Did you know that anxiety disorders are the world’s most common mental disorder affecting 301 million people worldwide as of 2019? In fact, more women than men suffer from anxiety and it is said that the symptoms have an early onset from childhood or adolescence years.
We always hear people talking about Anxiety, but do you know what it is and what causes or triggers anxiety? Anxiety is a complex disorder and as such there are different aspects to it, various schools of thought, thousands of research on it, and different ways to manage it.
According to the American Psychological Association anxiety can be best defined as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worry, recurring intrusive thoughts or concerns that may be characterized by a rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, sweating, shallow breathing, and dizziness.
Now that you understand what anxiety is, let’s understand what causes it and how to deal with the triggers.
Table Of Content
- Uncover Anxiety Causes With Introspection
- Understanding Anxiety Triggers
- Tips to Manage Anxiety Triggers
- Conclusion
Uncovering Anxiety Causes with Introspection
Anxiety can have many root causes and being a unique human being anxiety can stem from any part of our life. Anything from life-altering events such as being abused, getting married or divorced, health-related issues, or continuous exposure to problems at work. The list is endless as to what can cause or contribute to anxiety.
A great way to uncover some causes of your anxiety is through the process of introspection. Introspection simply is the process of doing an internal audit of yourself reflecting on your thoughts, feelings, and mental process. Introspection can give you great insight into what is working and not working within your life. It provides you with the opportunity to question and challenge yourself. A powerful tool that you can use when self-reflecting is to journal. There are so many great benefits to journaling to help you better understand your anxiety such as;
- Aiding you in fostering self-awareness and understanding yourself as it can provide a structured, tangible way to explore thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
- It helps you identify the root causes of your anxiety
- Gives you a safe space to emotionally express yourself, release tension and negative energy.
- It can certainly help you clarify your thoughts and help reduce your stress.
Now that you have an understanding of some of the benefits of doing introspection and journaling, here are some questions you can ask yourself.
When is your anxiety heightened?- What are your triggers, do you know?
- How do you react when you start to feel anxious?
- How do you manage yourself during periods of high anxiety? (What are your coping strategies?)
- How are you showing up for yourself when you have an anxiety attack?
- How does your anxiety affect you on a mental, physical and emotional level?
- How are your relationships affected by your anxiety?
- Is your anxiety crippling you?
- What coping strategies do you use to deal with anxiety?
Understanding Anxiety Triggers
Let’s look at some potential triggers and how you can best manage them.
Anxiety triggers are specific events, situations, or stimuli that can lead to the onset or exacerbation of anxiety symptoms. Triggers can vary widely among individuals, as people respond differently to different stressors.
- As mentioned earlier anxiety can be triggered by life-altering events such as moving, getting a divorce, or losing a loved one.
- Work or academic pressure too can be a trigger as you may be faced with an excessive workload consistently having to perform at your best and having to meet tight deadlines.
- Some introverted people may experience social anxiety if they are required to do public speaking or even have to engage with new people.
- Experiencing conflict in relationships can be a trigger for some as they fear rejection and abandonment
- Uncertainty and change is a huge contributing factor to anxiety, when you are unsure of what your future holds it can be a trigger.
Tips to Manage Anxiety Triggers
First and foremost, do not shy away from seeking professional help if you find that you can not manage your anxiety on your own, help is always available. Below are some strategies that can help you manage your anxiety. Keep in mind that consistency is key in order for these strategies to work.
- Life Altering Events: Incorporate mindful practices and stress reduction techniques such as physical exercise or activities, meditation, yoga and breathe work.
- Work or Academic Pressure: Manage your time well, prioritize tasks, break down difficult tasks, and ask for help.
- Social Setting: Get into the habit of challenging yourself by taking up hobbies that will require you to engage with others or attend social events you would not normally go to.
- Conflict in Relationships: Learn to communicate effectively, practice active listening during conflict as well as setting clear boundaries and sticking to it.
- Uncertainty & Change: Focus on the things that are within your control
Other Ways To Consider To Manage Anxiety Include:
Check yourself: Whilst encountering new things for the very first time in life can be an exciting time it can also be met with heightened levels of anxiety such as driving a car for the first time, writing your bar exam, giving your first presentation, moving away to a new zip code with no friends or family, being promoted, many things in life will excite us, and at the same time make us feel anxious.
In my opinion, it is normal to have anxiety from time to time depending on the situation. The moment anxiety keeps us from pursuing things outside of our comfort zone we should pause and consider why that is happening.
Let’s use the example of giving your first presentation at work, your possible thoughts may be. What if people do not understand me? What if I make a fool of myself? What will my manager and colleagues think of me? I am going to be the laughing stock of the team. What if I can’t articulate myself clearly? What if I suck? All these what-if questions can send you into a downward spiral and paralyze you.
I am here to challenge you and to remind you that YOUR MINDSET IS EVERYTHING. When you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation and your thoughts are running wild, start asking yourself questions such as:
- What am I fearing and why?
- What am I trying to control and why?
- Is my ego controlling my anxiety?
Remember, what people think of you is not your business, what you think of yourself has way more value and meaning. So what if I make a mistake? Shit, just take accountability, learn, laugh, and move on.
Be Present: Be present in the NOW. When we choose to actively stay in the present moment we are able to focus on things that are relevant and deter our minds from going down a rabbit hole. The more you practice this the less anxiety you will experience.
When we are not fully present and focused on what we are currently doing it can lead to anxiety in the short and long term as we would anxiously and annoyingly try to jog memory to try and remember if we executed a particular task or we could go into a complete frenzy for events that have not even taken place.
Watch where your thoughts go while you are driving, studying, working, engaging with others, or doing everyday tasks. Are you truly present in the moment?
Ask for Help: Trying to be your own superhero, trying to do everything by yourself and you are not capable can lead to anxiety. Learn to ask for help and support where needed.
Once again, what is it you want to control by not asking for help? Allow people to help you, it is not weak to ask for help. Also, accept that you will not always have the answer to every question or the capacity to do every single thing by yourself, be brave and wise enough to ask for help.
Be confident in your choices: Another possible trigger could be when you have to make decisions that have a great impact on your life, you may think, am I making the right choice? To make the “correct” choice, do your due diligence, research, draw up a pro and con list, etc., and then decide the best way forward for you.
Know that you made the best possible choice in that moment with the knowledge and resources you had and that there are no absolutes in life, if the choice you made turns out to not to be the correct, then oh well there’s a detour for you. Detours are not always welcomed, however, I believe that there is always something to learn. I leave you with this thought as someone once shared with me that indecision causes suffering, think about that.
Focus on you: Another trigger point of anxiety is that we do not want to disappoint our loved ones, the reality is you can not please everyone all the time, it is not healthy, beneficial, or productive. Keep your focus on yourself, do what is right for you, and set boundaries with others. You are not doing yourself any justice by trying to please everyone.
Conclusion
In the light of what I have shared with you, know that anxiety can be managed, there is no one-size fits all, try different strategies to help you get to the root causes of anxiety so that you better manage it, use the reflective questions from this article to help you shift the way you think about your problem. The only person you can control is yourself. Reach out if you are struggling with managing your anxiety.
Book your free discovery call today. https://calendly.com/embolden_coaching/free-initial-consultation
