Honors Project: Understanding and Coping with Anxiety

Hey guys! I'm Ann and this is my Honours Project!

The symptoms of anxiety can have a significant impact on how a person behaves and goes about their daily life. As someone who has suffered from anxiety all her life, Ive often looked at the Anxiety Cycle to pinpoint the area where I needed to barge in and break the loop. Ive tried to explain it below.

What is the Anxiety Cycle?

A trigger is basically anything that provokes or induces an anxious response. To someone who fears social interaction, the prospect of being asked to speak in front of an audience may be a trigger. To someone who fears heights, seeing a plane on TV may be a trigger. Triggers can range from big to small, and the fear that they induce is subjective. Triggers set in motion the Anxiety cycle, which consists of:

1. Thoughts: The essence of anxiety is worrying about some potential threat. It is trying to cope with a future event that you think will be negative. You do this by paying more attention to possible signs of potential threat, and looking internally to see whether you will be able to cope with that threat. When you notice your anxious symptoms, you think that you cant cope with the situation, and therefore become more anxious. Anxious thoughts usually involve the idea of not being able to cope with the anxiety and stress, the fear of being judged or the thought of going crazy.

2. Feelings- Feelings are enhanced and fed by the triggering thoughts. They involve the typical symptoms of anxiety, which include

-palpitations

-sweating

-shaking or trembling

-feeling shortness of breath or smothering

-sensation of choking

-chest pains or tightness

-nausea or gastrointestinal problems

3. Behaviour- They may be avoidance behaviours, or safety behaviours:

-Avoidance: As your anxiety increases, you try to reduce the anxiety and prevent what you think might happen by avoiding the situation. If you cannot avoid the situation, then you use subtle avoidance to reduce the anxiety. For example, you may use certain rituals, like standing close to a door to make a quick escape. In some way, you might feel less anxious when you engage in avoidance behaviours. However, when you have to deal with the situation the next time, you are less confident that you can cope with it because you avoided it the last time or become dependent on safety behaviours. So you feel more anxious. This cycle can go on until you feel very anxious and avoid going into different types of situations.

-Safety behaviours- These may include relying on medication, always having an exit plan for potentially-anxious situations, or making sure you have someone else with you. When you become dependent on them, it can be more distressing if one day they are not available to you.

Reversing the Vicious Cycle of Anxiety

Vicious cycles play an important role in maintaining anxiety. However, you can turn this cycle around to create a positive cycle that will help you overcome anxiety. One important step is gradually confronting feared situations. This will lead to an improved sense of confidence, which will help reduce your anxiety and allow you to go into situations that are important to you.

Some people might encourage you to tackle your biggest fear first – to jump in the deep end and get it over and done with. However, many people prefer to take it step-by-step. We call this graded exposure. You start with situations that are easier for you to handle, then work your way up to more challenging tasks. This allows you to build your confidence slowly, to use other skills you have learned, to get used to the situations, and to challenge your fears about each situational exposure exercise. By doing this in a structured and repeated way, you have a good chance of reducing your anxiety about those situations.

Personally, I have found that labelling your thoughts, feelings and emotions and fitting them into the Anxiety Cycle helps me realise exactly what is causing the anxiety and what can be done to reduce it. Doing so also helps us to understand the anxious response and feelings better and calmly think of a course of action.

Coping Skills: Breathing & Thinking Better

When you are gradually confronting feared situations, there will be a short term increase in anxiety. This is normal— everyone feels anxious about doing things they fear. The important thing to remember is that you can learn other skills as alternatives to avoidance and safety behaviours. Two major coping skills are:

-Breathing: Anxiety is often associated with fast, shallow breathing, which contributes to the physical sensation of anxiety. By slowing down your breathing and using calming and relaxation techniques, you can reduce your anxiety.

-Thinking: There are many types of negative thoughts which are associated with anxiety, such as I will not be able to cope or I must avoid this situation. Learning to challenge these thoughts with more balanced ones can help to reduce the experience of anxiety.

I have found the understanding of the Anxiety Cycle to be quite useful in coping with triggers and stress. I hope you all found the article helpful and informative. Ive tried to explain it as best as I could. And I hope the picture clarifies it further.

Lets have a discussion in this thread about my article!

Q1. What are the typical symptoms of your anxiety?

Q2. Did you know about the Anxiety Cycle before? Do you feel you can relate to how the cycle explains an anxious experience?

Q3. What techniques have you found to be useful in dealing with anxiety?

I look forward to hearing your answers. I'll reply to them all.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you stay fabulous <3