Learn how to beat anxiety

Our age could be justifiably called the age of anxiety. It would seem that more and more people are suffering from this terrifying and terrible condition, however, it’s preventable and can be recovered from, as Tim Roberts explains

There are many reasons for the prevalence of anxiety and each person who experiences anxiety will have a different story to tell.

For some of us, the roots of this condition could be found in
a fractured family life, the pressures of being a single parent,
striving to make a living in the face of adversity or having a
high-stimulation environment with limited opportunities to
physically, emotionally and mentally discharge tension.

One of the big factors in the anxiety epidemic – and it is not
too dramatic to call it this – is the pressure of work. Meister
Eckhart, a 14th-century mystic and powerful influence on Christianity, said that even then that many people are worked rather than working.

I fear this is much worse today. In many nations, there echoes a mantra of “do more with less.” What this often means is that people will be expected to do more and use the word “no” less.

In this time of recession, when there is very little solid ground,
there is very little desire to say no in case it somehow makes
us vulnerable to restructuring (such a dreadful, dehumanising and cold word!). This, or maybe the datadrenching most of us face, or perhaps a higher intensity work experience with less space to restore ourselves, or to laugh, leads to feelings of being overwhelmed, powerless and alone.

This sense of dislocation can be something that makes us
more susceptible to anxiety, especially when it is coupled with
relentless demands.

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I have suffered from anxiety in the past and I found ways
through it and back to calmness and joy. When I experienced this cloud of despair, I was a constable and, later, a sergeant.

No one was very helpful to me, although many tried to be. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

I recall that doctors wanted to give me medicine for depression
(I didn’t feel depressed, just anxious) and told me that it would be a simple “cause and effect” and when I found the single cause, I could stop the whole effect. This didn’t help because I couldn’t find a single conscious cause and then started to get anxious about this too!

I did find ways to get peace back. Some of these were more
or less instant while others built up the way we build up a healthy bank balance by investing a little very often.

I would now like to share some of these ways of getting
through it that may help you. What follows are my personal stepping-stones for getting beyond anxiety.

Acupuncture
Get to acupuncture immediately. Traditional Chinese medicine treats anxiety as an energy imbalance and, therefore, a physical condition.

A skilful acupuncturist can help restore your qi or energy
balance and thereby remove or reduce the symptoms of anxiety. Be sure to find a skilful practitioner, ask around.

Exercise
Exercise at least 30 minutes three times a week starting today. Many studies show that rigorous exercise reduces the
symptoms of anxiety.

I would run three to five miles a day as fast as I could (which
was not very fast) and found this to be immediately helpful.

Many people find a regular exercise routine helps keep anxiety at bay and lessens the amount of the stress hormone, cortisol, in the bloodstream.

Find a form of exercise that is safe and fun for you.

Meditation
Learn to meditate and make this a part of who you are. Meditation brings some of the most profound benefits for human health. Brains that meditate regularly physically alter and seem far less susceptible to anxiety.

Find a wise meditation teacher and do it now. Avoid flunkies,
idiots or people who charge to teach meditation because this
does not fit with the higher values I would expect meditators
to have.

Many people start meditating by focusing on their breath. It
worked for me and almost instantly reduced the huge anxiety
I felt. More than anything, meditation has kept anxiety at bay for me and I have been meditating for 14 years now.

A very effective meditation technique is to use the mantra “Buddho.” Everything you need to know about this mantra meditation is found on page 19 of the excellent book Mindfulness by Ajahn Sumedho (www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/
deathless.pdf).

This is a Buddhist site but meditation, although finely-tuned by
Buddhists, is not religious and can be practised by anyone. If
I wanted to learn meditation today, I would contact my nearest Buddhist monastery and explain how I was suffering and I would be confident they would try to help me.

If you are suspicious of something like this, instead, check
out the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus
and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the
Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society.
YouTube has some very helpful Kabat-Zinn videos and his many
books and CDs are valuable resources.

Who creates anxiety?
Remember who creates anxiety– we do! Realising this gave
me back a sense of power. Our minds are so powerful that they
can create suffering within us or harmony and this same mind
can restore harmony to where there was suffering.

You have done this many times before in your life, from the moment when you were shocked from the birth process
and had to breathe air for the first time. You will restore yourself now too.

I created an anxiety pattern and I can create a new healing pattern. In my opinion, this is all about patterns. Anxiety is a habit or a pattern that we learn to replay in response to certain triggers.

The first of the four roots of the anxiety habit is fear of what might happen to us (this accelerates the pattern). The
second is focusing beyond the present moment into the future,
i.e. what if this happens, what if that happens (this gives the
anxiety pattern its power to destabilise us).

The third root is the desire to resist or fight the anxiety that we are creating, which can prolong the anxiety experience. This fighting paradoxically strengthens the anxiety because we are actually holding on to it as we fight it.

I guess it’s like wrestling, where two opponents become
locked together. The way to “fight” anxiety is counterintuitive
to some people and centres on accepting it and looking after
the anxiety like a mother holding a newborn.

And the fourth root is sensation of confusion, a sort of “why
is this happening again?” and when this confusion manifests,
it drives our thinking away from the present moment.

In the past, as we overcome worrisome patterns we expand
our sense of competence. When this sense of competence becomes unconscious, we don’t even register the worry as worry and automatically process the comfortable coping pattern or the solution.

Healing habit
Building the healing habit – current brain research talks about
neuroplasticity, the tendency of the brain to reshape itself in the face of new learning.

Neuroplasticity gives us the clue to the anxiety pattern.
Neuroplasticity was the process that took the seeds of our
anxiety and moulded them into a pattern and in so doing routed
part of our behaviour choices through this pattern. Neuroplasticity gives us the way out of anxiety too.

When you feel anxiety coming on, interrupt the pattern and build a new one. Find what works for you, perhaps meditating, walking, gardening, exercising, etc.

An excellent book on Neuroplasticity is The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science by Norman Doidge MD. Read chapter 6, The brain unlocked.

Stay in the moment
Stay in the present moment. More than anything else, this is key to success and ongoing balance. Anxiety cannot live in
the present moment but only in the future.

By returning to the present moment we release anxiety’s grip
on us because in the present second we are always safe. Find
ways that work for you and that enable you to do this regularly.

One thing is sure – if you are suffering from anxiety you can,
and will, recover. And you can be happier, more content, complete and effective than ever before.

Embrace this as a gift and keep telling yourself that you can, and will, be successful. Surround yourself with positive
people who will also tell you this.