From Anxious to Calm: 5 Questions You Can Ask Yourself When Feeling Anxious

The word anxiety is becoming increasingly associated with our feelings and emotions, especially post-pandemic. A lot of people often find themselves in a situation where they start sweating and their hearts start palpitating for reasons unstated, ununderstood. While the intensity of such an experience varies from person to person and situation to situation, in most cases it is suggestive of experiencing Anxiety.

Technically, anxiety is a normal response by your body towards a cause of stress, more of a defense mechanism when you feel danger or threat. However, these episodes sometimes become very intense to deal with and leave you in a state of panic and distress. In such scenarios, when you feel helpless, you sure can use the right kind of coping mechanism to achieve a state of calm mind so that you can deal with the issue at hand. One of the best ways is to ask questions to help you recognize anxiety and deal with it.

How can asking questions help you deal with anxiety?

1. In most cases of anxiety, the worry arises because of the absence of trust in the situation that you are in. You constantly put aside any kind of affirmation coming from your brain. When you ask yourself questions, you subconsciously try to build trust in yourself. It is a conscious effort to let yourself know that you know what is going on and that you will get through this.
2. When you ask questions, you zoom out of the situation to give yourself a third-person perspective and to objectively determine the cause and effect of your anxiety. Once you become objective about the situation, it becomes easier to tone down the worry.
3. This zooming out capability helps you rationalize the situation better. The more you can provide yourself with rational arguments, the more you will be closer      to reality.
4. Questioning helps you de-stress yourself with a calm mind and creates enough self-awareness within you to deal with the problem constructively. Asking questions can be a good start to an anxiety-free life.

Some questions you can ask yourself to cope with anxiety

#1. Do my fears have a basis in reality?

One of the worst things anxiety does to you is that it makes you think of the worst-case scenarios about things that are often unlikely to happen in the first place. Therefore, it helps a great deal if you play out in your head the possibility of such a situation. Ask yourself “will this actually happen?”. Once you give yourself some reality check, you will realize that you might be worrying over nothing. This allows you to de-stress significantly and think with a more calm state of mind.

#2. What is the best and the worst-case scenario?

When you are undergoing anxiety, you will likely end up thinking the worst possible thing that can happen to you. In most cases, however, it is really difficult to actually predict what might happen. Therefore, when you play out both the best and the worst-case scenarios in your head, you can focus on the option where things might turn out to be positive. Sometimes, when you weigh in both these scenarios, you can better understand the situation and think on more realistic terms. It can also help you prepare practically if things go south.

#3. Why am I thinking in a particular direction?

When you are trying to tone down your worry, it is firstly important to figure out why you are thinking of things a certain way. You need to navigate the dots that are leading up you up to that point. It is at this point that you need to ask yourself what you can do to control it? When you ask the ‘Whys’ in a particular situation, you will be able to ask yourself whether worrying is a good solution for the problem at hand. This will allow you to think more rationally and will help you come up with more rational solutions.

#4. How have I dealt with this in the past?

A key to a calm mind is to learn from your past experiences. Ask yourself how you came out of an experience of anxiety in the past. This acts as a personalized toolkit to self-awareness, helping you to calmly navigate through your stress and worry.

#5. Am I in a safe space right now?

One of the quickest ways to de-stress is to look around and identify whether the environment around you is safe or not. If it is not, make sure that the first thing you do is to go to a space that makes you feel safe. Once you are in that position, make yourself conscious of the safety and express gratitude. This will make space for more positive thoughts in your mind and will help you achieve a state of calmness.

These are some of the questions that can help you navigate through your anxiety. It is however advised that you don’t impose these questions and incorporate this habit only if it brings positive results in the first few questions. Do not hesitate to ask for professional help on The Wellness Corner.