What is exaggerated anxiety?
We have to distinguish between healthy, helpful anxiety or concern, as opposed to unhealthy negative emotion or exaggerated anxiety. The former helps us to get things done that wouldn’t otherwise get done or serves as a warning signal if there is an imminent threat. However, an exaggerated anxiety might frighten us off or even hinder us from taking an action, getting started or even defending ourselves. Furthermore, exaggerated anxiety can spiral out of control when we experience a situation we can’t do much about. An example of such a situation is if I’m waiting for the outcome of an important interview about a new job that could have numerous implications for my life. But, in this situation, there is hardly anything I can do except wait. The anxiety isn’t motivating me into helpful action; it’s just there and is likely to trigger a sequence of irrational, illogical thoughts I can’t get rid of.
Typically, we catastrophize reality by telling ourselves how awful, unbearable, and painful it will be if such a thing happens or doesn’t happen. We dramatise the future in a silly and illogical way. We feel disconnected; we experience body symptoms such as a pounding heart, shortness of breath, loss of balance, etc. I don’t want to stop here because there are numerous articles about symptoms of anxiety or even panic attacks on the internet, and you very likely have your own experience.
I intend to provide you with practical steps and techniques for preventing your common concerns from spiralling into unhealthy and overwhelming anxiety. Before we start with the practical part, I have to highlight that integrating them into everyday life is not a short-distance run, and you might fail at the beginning. It’s totally fine, and I ask you not to blame yourself.
Nevertheless, back to the situation when you experience a massive flood of exaggerated anxiety, and you get stuck ruminating and generating irrational thoughts about WHAT IF? Anxiety always refers to the future and stokes our fears. The first part of dealing with our anxiety is an intellectual understanding. We need to acknowledge our negative unhealthy emotions and track down their origin, which comes in the form of assumptions, toxic automatic thoughts or irrational beliefs. These thoughts are at the core of our mental imbalance, and we need to change them because they don’t serve us well.
PART ONE – IDENTIFYING AN IRRATIONAL/TOXIC BELIEF
STEP 1—Identify and define your fears related to the situation you ruminate about or create silly scenarios about potential WHAT IFs, and write them down.
STEP 2: Track down one fear at a time. Here are instructions on how to do it.
Example:
My anxiety revolves around failing an exam. Write it down.
My fear is: “I fear that I will fail the exam”
Then ask yourself, “And what?” usually you get an answer immediately, so write it down again
“Well, I can’t even imagine it”
And again, ask yourself
“And then what?”
“My parents would be disappointed in me”
“And then what?”
“I don’t want to disappoint them; they support me so much.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t meet their expectations”
“And then what?”
They would think I’m not a good daughter.
“And then what?”
It’s a catastrophe if they judge me like this.
“And then what?”
They don’t like me.
“And then what?”
I can’t stand it, and it proves I’m not good enough!
Here, you stop and, based on your inference, formulate a demand to avoid being disliked: “I mustn’t fail the exam!”
By making such a demand, you put pressure on yourself, which triggers your anxiety. Because the likelihood of failing an exam is always there, even if you don’t want to accept it, you can’t fully control it. It goes even further: By thinking like this, you sabotage yourself from performing well in the exam.
I demonstrated here how we create our constructs, dogmatic and rigid thoughts that might not be in line with reality. Once we track them down, we gain insight into where our fear comes from. If we understand it intellectually, we can start working on changing it. However, how we manage that will be described later.
Here are some tips on how to assess your irrational beliefs. We are looking for the following statements or negative affirmations, and I have added phrases we can replace them with when we catch ourselves thinking irrationally and toxically.
- Demandingness—This irrational belief occurs when someone believes they have to do something to achieve the outcome they want. It typically takes the form of “MUST” or “SHOULD.”
- Awfulising/Catastrophizing—The tendency of the mind to catastrophize situations when we encounter adversity, especially when things go against our wishes or goals.
- Bearability—The phrase “I can’t stand it” often demonstrates that the client has a low frustration tolerance and cannot stand this or bear something.
- Self-/other/the world or life depreciation—We are convinced that failing exams proves that I’m stupid, my teachers are stupid, or the world or life is unfair.
Example: I mustn’t fail the final exam! This is an intrusive thought that could start a cascade of other negative thoughts: It would be a catastrophe. What do I say to my parents? I can’t stand them knowing. It would prove I’m not a good daughter, stupid, or a failure…
As you can see, all these deductions are utterly wrong because you can repeat this exam, your parents love you even if you fail, you can definitely cope with this situation, and the world doesn’t fall apart. Human beings are complex; thus, we can’t rate ourselves based on one problem or episode. These are our automatic thoughts, and the next step is to change them into rational, realistic, or consistent with reality thoughts. Don’t mistake these for positive ones!
- Preference—I would prefer not to fail the final exam, but I know it can happen. You can name all the realistic reasons why it could happen.
- Anti-awfulising – It is not the end of the world.
- High frustration tolerance—I have coped with other issues in my life, and I will manage this somehow again!
- Acceptance and Self-esteem—It doesn’t prove I’m stupid; the world is unfair. I accept myself as a fallible human being. Again, you can remind yourself of your positive traits or other achievements.
This is enough for now, but it will be continued. You can practice this, and if you have any questions, visit https://www.silviebrouk.com/rational-emotional-behavioural-therapy/. Each skill requires training and practice. By monitoring our minds, we can help restructure automatic thoughts and old patterns we are unaware of and significantly improve the quality of our lives.