Three Tips to Manage Anxiety from a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist
BY Lorna Devine BSc MSc PPD PgDip
Lorna Devine, a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and Accredited Life Coach shares her top three tips for dealing with anxiety.
1.Increase your self-awareness
One of the first and most important steps in managing anxiety is increasing self-awareness. There are various ways to improve your self-awareness. For example, self-monitoring is a powerful tool used in CBT which essentially means gathering information to help you better understand your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and behaviours.
One way to do this is to start by recording specific instances in which you notice anxious thoughts, feelings or responses. Write down what you were doing when you started to feel anxious. It can be helpful here to write down specific details such as who you were with, what happened and where you were. Then, write down how you were feeling in that moment, what you were thinking, and what you did in response to your anxious thoughts and feelings.
See if you can identify any patterns or links between your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and behaviours. Once you have gained this awareness, you can then begin to take steps to manage and overcome anxiety.
2. Find ways to pause – breathe!
When we feel anxious, our breathing often speeds up in order to prepare our body for danger. However, diaphragmatic breathing (also known as belly breathing) will signal to your body that it is safe to relax and will enable you to control your own physiology.
Deep breathing in particular will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the ‘rest and digest’ system.
Instructions:
Start by making sure that you are either sitting, standing or lying comfortably
Breathe in through your nose (4 seconds)
Hold your breath (7 seconds).
Exhale slowly through your mouth (8 seconds)
Repeat this exercise for 3-5 minutes or until you feel calmer
Top tip: Make sure that you are breathing from your abdomen and not your chest. To check, place one hand on your abdomen and one hand on your chest - your breathing should only come from your bottom hand.
To make it even more powerful, you could combine breathing with affirmations. As you breathe in, you could say in your mind, “I breathe in calm.” As you breathe out, say, “I breathe out anxiety.” You may want to come up with your own affirmations so that they are meaningful to you.
3. Come back to the present
Anxiety is a future-orientated state of mind so instead of worrying about the future and what is going to happen, bring yourself back to the present. One way to do this is to ground yourself which means bringing your focus to what is happening to you physically either in your surroundings or your body.
This will help you to get out of your head and divert your mind away from anxious thoughts. The 54321 grounding method is a great technique to help you cope with anxious thoughts and feelings - you use your five senses to anchor you in the present.
Instructions:
Close your eyes, take a couple of deep breaths, open your eyes, look around you and name:
5 things you can see
4 things you can hear
3 things you can feel
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste
About the author:
Lorna is a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and Accredited Life Coach. Lorna holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and Mental Health and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Lorna is also a qualified Life Coach and Personal Performance Coach.
With more than 10 years’ experience in clinical practice, Lorna has worked with
over 3000 clients. Working closely with individuals on a range of issues including panic attacks; anxiety; stress; burn out; perfectionism; low self-esteem; and low mood, Lorna has helped countless clients achieve their goals of overcoming and coping with a variety of personal and professional difficulties.
Lorna adopts an integrative approach to client work, combining different tools and techniques from a variety of evidence-based psychological models of therapy and coaching to specifically meet clients’ needs; enabling transformational and lasting changes.
In addition to offering 1:1 online CBT and coaching sessions, Lorna delivers corporate talks, wellness workshops and consultation services.
Lorna has worked with and been featured in leading brands such as BBC News London, Harper's Bazaar, Sweaty Betty, Sheer Luxe, Hip and Healthy and many more.
To find more about Lorna head to her website, instagram or contact her via email.