Psychology: 3 ways to reduce your anxiety

According to a survey data revealed by psychological researcher Dong Xinjie, 96% of people have anxiety. 54% of them are anxious every day.

Indeed, we will be anxious when we encounter traffic jams when we go out; we will be anxious when our work efficiency is low; we will be anxious when we find that our children are procrastinating in various ways when tutoring them.

Obviously, anxiety has become a normal part of our lives.

After reading this, you may say that you often hear the word "anxiety", but what exactly is anxiety?

From a psychological point of view, anxiety is an unpleasant and complex emotional state such as tension, uneasiness, worry, and annoyance caused by an individual in response to an upcoming situation that may cause danger or threat.

Simply put, anxiety is the fear of potentially losing control.

After understanding the definition of anxiety, let’s take a look at the common types of anxiety disorders, which are divided into the following 6 types:

Specific phobia refers to “a fear of certain things or The situation is scary.”

For example, fear of heights, fear of the dark, fear of snakes, etc.

Such patients subconsciously believe that these things are unsafe and will cause harm to themselves.

For this reason, they will try their best to avoid encountering these things, and even the thought of them will make them feel creepy and trembling.

Acute anxiety attack refers to the patient's sudden physical or psychological uneasiness without obvious reasons or special circumstances.

Typical symptoms include: palpitations, dizziness, cold sweats, tremors, waist and knee weakness, difficulty breathing, etc.

The patient will have the illusion that he is suffocating or even dying.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety symptom characterized by obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior.

Most patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder will have a feeling of "I can't control myself."

Obsessive thinking is characterized by frequent thoughts or images in the mind that disturb oneself. For example, I often suspect that doors and windows are not closed tightly, I suspect that the faucet is not turned off properly, I suspect that I cannot control myself, etc.

Compulsive sexual behavior is forcing oneself to do unnecessary behaviors. For example, before going out, check whether the doors, windows, and faucets are closed multiple times, knock on the door three times, etc.

Generalized anxiety disorder refers to widespread and long-term excessive anxiety about various things without obvious triggers. It manifests as persistent tension and uneasiness, and gradually becomes a process of chronic symptoms.

This kind of patients always fantasize about various negative consequences, which makes people think that they are a little "neurotic". In addition to being nervous and restless, they may also suffer from insomnia, frequent urination, muscle tension, etc.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is the PTSD we often hear in medical TV dramas. It refers to the excessive panic that occurs after an individual experiences some kind of threat or injury, which is a state of psychological imbalance.

For example, being robbed, suffering physical violence, having a traffic accident, etc.

Patients who have had such an experience often have nightmares or recall unpleasant episodes in their minds from time to time.

As a result, they will appear nervous, easily angry, and particularly wary of people, making people feel that it is best to stay away from them.

Social phobia, referred to as "social phobia". This mainly refers to the individual's fear of talking to others and having physical contact in social situations.

Once they want to talk to others, they will blush and are afraid of meeting other people’s eyes;

Once they want to have physical contact with others, they will become very nervous and afraid and worry.

People with sociophobia are not very good at socializing, which will prevent them from taking their lives and work to the next level.

After talking about the 6 types of anxiety, let’s talk about how to relieve anxiety.

I suggest you refer to the following three methods:

System desensitization is to first teach everyone some ways to relax, and then from weak to strong, display threatening things. Things help people "desensitize" step by step to achieve the purpose of suppressing anxiety.

Specifically, it can be divided into the following three steps:

(1) Relaxation training

When a person’s muscles throughout his body are relaxed, his heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure The indicators of physiological responses and the physiological indicators of anxiety show exactly the opposite trend.

It can be seen from this that achieving physical and psychological relaxation through muscle relaxation can suppress anxiety.

In addition, when relaxing, it is best to choose a tidier environment with softer lighting and an environment free of noise and other distractions.

If the patient can be in an environment where he feels comfortable and the person talking to him has a soft voice, it will be easier for him to relax.

(2) Anxiety Level Assessment

Constructing an anxiety level is to allow patients to evaluate and grade the things they feel anxious about.

First, you can ask the patient to list the things that make him anxious.

After listing, rate the item (1-10). The higher the score, the more anxious the patient is about it.

For example:

Climb to the top of the mountain 5 points

Talk to a stranger 8 points

See a snake? 10 points

After evaluating the scores, rank them from lowest to highest.

(3) System desensitization

After the scores are arranged, system desensitization can be carried out.

Like the example above, you can first ask the patient to simulate climbing to the top of a mountain, and then stimulate him with some thoughts and behaviors.

Until he has passed the simulation and is no longer afraid of climbing to the top of the mountain, he can then proceed to the next step of desensitization in talking to strangers.

By analogy, we can help patients overcome their anxiety step by step.

(1) Self-encouragement method

If you are very anxious, the most important thing you need to do is self-encouragement.

How to encourage yourself?

You can use your previous successful events to encourage yourself, or you can use inspirational sentences to encourage yourself.

For example, I recently like to use the four words "do big things" to encourage myself.

My mobile phone wallpaper has these four words. Every time I see them, a kind of power will surge into my heart, motivating myself to strive for the first.

At this time, I don’t remember any anxiety, I just remember to rush forward.

(2) Self-talk method

The cognitive-oriented school of psychology believes that when people are anxious, they should make more noises to talk to themselves.

When you hear your own firm and confident voice, you will feel more confident and less anxious.

Let the "positive you" convince the "negative you".

Thinking on the bright side and saying more positive and optimistic words will make you feel less and less anxious.

(3) Telling your worries

Many people keep their worries in their hearts, causing internal injuries.

As a result, the more I hold it in, the more uncomfortable I feel, and the more I hold it in, the more anxious I become.

The correct approach is to find someone to tell your concerns, so that you have a better chance of opening up the frustration in your heart.

If the person who listens to you to talk about your concerns happens to understand you, then he or she will be more effective in helping you reduce your anxiety.

(4) Emotion transfer method

If you feel unhappy because of something, and you do not transfer your emotions, you will always be stuck in this bad emotion.

For example, if someone criticizes you and you feel unhappy, you will remain unhappy if you keep thinking about it.

However, if you shift your focus to something that makes you happy, your mood will improve.

When I am unhappy, I will find ways to divert my attention.

For example, I would watch the third season of "Talk Show". When I was rolling with laughter, I had already forgotten all my anxiety.

After the emotional shift, the whole person feels better.

When many people encounter setbacks, they become very upset and complain about themselves or others.

Even if they know that doing so will not change anything, they just can't get out of this bad mood.

At this time, you can actually use the reverse psychological adjustment method, starting from the following three aspects:

(1) Explore the advantages

I have a friend, Sister Liu, She often complained that her husband had to analyze things for a long time and acted very slowly. This made Sister Liu feel very anxious.

When I was chatting with Sister Liu, I started from the opposite direction and guided her to explore the advantages of her husband:

It takes a long time to analyze, which is often a good thing, which shows that He is thinking carefully and the probability of making mistakes is low.

This is much better than making the wrong decision impulsively.

After Sister Liu discovered her husband’s strengths through reverse research, the relationship between husband and wife was obviously much more harmonious than before, and she herself was no longer so anxious.

Therefore, being good at exploring advantages will make anxiety less severe.

(2) Psychological transposition

Many conflicts start from not understanding psychological transposition.

For example, for a couple, the husband often has to pay 996 to go to work, and sometimes he has to deal with various social activities after work, which puts him under a lot of pressure.

After returning home, he just wanted to lie down and was too tired to say anything.

As a housewife, my wife has a hard time raising her children at home every day. She hopes that her husband can take care of the children when he comes home from get off work and help her share the burden.

If two people have different ideas, it is easy for them to have conflicts. The husband blames his wife for not understanding how hard he works outside the home, and the wife blames her husband for not understanding how hard it is for her to take care of the baby at home. The two of them easily get into conflicts because of this, and both become very anxious.

In fact, as long as the couple knows how to change their minds, they don’t need to be so anxious.

My wife tried to imagine from her husband’s point of view that he is already very tired even after working 996, and sometimes he has to deal with various social activities after work, which means he is tired on top of tiredness.

If it were me, I would feel a lot of pressure. When I get home, I really don’t want to say anything, I just want to lie quietly for a while.

My husband also tried to imagine from his wife’s perspective that she takes care of the baby almost 24 hours a day. The baby would cry and fuss sometimes, which is really frustrating. Therefore, raising a baby is no easier than going to work, so it’s no wonder she wants to help share the burden.

Both of them know how to psychologically change their positions and become anxious and self-destructive.

In addition to the three methods of reducing anxiety introduced above, Dong Xinjie, an author of the practical psychology school, also wrote her own experiences and thoughts on fighting anxiety in this book↓↓↓↓↓

The book "The Psychology of Anxiety" uses a theoretical case writing method. There is no boring preaching in the book. Instead, it helps readers understand anxiety in simple and easy-to-understand terms, and helps readers master practical methods to reduce anxiety. Dong Xinjie uses these methods to help many readers get rid of psychological distress.

Whether you are anxious or not, you can benefit from this book. The sooner you know the content in the book, the better. The sooner you master it, the sooner you can benefit.

Live a life without anxiety, such a life is worth it!

Today’s topic: What do you understand by anxiety? Tell us what you think in the comment section.

If you think the above is good, please share it with your friends so that they can also benefit.

Share ↓ It feels good for a moment, and it feels good to share it all the time.