3 ways of dealing with anxious thoughts, when they just won’t leave you alone

When you have some anxious thoughts buzzing around and, sometimes the place we start is trying to be “rational” about it. We might try to find answers to the things we are worried about. We might ask for reassurance from someone else. Sometimes seeking answers works, if we can find one. But sometimes it doesn’t, because there are lots of things that don’t really have a 100% answer. Particularly the question:

“Are things going to be OK?”

So, for those times when your anxious thoughts are being particularly noisy, here’s three alternative ways of dealing with them:

“What would I say to a friend, in this situation, having these thoughts?”

Asking yourself what you would say to a friend can help you step outside of yourself for a moment. Sometimes that means that you can see something couldn’t see before.

The second thing that can help here is not only thinking about what you would say, but what tone of voice you would use. We tend to be kinder to the people that we care about than we are to ourselves. Sometimes the thing that helps is not so much about convincing yourself that things will definitely turn out OK, but just the soothing, calming tone.

Detaching

Picturing your thoughts as a cloud of bees, a flock of flapping birds, or something similar, is enough to help you feel a little distance from them.

This comes from a concept in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy called delusion: separating your thoughts from yourself. Being able to acknowledge them and watch them, without having to get drawn in.

You can take it further: you can imagine them flying upwards, away from you, or turning down the volume on the buzzing.

Getting out of your head

There are times when you can’t make your worries go away no matter what you do. They are just going to do their thing and buzz away. Sometimes the best thing to do is to accept that, and try to gently bring your attention back to what is going on in front of you: what you can see, hear, smell and taste.

Go for a walk and feel the wind on your face. Have a hot shower. Run your hands under cold water. Lie on the floor and breathe. Cook something and pay attention to the sounds and smells. Speak to someone and really look at their face while you do.

We always want the worries to go away, but sometimes it’s easier when we don’t fight it so much, and concentrate more on how we want to go about our day while they are there.

Thanks for reading. Until next week.

Ted

P.S. I use all of these, really, but the one that seems to work for me the best is detaching. I wonder if this is because I am a very visual person, so the imagery works well for me. What about you?