This post is about anxiety, which is something we all experience at some point in our lives to different degrees. Anxiety is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Much of my work with clients experiencing anxiety involves, on one hand, an examination of the possible outcomes of anticipated events, and on the other hand, the physical and emotional ways the inner turmoil that the anticipation of these events can cause.
Runaway Thoughts
Anxiety can be characterized by runaway thoughts. You just can’t stop thinking about anticipated events, and the idea that they could go badly causes this inner turmoil. In session, a client might list several different ways things could go bad at the big work event tomorrow. It’s my job as a therapist to avoid getting into a back-and-forth about these thoughts. Friends and loved ones might react to this kind of discussion with words of encouragement, rebutting the client’s negative thoughts with positive ones, listing reasons why things will actually go well. Of course, this never makes the client feel better, and any suggestions toward the positive are often parried away with negative reactions that lead us right back to the place we started, deep down in the pit of anxiety. As a therapist, it’s not my job to come up with reasons to be excited or positive or not anxious. I’m here to explore the feelings of anxiety, not so much specifically in terms of how the work event will go this week, but more in the acceptance that this anxiety exists. We can only learn to work with it, to accept it, to understand it, and in the process lessen its power to keep us up at night.
But keep us up at night it does! Clients with moderate to intense anxiety might report being unable to sleep because they can’t stop thinking about some event in the future that will certainly go wrong. This is an example of what we might call Mental Gymnastics. It’s a common term that refers to the act of doing a lot of thinking, often about complex and complicated topics. It’s as if our client is a gymnast with a big meet coming up, but they are so anxious about their upcoming performance that they stay in the gym working on their routine over and over and over again. They work on this routine so much that eventually they become exhausted, and by the time the day of the meet comes around, they’re so sick of gymnastics that what was once an enjoyable and pleasant activity is now a slog, something to just get over with so we can be done with it.
What’s the best way for a gymnast to prepare for a meet? Now, I am not a gymnast, have never been to a gymnastics meet, and cannot do a cartwheel. But I asked around, and the general consensus seems to be practice and preparation, of course, but not so much that the gymnast is exhausted by the day of the meet. There is a certain amount of rest needed, both physical and mental. You practice all you can, prepare your best, and then rest up for the actual competition. By being so concerned about being prepared that we can’t stop preparing, we’re actually making it harder for us to succeed.
Coping With Anxiety
Hopefully the client will be able to see themselves as this gymnast, spending so much time worrying about the outcome of an event that they are in fact making it more likely that it will turn out just as badly as they imagine. Of course, this doesn’t make it any easier to stop an anxiety-fueled night of tossing and turning. But it might help us realize how not just futile but ultimately counterproductive our anxiety patterns are. Here is where we will then talk about the many ways to cope with anxiety. Not eliminate it, or bypass it, or zap it away, but cope, meaning to reduce. What can we do to reduce this stress and anxiety? This includes all the classics, like meditation, exercise, listening to music, etc. In session with clients, we’ll drill down into coping skills more specific to them, like going for a walk, listening to classical music, or cleaning the kitchen. Mindfulness is the antidote to anxiety, but it takes trial and error to figure out what activities work best for you.
It’s not the idea that we’re wasting all our energy as Mental Gymnasts the night before the big meet that somehow makes the anxiety go away. Thinking about it in this way can help externalize it, though, and in this way make it easier to see the cycle you are caught in as opposed to feeling like you’re inside the washing machine. From there, finding the right coping skills can help to reduce the anxiety until you reach a point where the anxiety hits, you identify it, and then know you can cope with it, reducing its effects to the point where it no longer keeps you up at night.