Four Practical Steps to Soothe Anxious Sensations
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Instead of fighting anxious sensations, try viewing them as an objective observer.
Shift from trying to silence sensations to asking what they are trying to communicate.
Real healing comes from offering your frightened nervous system a steady, kind, patient presence.
One of the most common questions I get in my anxiety relief courses is, “How do I get rid of anxious sensations as quickly as possible?”
This is a completely understandable question. When panic and anxiety show up, they don’t just stay in our thoughts, they tend to take over our physiology too. And it's unpleasant, to say the least. When the body feels like it’s in danger, it makes complete sense to desperately want to escape the discomfort.
This is one of the hardest parts of working with anxiety. The body is screaming “Danger!” while your mind is pleading, “Make these feelings go away.”
Of course, we don’t have to pretend to like anxious sensations. But difficulty arises when we hold the belief that the sensations must go away before we can be okay, or when we mistakenly believe that focusing on them or hating them will actually help to relieve them. When we get hyper-focused on the unpleasant sensations, it seems like that's all that exists. This creates a feedback loop where fear fuels sensations, and sensations fuel more fear.
To break this cycle, we don’t need to try to force the fear to leave. We need to change how we respond to it. Here are four practical shifts to help you navigate the internal storm of anxious sensations.
1. Widen Your........
