5 Ways To Make Your Anxiety Work For You

It may often feel like your anxiety is constantly working against you. I have felt like that many times. One minute I have felt confident in my ability to accomplish whatever it was I was working towards and the next minute I felt like I could not possibly complete the task.

That thought, however, that fuels my anxiety, the thought that I’m not capable, is a lie. It simply is not true.

We are all capable of overcoming whatever gives us anxiety. We are also all capable of making our anxiety work for us. We do not have to simply live with anxiety but we can make anxiety live for us!

Here are a few ways to make your anxiety work for you:

Recognize That Your Anxiety Works To Keep You Alive

Anxiety is simply experiencing fear in anticipation of a threat or perceived threat. This is a function to keep us alive if there is a harm to our health.

Recognizing anxiety as simply that, something to help us live well, is the first step to making anxiety work for you.

Perhaps the next time you experience anxiety of some kind you may consider thanking it as it has a function for you, despite how painful it may seem.

And then, you can take it a step further and try to analyze what your anxiety is trying to warn you about.

Sometimes, of course, it will be obvious (e.g. a job interview), but occasionally the reason for your anxiety may not be immediately apparent, so take a few moments to see if you can work out what the potential issue is.

Recognize That Your Anxiety Means That You Care

Typically when we are anxious about something, it means we care.

Take the following examples:

starting to feel anxious when a deadline for an assignment comes up
preparing to have an important conversation with a loved one
getting ready for a doctor’s appointment.

These are all common situations that provoke anxiety.

Why?

Because we care. We care about the quality of the work that we do. We care about our relationships. We care about our health.

Accept Your Anxiety As Part Of You

It may be that your anxiety is simply a part of you.

This is neither good nor bad, it just is true.

Your anxiety is a part of what makes you uniquely you. And while that may seem painful at times, it is also quite beautiful.

The next time that you feel anxious, it may be helpful to just name it. For example you can say: “That is just my anxious self coming out again”. For whatever reason, when you acknowledge your anxiety it seems to create a sort of distance between you and what is making you anxious. It is like you stop giving it so much weight.

Remember, people fear the unknown, so once you acknowledge that it’s your anxiety that’s making you fearful, then it’s no longer an unknown.

Listen To Your Anxiety

Listening to your anxiety is one of the most simple ways to make it work for you.

Perhaps you have recognized it, thanked it, and continued to try to work through it and there it remains.

This may mean that you are not ready to tackle whatever is giving you anxiety.

That is okay!

To walk away from having that conversation with a loved one at this time as a way of loving and taking care of yourself does not mean that you cannot have it in another week or even month. It may simply mean that you need to spend more time thinking about how to do so.

Listening to your anxiety is not failure – it can be a form of self-care.

Accept Help

Sometimes our anxiety can reach a point where it is preventing our ability to function so significantly that accepting help is a wonderful solution.

In fact, experiencing any level of anxiety is grounds for asking for help.

We do not have to do this alone!

There are many different ways to ask for and accept help. This is a highly personal experience and nobody gets to decide what is right for you except yourself. This could be as simple as talking with friends about their experiences and what has worked for them.

Anxiety is more common than we like to believe. Oftentimes we think we are the only one feeling this way and that simply is not true.

It could also include asking for a referral for counseling services or group counseling services. This is a wonderful way to talk through what prompts your anxiety and learn more about it. It will help you identify tools and strategies to overcome your anxiety.

(Speaking from my own experiences, I thought I would prefer one-on-one counseling over group sessions, but it turned out to be the other way round. The point here, then, is, not to prejudge what will work for you, because sometimes you may completely wrong.)

It may also include accepting a prescription for a medication to help reduce anxiety. There are many medications on the market to help reduce anxiety. Generally it is most helpful to accept a prescription from a Psychiatrist, however a Primary Care Physician can also write prescriptions.

One word of warning though – all prescription drugs usually have a long list of side-effects and adverse reactions – if you don’t believe me, just do a search for any prescription drug followed by the words “side effects”, and click on any of the top results.

In fact, many antidepressants (especially those known as SSRIs) are known to be capable of causing suicidal thoughts, so I would only consider using these medications as a last recourse, if nothing else works.

It could include a combination of these interventions. It can also include using homeopathic remedies. These are all perfectly acceptable means of accepting help and they can help make your anxiety work for you.

Conclusion

What is most important is that you find ways of making your anxiety work for you. It could include one or more of these strategies or it could include other strategies that you identify.

It is an incredible feeling to live well despite struggling with anxiety. It is possible even if you have not yet found the way to make your anxiety work for you! You may have to just keep trying.

Re-framing your anxiety as a way of understanding it is helpful. Thanking it for working for your safety is helpful. Listening to it or asking for help may be the route for you.

Whatever it is, explore it and try to find new ways of living well.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Online Therapy