Mental Health Therapists Recommend Their Top 16 Strategies for Managing Anxiety
Anxiety is one of the top reasons people seek counseling at our office. For this reason, our mental health therapists have a lot of experience to offer people who are struggling with their anxiety. If your anxiety has been showing up frequently, intensely, and it has been impacting your functioning, we hope you’ll find these strategies helpful. As always, it’s important to remember that coping strategies only work if you use them!
1. Externalize your anxiety - visualize your anxiety (can be a character, color, etc). When your anxiety shows up imagine it as that thing and practice engaging with it (“I expected you to be here, you always bother me when ___, I know your tricks and the ways that you tell me I can’t handle ___, even though I’m uncomfortable I know that I’m not in danger…).
2. Square breathing - use your finger to draw a square on the table, on your leg, etc. Breath in one side, breath out on the next side, breath in, breathe out as many times around the square as needed.
3. Pay attention to the messages you are saying to yourself when you feel the anxiety rising. Does it support calming or grounding you? Or does it increase your heart rate and activation? It might be tough to do it in the moment but reflecting back can be the starting point to implementing more calming and grounding messages in the moment.
4. Utilize the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Inhale deeply through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and exhale forcefully through pursed lips for 8 seconds. And repeat. You can also change the 4-7-8 to whatever feels most comfortable for you.
5. Sometimes it can be helpful to schedule time to worry. Anxiety is not something that is likely to just completely go away, and rather than ruminating on something all day, maybe try to incorporate it into your schedule. You might schedule 10 minutes to worry before going into work, for example. Then, during the day, you might find it helpful to set a boundary with yourself and not let yourself go down these rabbit holes until your scheduled worry time in the evening.
6. Try and slow things down - whether that be through deep breathing, doing a self-soothing activity, or taking a moment to practice a mindfulness exercise, slowing things down can give you time to process your anxiety, while also not allowing it to become too overstimulating.
7. Chug a big glass of water - focus on the sensation of the cold water running down your throat, don’t stop drinking to breathe through your mouth - instead, breathe a regulated breath through your nose as you finish the glass of water.
8. Cross your arms and pat your shoulders to a relaxing tempo, and gradually slow that tempo, picturing your heart rate lowering as your tempo decreases.
9. When you have time, write down everything you’re anxious about. Sometimes, abstract anxiety can be more intimidating than seeing your exact thoughts on paper. Then, rate the likelihood of each event happening from 0-10, supporting your number with past evidence. You can cross the low numbers off your list, as they are unlikely to happen! For the high numbers, write out steps you can follow within your control that may decrease the likelihood of that event. You can also write anything that comes to mind that is outside of your control on a different part of the page to help differentiate and remind yourself to focus on what you ARE capable of changing.
10. Try to notice the antecedents to your anxiety and jot them down. When you have time, revisit these antecedents and make a plan for each one using a phrase like, “When I feel anxious because _____, I will _____.” An example may look like, “When I feel anxious because my boss asked to meet with me, I will ask what they want to meet about so I can prepare instead of fearing the worst before getting any feedback.”
11. Grounding. My definition of grounding is anything you do that helps you connect to the present moment. You can go through your 5 senses (e.g., pick 5 things you can see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste) or even pick a color and look around your room to find items with that color.
12. Get a change of scenery. Go to another room. Go for a walk. Drive around the block. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are doing something. This helps with disrupting the anxious thoughts and getting you out of your head and into the world.
13. Treat yourself like you would a friend. Try to reach for self-compassion! This might mean checking how you're talking to yourself, looking for where you’re holding tension in your body, or reminding yourself that you’re human and don’t have to be (actually can’t be) perfect.
14. Check in with yourself about the limits to your control. If what you’re worrying about is something you have power over, can problem solve or change, great! Do it! If not, you may need to focus on acceptance or changing how you relate to the situation, rather than throwing energy into worrying about a situation you don’t have control over.
15. Be real with yourself about avoidance. We all know when tik tok scrolling goes from an enjoyable break to the thing we’re desperately clinging to to avoid doing whatever dreaded task is next. At that point you’re not getting anything out of your “break,” and your anxiety is mounting. The only way through it is to do it, but you can help yourself by breaking it down into the smallest possible chunks or checking expectations of “perfection” you have of yourself.
16. Catch the “What Ifs.” Anxious thoughts are full of “what if” statements. “What if this? What if that?” When you catch yourself engaging in “What if” thinking, recognize that this is your anxiety flaring up. Anxious thoughts regularly make negative predictions about the future, and we have to remember that these negative assumptions about the future are not facts. They are anxious thoughts.
You now have 16 new strategies to try in order to manage your anxiety. As with all strategies, it’s important that you give them a try and see which ones you like the best. You may not need all of these, but if you have just a handful of go-to strategies that work for you, you’ll feel better equipped when nervousness and anxious thoughts arise.
Anxiety can be tricky, but there are a number of helpful strategies to help you manage! As always, if you feel like your anxiety is too frequent, too intense, or that it’s impacting your functioning in the day to day, working with a therapist is a great option!
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