From Pointless Worry To Generalized Anxiety: One Of The Most Traveled Paths

Your daily life is full of worries. Your head does not stop spinning thinking about everything that happened throughout the day. You are looking to find solutions to situations that are already in the past and cannot be changed. “What if I had done that or that…” Or if not, you’re worried about what’s next. You can’t stop thinking about what you need to do after reading this article.

What will happen after you finish eating. And what will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and then… And in a month! The point is, you spend the day turning your head, seeing threats in your past and your future, looking for solutions to risks that may not even exist… What can we do to stop worrying? Cognitive-behavioral therapy gives us some ideas about this… Keep reading!

What is Generalized Anxiety?

Generalized anxiety is characterized by the person who is constantly restless or preoccupied with areas of everyday life. That is, it constantly anticipates and does so thinking that in the course of the day something will change. You may think, with no real reason for that, that you’re going to have financial difficulties, that you’re going to be fired from work, or that your children are going to recover.

But not only that. Everyday tasks, such as cleaning or repairing the house or car, generate anxiety, demands and concern. In addition, fears and mistakes of the past may linger in your head. Thus, the person enters a cycle of negative thoughts and constantly seeks solutions to problems, but without putting any of them into action.

When a person suffers from generalized anxiety, restlessness or impatience may appear, as well as muscle tension. Also characteristic is the difficulty in maintaining concentration or keeping the mind blank. Sleep disturbances appear, either to get sleep, to maintain it or to be restorative. They also get more tired and irritated.

As you can imagine, these people find it difficult to relax and they fear those situations where they believe their anxiety will increase. So what do you do? They avoid them, so their nerves are momentarily calmed. The bad thing about this is that, over time, they tolerate less and less anxiety and avoid bad situations, so that their lives are more altered.

What happens to my self-talk in generalized anxiety?

The point is that these people perceive most situations as dangerous. They constantly misinterpret reality, drawing negative conclusions even if there is no evidence that something is going to be really bad.

Cognitive biases, irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts play an important role in this whole process. These people often follow negative stimuli, interpret information negatively for them, and analyze current situations based on past bad ones.

Furthermore, there are a number of beliefs about how the world should work that do not fit reality. But that’s not all: a series of thoughts appears in the face of situations about which we don’t question ourselves and are not functional for us.

Therefore, it is necessary to learn to identify them. Once we’ve done that, we can ask ourselves what evidence we have for and against them. That is, looking for information that is coherent or inconsistent with them. Thus, we will be able to look for more realistic interpretations of reality, in order to avoid the temptation to think in a catastrophic way.

Learn to relax and make decisions!

The truth is that learning to locate and modify our thoughts is quite complex and requires the help of a good psychologist so that it can be done effectively. But it’s not enough to work on our own thoughts; it is necessary to control anxiety with other approaches.

I also suggest that you learn to relax, to get muscle tension and physiological activation down. A good way to do this is to practice abdominal breathing, which we can use in any situation once we’ve acquired the skill. Another technique that might be interesting is progressive muscle relaxation.

In addition, we have already commented that these people are dedicated to looking for possible solutions in their minds, but they do not manage to execute any. Therefore, it will also be good for them to learn to make decisions and implement the solutions they have thought of, even if they are not the most appropriate, and without punishing themselves for it. The question is to experiment until you find the right one… To err is human!

As we’ve already said, avoiding those situations is not the strategy that benefits us the most. So it ‘s important to stop running away from it. If we get nervous, we can put the acquired relaxation strategies into practice. The change to overcome this malaise is not easy, but with the help of a qualified professional we will be able to recover our quality of life… Let’s go after it!

Images courtesy of Ryan McGuire.