Finding a Fix for an Anxious Mind

We all have to agree that the generation of millennials is the one which is riddled with maximum anxiety. There is so much which is at stake here – the pressure to make it big before one turns 30 years of age, and all. About 86 percent of all millennials go through this, termed as quarter-life crisis.

Says an expert, anxiety is a signature of something in your system which is making your life go out of control. It is your gut feeling which is giving you warning signs that something, somewhere, in your life and times is not quite on the right track.

As per Tim JP Collins, an expert in anxiety and stress, sometimes we try to side-step this whole issue and ignore warning bells.

But if we try and synergize with our inner selves, we discover that we should pay heed to such red flags in order to be physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually well. He placed the following a few steps method in front of us, to be able to deal with such a state of disorderliness.

One, silence and speak – this means to tune in with your inner soul music and resonate with what it says; to go with the flow of this.

Two, listen – do not jar or be loud about what is not there or make a big issue about what does exist.

Three, practice the 3Cs – curiosity (always try to fulfill whatever it is that you seek to know about, your quest for knowledge should always be quenched and not drowned); courage (be strong enough to face what is happening and rise up to the occasion); compassion (be nice to yourself and to others, do not ignore anyone or anything).

As we well know, we are living in the Age of Anxiety. We are people who are born to worry; born to have some fear or another always dogging our footsteps. Studies have revealed that 15-20 percent of all babies react strongly to different events and happenings and these are the ones who are likely to develop anxiety as adults.

Jerome Kagan – professor of psychology at Harvard says – there are three ways to pinpoint any given emotion – the physiological state of a brain, how a person elucidates on the feeling and the behaviour this feeling leads to. Some people think anxiety is a form of being on ‘high alert’.

Anxiety is not fear, per se, but in some sense, we scare easy of something which actually may not be scary and be a factor x or y which may not even exist at all; when such feelings begin to play on your power to function normally and properly – it turns into a clinical anxiety issue.

Anxiety, incidentally, is the most common mental illness in the US, and about 40 million adults are said to be afflicted with it, as per records from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Inside of our brain is a part called the Amygdala. In people who are the anxious sort, the Amygdala is an over-sensitized kind of organ part which gets into an overactive mode even if something small-size happens. What has also come to light is that if you have something to keep you productive and occupied, anxiety may become something just in the background for you. It may not be a sensation which gives you sleepless nights anymore.

Nonetheless, if you are an unoccupied or an under-occupied person, you may get to go through its full effect; being strong enough to find something suitable to do in the face of an event which may cause anxiety, is half the battle won.

Some people learn to circumvent anxiety. They understand their own selves – that they get rattled easily and thus, take precautions beforehand to not let circumstances and events overcome them.

For instance, if you know that last minute panic attacks trouble you, be prepped up for known events in advance so that this does not happen. If you feel easily overwhelmed with exams – try to be thorough in your work and revise your studies twice in place of the usual just once. It is a good idea to be your own best friend and come to terms with your mental state.

Learning and accepting your anxious bent of mind is the first step towards fighting and overcoming these odds. Take it from there – accepting you are anxious and then analyzing what it is that makes you so. Work your way through your fears.

Immersing yourself in some spiritual odyssey or another is yet another manner to alleviate anxiety. Chanting verses, saying prayers, involving yourself in rituals, all these may actually bring in a sense of peace and serenity in your mind and soul energy. You may learn to condition your mind to be less anxious and calm. Embracing satvik living (starting with eating food with onions and garlic et al), may help some.

Sometimes, just going out and meeting with people with whom you connect and bond over a common ground, may bring in a sense of togetherness and a feeling of wellness.

Like mentioned above, listen to what you want, do not ignore yourself. Talk to yourself. Learn about what it is that drives you, motivates you. Try to be forgiving to others, and even forgive yourself for what you think you have not done correctly.

It is best to not override anxiety. In its place, try to give it some corner in your mind and heart in such a way that it benefits you.

We have touched upon it before about how strangely anxiety benefits you that simply speaking, anxiety is a sensation of something gone amiss and apprehension which makes you all alert. Thus, you are forewarned about several factors if you are anxious. Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed. Hence, anxiety could be actually good for you as well.

However, living in a perpetually anxious state may leave you feeling uneasy most of the time. It may drain you since you always harbor a feeling of foreboding about what is going to happen in future or what happened in the past could have been dealt with in a better fashion. This, in itself, is not such a good feeling.

It may tire you, may frazzle and upset you. Hence, think your way through it. You first need to be positive that even if you are anxious, it is for your own good – so that you can be on guard about what may go wrong and take corrective action in advance.

Overall, the end result may actually be a happy one – that you make fewer errors than what you may have made.

And well, you must have noticed and wondered that of the people suffering from anxiety, many tend to conceal it from the rest. Why? Here’s to it.

—

Hey, there? This article has been picked to be republished under the ‘Best of TNT’ series. It is a step further for the content to be contagious to make it counted yet again and for the ones who missed it!