Tips for Dealing with Worry and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety are an everyday part of the busy family and work lives we lead. The way we recognise our responses to stress and anxiety and how we manage these emotions directly effects how quickly we can navigate periods of higher stress and steer a course to overall wellbeing.

• Watch your thinking. Beware of “What ifs” and a tendency to assume the worst in your mind. This is called catastrophic thinking. For example, a simple negative comment about one aspect of your work could trigger “What if my manager is not happy with me… I am performance managed…. I lose my job… I can’t pay the mortgage….” This leads to a lot of unnecessary fear and anxiety.
• Try not to focus on or visualise the “What ifs” playing out in your mind. Research shows that revisiting it over and over does not prepare you for the worst case scenario in any way and chances are you are focused on things that may never eventuate. In fact, greater than 90% of these things never actually happen. • How likely is it that your worst case scenario will actually happen? Think through this objectively (or ask a “chilled out” friend).
• Focus on the NOW, not the past or the future. Watch your body Anxiety tends to impact everyone’s body differently. Do you get an upset stomach, a tense neck? Other signs of stress and anxiety?
• Do a simple relaxation - close your eyes and scan through your body from your head to toes, relaxing the muscles in each area, letting them be loose and heavy. If you deliberately relax your body it will give your brain the message that it does not need to continue to send out ‘stress’ hormones and both your body and mind will calm down. Plan your worries
• Set aside 15 minutes a day ‘worry time’. If you find yourself worrying about the same things over and over again and not making any problem solving progress try restricting your worries to a set time. When it is finished, leave them aside until the next day. If you start to worry during the day, jot down the topic and leave it for your ‘worry time’.
• Write down your ideas for’ problem solving’ whatever issue is causing your worries. If after 5 minutes of thinking about them again you cannot add anything new to the list tell yourself: “I’m not achieving anything new now. I’ll revisit this when I can add something to my problem solving list”.

Some relevant websites: • Australian Centre for Post-Traumatic Mental Health • Anxiety Treatment Australia • Shyness and Social Anxiety Treatment Australia  • Beyondblue  • Black Dog Institute