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Treating Anxiety

Is it possible to visualize anxiety away? This past week, I was watching an interview with an extraordinary rock climber named Alex Honnold. He has been climbing rock faces without a safety rope for years; and despite the terrifying nature of his exploits, he somehow maintains a state of calm even when thousands of feet above the ground. How does he do this? One strategy he uses is visualization. He visualizes anxiety away. Before each climb, Alex practices not only by climbing the rock face with ropes but also by imagining every step in climbing his route. He imagines what he'd do if certain things went wrong over and over again so that by the time he actually begins his climb, nothing can really phase him. By processing the challenges he'd face beforehand, Alex not only prepared himself for the physical challenge of his climbs, but also for the mental challenges. 
Last Monday, I realized I needed to change my self-talk too late. I was working on a project that had taken a lot of time and effort. It was a challenge to keep working at it, and as the day progressed, I became increasingly frustrated -- not with the work itself, but with myself. My inner dialogue became more and more negative, producing many thoughts that were discouraging and not helpful. The more I experienced these thoughts, the less focused I was on my work, and this made it really difficult to finish my project quickly. The stress of completing this project ultimately made me feel angry and annoyed with myself despite the fact that the challenges I faced were not my fault, but instead were the natural consequence of taking on a complicated project. What I didn't realize until afterward, however, was just how much I could have changed my self-talk to improve my mental state and productivity. 
Anxiety can take all of your attention, but you can take it back. You see, I had a really interesting learning experience this week. I was working to finish a manuscript, and I devoted a lot of time to this task over the course of the week. Initially, I felt very productive and like I was making a lot of progress. But as I came closer to completing the manuscript, I found myself feeling less focused on what I needed to be doing. The fewer steps between me and finishing writing, the less I thought about what I could work on next and the more I thought about what I didn't like about it. Perhaps unintuitively, as I thought more about what I didn't like about my writing, the less productive I became.
Maintaining healthy relationships when you're under stress is difficult. For example, this past week, I had a really tough time at work. I was feeling sick, working on a lot of projects, and struggling just to keep my head above water. As the week went on, I became progressively more focused on myself, trying to figure out how to get through all of my work and stop feeling so stressed out by it. Unfortunately, this meant that I was devoting most of my attention to myself and wasn't supporting my girlfriend as I normally would. By the end of the week, I was struggling to figure out what I could do differently to be supportive despite the stress I was experiencing at work.
Think small improvements to reduce anxiety -- what does that mean? I'll explain. This past week, I was walking to work and had to stop for what felt like an inordinately long light. Eventually, it changed and I realized that the whole time I was waiting, I could have crossed the adjacent street. Now, this other street is much smaller than the one I was trying to cross, but even so, it would have brought me closer to my destination than just standing there waiting. Oddly enough, this experience made me think about anxiety and the costs of waiting for a major change instead of looking for other, small opportunities to improve.
Is anxiety ever an opportunity rather than an obstacle? If you’re experiencing anxiety frequently, it is tempting to think of it solely as a negative, frightening experience. However, anxiety at its most basic level is a protective response that can help you adapt to threats in your environment. The next time you feel anxious, try developing a positive mindset about your anxiety by using it as an opportunity to improve.
Every year, I take time to reflect on my experiences and identify goals I want to pursue. Inevitably, some of these new year's goals fall by the wayside, regardless of how passionate I was about them at the start of the year. For a long time, I couldn't figure out why I stuck with some of my goals but not others. Eventually, I realized it was for a simple reason: some of my new year's goals set me up for failure.
Anxiety often seems to come from out of nowhere, interrupting your day and making it difficult to focus. This kind of anxiety can make it feel like you have no control over it, but anxiety can actually be broken down and understood as something we all have experience with: habit.
We need to know how to reduce anxiety quickly. During a busy day at work or school, a lot of situations that are anxiety-inducing can arise -- whether conflicts with coworkers, challenging assignments, or upcoming deadlines. Unfortunately, when you're moving quickly from one task to the next, it can be difficult to address your anxiety without taking a lot of time away from your work. Because of this, I wanted to share three ways you can reduce your anxiety in under three minutes. These anxiety strategies can be used in combination with each other or individually -- the key is to choose one and use it whenever you really need to reduce anxiety quickly.
Did you know you can short-circuit your anxious thoughts? You can, and I'll tell you how.