Tips for Anxiety #2

I hope you found the first article about anxiety tips helpful. If you missed it, please check it out.  Here are a few more tips that I’ve found to be helpful.

  • Get off Social Media & Turn off Your Phone
  • Find Something Bigger than you and Get Involved
  • Do What Scares You

Get off Social Media and Turn Off Your Phone.  What?!?  Are you crazy, Mike?  I can’t turn off my Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/LinkedIn/Tumblr/Pinterest feed!  I have to check my email all the time! What will I do?!?!?  That’s a really good question.  Did you know that social media and screen time actually isolates people?  If you doubt me, the next time you go to a restaurant, take a look at how many families are talking vs. staring at screens.  Then tell me that screen time and social media doesn’t isolate people.  If you want to be less anxious, spend more time interacting with people and less time wrapped up in the fake electronic world.  I have made the personal decision to significantly limit my use of social media.  Reading other people’s feeds usually ended up costing me time and making me upset.  Does that happen to you?

Find Something Bigger Than You and Get Involved.  As C.S Lewis so aptly put it, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”  Anxiety is generally an internal problem, something that goes on in our own heads.  If you’re concerned about helping others or completing a project, you’re going to have less time to engage in worry thoughts, so get busy.

Do What Scares You.  I’m not suggesting you go jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but I am suggesting that you face your fears.  If your anxiety is related to something you can physically do, such as having a difficult conversation with someone, volunteering for something, talking to your boss, applying for a job or talking in front of a group, this is a fear that you can realistically face.  A basic example of that is that if you’re a man who is afraid to ask a woman out on a date, your homework would be to go ask 100 women out on a date.  Chances are that if you did the homework you’d get a date before you reached 100.  This is where tip #2 comes in – facing your fear requires asking yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen if I face this fear?”  If it’s not the end of the world and doesn’t put you in danger, chances are that you can face that fear and conquer it.

This article is not meant to provide clinical, therapeutic or legal advice.  This is not a substitute for professional therapeutic help.  If you’re in need of professional help, please contact me or a professional like me.  This is offered as educational information only.

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