– Tips for Managing Anxiety (Part 3 of 10): Shifting your awareness.

Last Updated on June 26, 2013 by Chris Roberts

 Noticing what you are noticing, and changing what you are feeling.

 References- “10 Best-Ever Anxiety-Management Techniques” an article on Psychotherapy Networker by Margaret Wehrenberg

One of the most debilitating effects of anxiety is that a person begins to believe (also read: fear) that it will never end, that it will never get better, and it will eventually infect every area of their life.  A two-part system begins to occur.  There is the organic anxiety that develops from past experiences which are triggered in current circumstances.  And then there is the projected anxiety which is created through the belief and fear that anxiety needs to be defended against at all costs, because of how uncomfortable it can feel.

Anxiety is a magnificent beast.  It is overwhelming and overpowering, and yet incredibly difficult to nail down.  Because anxiety initiates from an innocuous place of arousal, it is difficult to discern in its beginning stages whether it is actually anxiety or something more enjoyable, like excitement, happiness, or joy.  In order for a person to be able to experience joy and excitement, a person needs to allow the initial feelings of arousal to develop into its more mature state.  A person stuck in the projected fear of anxiety will not allow the beginning stages of arousal develop past its infant state.

A method to help calm a person’s body and allow them to give an appropriate “waiting period” for the arousal to develop is referred to as: mindfulness.  Some refer to it as mindful awareness.  You can find a plethora of material on mindfulness, and there has recently been a branch of psychotherapy created called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which focuses heavily on mindfulness.  In Margaret Wehrenberg’s article, she outlines a simple exercise for someone feeling stuck in the throes of anxiety:

1. Clients close their eyes and breathe, noticing the body, how the intake of air feels, how the heart beats, what sensations they have in the gut, etc
2. With their eyes still closed, clients purposefully shift their awareness away from their bodies to everything they can hear or smell or feel through their skin.

The point of this exercise is to garner a person’s confidence in being able to manage and control what a person is focusing on.  So much of the overwhelming power of anxiety comes from the person’s belief that their body is out of their control.  It feels as if their body is taking control and the person is just along for the ride…and a nauseous, exhausting ride at best.

Similar to the breathing exercise described in a previous post, there is no perfect method to accomplishing this task.  The overall goal of the exercise is for the person to believe that they have the power to shift their own awareness from inside their body to outside their body, and back and forth as often as they choose.  As a person begins to believe that even when a strong physical sensation of anxiety starts to sweep over their body they have the power to stop and focus their attention and energy on something outside their body, they will lessen the intensity of the organic anxiety, and decrease the frequency of the projected anxiety.