5 Tools to Manage Overwhelming Anxiety

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While all people experience anxiety, some are paralyzed by the emotion. Intense, overwhelming anxiety can lead to complete physical immobilization, overwhelming emotion, and dread. If this emotional emergency is taking over your life or someone you know, here are the steps that will help restore emotional balance.

The Big Picture: Emotional Balance

When we are not under too much pressure and experiencing good relationships, safety, and health, we are less likely to struggle with our thoughts and emotions. Everybody seems emotionally healthy when they are on vacation. But add some pressure from unexpected bills, interpersonal conflict, health issues, and work deadlines, and we begin to show signs of struggle.

Too often, we only consider our emotional health once it is a problem. And when we are distressed, we are not sure what is wrong or how to start working on the problem. A model is vital for understanding what is wrong and what we can do to restore our emotional balance.

When you attend a sixth-grade band concert, you will likely hear some interesting sounds but not too much harmony. The band director struggles to get each section of the band to pay attention to the music, listen to other sections of the band, and follow their conducting.

The mind is like the band director; the band is similar to the different areas of the brain that need to be coordinated, and the musical score represents the direction we are heading to build a good life for ourselves. Emotional well-being is a function of the mind's ability to direct the flow of energy and information in the brain away from chaos and rigidity toward stability, harmony, and a focused direction.

When emotionally balanced, our mind monitors our physical sensations, thoughts, memories, emotions, needs, and social connections. We are aware of ourselves, open to our experiences, know where we are heading with our lives, and able to evaluate what we are thinking, feeling, and doing.

But our emotional well-being can easily get lost. When we do not monitor, evaluate, and modify the brain's activity, we lose control and become dysregulated. Our anxieties, fears, unhelpful thoughts, and distressing physical sensations start running our lives, rather than the mind. In a matter of seconds, we go from a stable state to being highjacked by thoughts and emotions.

Five Tools for Managing Anxiety

Overwhelming anxiety and panic are excellent examples of emotional dysregulation. The mind, which should be directing the brain in a focused direction, becomes a passenger and is taken for a ride—unhelpful thoughts, old memories, physical sensations, and overwhelming emotions have taken control. When this occurs, here are five tools that can help you get back into the driver's seat of your life:

1. Eyes—Use your five senses to notice what is happening around you. Start with your eyes and notice a few specific objects, colors, shapes, or textures. Then, shift the focus of your attention to notice different sounds, both near and farther away. Notice how many different physical sensations you have, starting with your feet and working your way up. Move your body in subtle ways, like wiggling your toes or flexing different muscle groups. You can practice the five-sense awareness experience exercise before your anxiety is overwhelming.
2. Heart—Express compassion to yourself for the fact that you have anxiety. Place your hand on your heart, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and picture all that warm air surrounding your heart. Remind yourself you are human—a mixture of strengths and weaknesses and a person who struggles. Then, thank your mind for trying to warn you of whatever terrible things it tells you are wrong. Remember that your mind is excellent at pointing out danger, which is sometimes helpful. View your mind like a worried grandmother predicting your certain death if you leave the house without a coat on.
3. Body—Pick a breathing strategy to practice when you are not experiencing overwhelming anxiety so that you can attempt to use it when you are overwhelmed. The four-square breathing technique (also called tactical breathing or boxed breathing) is both simple and effective at training your body to help you manage anxiety rather than make it worse. Take a breath in on the count of four. Hold that breath for a count of four. Exhale for a count of four and then hold your empty breath for a count of four. Regardless of which breathing exercises you practice, there is good evidence that controlling your breath will help you regulate your emotions.
4. Mind—The power of anxiety comes from our fear of it and desire to control and avoid the negative experience. When we change our relationship with anxiety, we change the ability of anxiety to control our lives. Imagine anxiety is like an obnoxious neighbor. While you do not like the neighbor or want them next door, the best way to keep living your own life is to be willing to have the neighbor in your life. Willingness means to make room in your life for what you think and feel.
5. Action—An aroused state, like anxiety, prepares us for action. Channel the energy provided by your anxiety to engage in what is important to you. If you are in a grocery store and feel trapped by fear and panic, you might be tempted to use that energy to escape. Instead, pause for a moment and think about the kind of person you want to be right now, the tasks you want to accomplish in the store, and why being in the store is important to you, such as taking care of yourself or your family. Put your energy into doing what is important to you right now.

Each of these tools can help you put your mind back in charge of your life so that you can restore your emotional balance.

Until these tools become a regular part of your life, keep your eyes focused, your heart tender, your body helpful, your mind accepting, and your actions courageous and committed.