuss what would be the easiest way to expose yourself, in other words, what exposure would cause the least amount of anxiety. You agree to look at pictures of lifts. At first, it causes panic, however, after some time, it just becomes boring…browsing pictures of lifts. Boredom, in this instance, is exactly what you are aiming for. Boredom is almost the opposite of anxiety. So, you move on to the next level of exposure. Maybe you sit twenty-metres away from a lift, with your therapist, and watch it. Watching people go in and out, until, again, your anxiety turns into boredom. And so, on you go, getting closer and closer, eventually stepping in whilst the doors are kept open, finally getting to the point where taking a lift is an everyday boring event. This may take weeks; it may take months. However, as your anxiety around lifts reduces, you may well notice that your anxiety in many other areas of life also reduce too. Why? Because you haven’t learnt that lifts are less scary than you though, you’ve learnt that you are more courageous that you thought and this filters out into every aspect of life.
The second common type is social anxiety. We’ve talked briefly the idea that social anxiety is nearly always due to low self-esteem. So, the answer is to build self-esteem. How can this be done? In short, find your passion – a hobby that you enjoy – and work on it. As you build your ability and confidence with this hobby, the next step would be to join a group of people involved in the same hobby. Let’s say you love painting. Engaging in this hobby and joining a painting group would mean that you are around like-minded people and being good at the thing that joins you all together will bring that high self-esteem necessary to ease social anxiety. Again, as your confidence increases within this group, you may notice that it increases everywhere else too.
If you would like further, or more specific, advice around anxiety, don’t hesitate to get in touch via email or social media.