Practical Ways to Manage Anxiety

The ways of anxiety are confusing and hard to break. I talked last week in Coming to Terms With Anxiety about the difficulty of acknowledging that anxiety has a grip on me. After coming to terms with this condition, it is even more challenging to figure out how to manage it. For a long time, I was told to “let it go” or “give it to God”. While this advice is good in theory, it is difficult to figure out in practical terms what it means. This week, I wanted to give a list of some things that have helped me manage my anxiety.

First of all, it is important to know what anxiety is. In order to figure out why I thought the way I did, I had to know what kind of battle was going on in my mind. The longer I stayed ignorant about the way my mind was processing things, the longer I couldn’t reclaim my life.

When I began researching anxiety, I noticed these recurring ideas about what anxiety is:

-"anxiety is more visceral in that we feel it throughout our bodies" Psychology Today

-"often triggers which can make your anxiety worse or increase the probability you'll experience anxiety" Anxiety.org

-"feelings of dread, distress, or agitation for no discernible reason" Anxiety.org

             Something I realized was anxiety was not helpful. Thoughts that dominate anxiety are crippling. While worry seems to help us get a job done and often motivates us to work at something, anxiety was debilitating. I started to see that the types of thoughts I was thinking were not allowing me to live the productive life I wanted to live. Unlike worry, I couldn’t just tell myself to stop thinking a certain way. Therefore, I had to start by realizing that anxiety was not something I could will out of myself. I would need to put some work into figuring out the “why” and “how” of anxiety.

I needed to identify the things in my life that triggered the feelings of anxiety. I needed to reprogram my thoughts. I needed to seek help from someone who could objectively speak to my situation. I needed to keep my mind on the truth of God.

The first thing I did was begin to take note of the times in my day in which my anxiety seemed to “act up” the most. I started to see a pattern: when I felt a lack of control, my thoughts seemed to “run wild”. It would cause me to assume the worst. I would begin to fear something that was totally unreasonable. My triggers seemed to be areas in my life where I didn’t seem to have the answer.

Once I had a running list of areas in which my anxiety hit worse, I began to identify what things in these situations were in my control and what things were not. I had to be really honest with myself about what was able to be helped by my actions and what was not. My counselor helped me with this process (I’ll talk more about that, later). As I began to acknowledge my role in uncontrollable situations, I began the process of letting go of things that were out of my control.

Despite the progress I was making with identifying problem areas, I still needed help with my thoughts. While I understood that I couldn’t tell myself to stop thinking things, I needed something to replace those controlling thoughts with. I found out that I could fill my mind with things that turned my focus off myself and to God. My previous thoughts were negative and generally assumed the worst. They were usually selfish, assuming that everyone and everything was out to get me. Often times, I couldn’t even pray over my situation because I felt so far away from God. At points during the beginning of healing, I had no appetite (for physical or spiritual food). I didn’t see God as helping me with the moments of panic. I couldn’t understand why a God who loved me so much would allow me to feel such physical pain. My selfish thoughts were preventing me from seeing that God loved me and had a better plan for me.

One way I filled my mind with a correct view of God was to speak truth over myself. God’s Word is truth and life (John 17:17). When my mind was telling me lies about who God was and how He was in control, I had to be ready with scriptural affirmations. There is a really great list of scriptural affirmations if you sign up for 7 Day Anxiety Detox E-series, by Brittney Moses, a blogger about faith and mental wellness. 

One really powerful thing that helped me was prayer journaling. Prayer journaling allowed me to be real with God on a level I had never had. I have worked on praying in the past, but had never been 100% authentic in the words I said. I would often understate my struggles as a way of maintaining control over my situation. By writing down my struggles on paper, I was forced to be honest with God. There is this necessity for transparency when I saw my words written on a page. Prayer journaling also allowed me to rehearse the truth that I was filling my heart with. As I wrote out God’s truth on the pages, they were being etched into my heart. Prayer journaling for me was an intentional way of honestly opening up to God and proclaiming truth to myself.

The last thing that really helped my progress was to see a Christian Counselor. The reason I even mention that my counselor was Christian is because the way your life views are a reflection of who you claim as Lord. I didn’t want to be getting advice on something related to my mental health by someone who didn’t acknowledge that there was a spiritual aspect to anxiety. I have to be honest that seeing a counselor was not the first thing on my agenda. There is a lot of stigma in the Christian community towards counseling that I think needs to be removed. In my case, an objective trained person helping me get to the root of my thoughts was critical to my progress. I needed someone to look at my situation and see the things that I was unwilling to look at. My counselor helped me come to terms with my anxiety and see how it was related to my spiritual health. In addition, my counselor gave me really practical day-to-day strategies for prevention and intervention. I will continue to rally for Christians to see counselors, when necessary.

While I have a much better handle on my anxious thoughts and behaviors, I am still vulnerable. My mind wants to revert back to the distress I used to embrace. I want to act out of fear, rather than faith. God has not given me a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). I am still learning how to acknowledge my mental health issues, yet live in confidence that there is relief. I do not have to be defined by anxiety, anymore. I pray that anyone who is struggling with this will realize that there are others who have gone or are going through this. There is no shame is realizing you have anxiety. When you release your fears of judgment or shame, you can finally begin the road to management.