Have you ever heard about an anxiety coping skill called counting? Maybe you've heard to count to ten if you're angry. If you've always thought that was a silly idea, you might want to reconsider. If you understand the concept of why counting is helpful, then you can find something that fits you.
To understand the reason why counting works, you need to remember that the brain has two sides. One side of your brain deals with emotions and the other side of your brain deals with logic and problem solving.
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The brain doesn't work where you have high emotions and high logic or low emotions and low logic. So if you find that your emotions are going up, your logic and problem solving goes down. Or when your logic and problem solving are high, emotions are low. Hindsight is when the emotions start to come down and you say, "why didn't I say that? Oh, that would have been a good move." Because your emotion was high, your logic was low.
So what you can do when you're needing to access some logic and problem solving but you're finding that you're being too emotional? Counting. It travels really well. Some people can simply count forward and they're fine.
For others, maybe counting backwards helps, maybe counting by twos or counting by threes. One of my favorites is to rotate languages where I'll do English, Spanish, English, Spanish, and I'll count to ten. And then, I do it again, but instead of starting with English, I'll start with Spanish. For example: one, dos, three, cuatro. Or, Uno, two, tres, four. It really helps to get you to the other side of the brain.
If you have to make an important phone call, walk around and count your footsteps.
If you are at an event, try adding up and counting things in a room. Sudoku is also great for that because it deals with numbers.
I was asked to do a reading at a cousin's wedding. I'm having a good time. I'm relaxed. No problem. The day before the wedding, they hand me the passage that I'm going to read. I look at it and it's all English - no weird biblical names. I've got this. Well, then the day of the wedding, when it's time to get ready to go up and do the reading, I start running in my mind, creating all kinds of scenarios.
What if I trip? What if I mess up my words? What if I pull the microphone down and it causes squeaking sounds and my mind starts racing. Well, I start adding up numbers in the Psalms off to the side. Now, you might say, well, if you're adding up numbers off to the side, you're not really paying attention to the actual wedding ceremony. Well, if I'm creating other kinds of issues or fabricating scenarios, in my mind, I'm not paying attention anyway.
So I add up the numbers. I come back into the present moment and I listen to the vows. Then all of a sudden a fifteen year old gets up there and does great - nails it with the reading. My mind starts to wander again, picturing me tripping all kinds of scenarios. When I'm creating those scenarios in my mind, the adrenaline starts coursing through my body. And at a heart rate of about 100, adrenaline starts to pump out through the brain.
So I'm more likely once adrenaline is in my body to forget English, to trip on the way up and to panic when the microphone pulls down. So I start counting again. And then as I start counting, more logic comes into place. I say, "You know what, today is not about me. And this is my family who's in front of me. And by the way, I know how to read English. It's not so bad."
I kept myself calm, go up there to do the reading, no adrenaline is running through my body and I read English just fine. So practice counting in a variety of different ways. In your comments, make sure to post maybe some ideas that you have to pull yourself on the other side of the brain.
Have a great day and make sure to do something fun. And if you have questions about coping with anxiety, be sure to give us a call at (813) 951-7346.