Anxiety
Anxiety is the body preparing for a threat. It becomes a problem when the alarm keeps sounding long after there is anything to prepare for.
What it can look like
- Worry that loops and won’t switch off, often about several things at once
- Physical signs — a racing heart, tight chest, churning stomach, shallow breathing
- Trouble falling asleep because the mind becomes loud at night
- Avoiding situations, then feeling relief, then avoiding them more
- Irritability, or feeling permanently on edge without knowing why
- Difficulty concentrating, because attention is busy scanning for problems
What tends to help
- Naming it. Anxiety loses some of its grip when you can say “this is anxiety” rather than treating every worried thought as a fact that must be solved.
- Slowing the breath out. A longer out-breath than in-breath settles the nervous system. It is not a cure, but it lowers the volume enough to think.
- Approaching rather than avoiding. Avoidance is what keeps anxiety alive. Going towards the feared thing gradually, in steps you choose, is what shrinks it.
- Regular sleep, food and movement. Unglamorous, and the first things to slip. An under-slept, under-fed body produces more anxiety on its own.
- Limiting reassurance-seeking. Repeatedly checking or asking others if it will be fine brings relief for minutes and strengthens the habit for months.
When to seek support
If anxiety is shaping your decisions — what you will and won’t do, where you will and won’t go — or has lasted several weeks and isn’t shifting, it is worth talking to someone.
How I can help
Anxiety is one of the areas I work with most. Sessions usually look at what you are thinking and doing when anxiety spikes, and build a way of facing those situations at a pace you set. This is cognitive behavioural work, and it is practical rather than abstract.
If you need urgent help Counselling is not an emergency service. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please contact your local emergency services, or call Tele-MANAS, the Government of India mental health helpline, on 14416 (available 24 hours).