How to manage anxiety
How to manage anxiety
How to manage anxiety
Anxiety is a natural response to fear. It locks our attention on things we fear might happen.
The more attention is locked in certain memories, thoughts and behaviours the more anxiety can increase. We use our imagination to consider what may happen or ruminate about past events. We often refer to this as worrying.
We understand that as we develop through childhood our experiences and memories inform how we understand the world, ourselves and other people. Excessive anxiety based on worrying is often the result of unhelpful learning at some point in our lifetime. (The Human Givens approach recognises this learning as 'patterns'.)
Developing an objective, research-based approach to helping people manage anxiety is fundamental for Human Givens practitioners.
How The Human Givens approach can help:
- By teaching you how to relax. This is important because it allows you to:
. Lower your emotional arousal
. Recognise all your strengths and resources
. Rehearse success in feared situations, in the safety of your own imagination to begin with
. Face difficult and challenging memories, which allows associated anxiety to diminish.
- By teaching you how to notice and stop hyperventilation, using a breathing technique called 7/11; by helping you to understand the natural physiological changes in the body when the 'fight or flight' response is activated.
- By helping you to recognise unhelpful 'patterns' and knowing what you can do when you are aware of anxiety-provoking stimuli. The Human Givens approach will teach you to focus your attention outwards towards your environment. This will give you a wider, more helpful focus of attention, and will allow new, more helpful 'patterns' to develop.
- By trying out new ways of understanding the world and yourself so you can test out feared situations and thoughts.