3 steps to deal with habitual anxiety

It is useless to fight with your own brain, but it is quite possible to agree with it. The fact is that anxiety “hides” in everyday habits, says psychiatrist Judson Brewer, author of The Dependent Brain. Oddly enough, our brain takes them for some kind of reward, positive reinforcement, and therefore refuses to part with them.

Before you try to change something, you need to identify your disturbing habits. Only after that will it be possible to gradually convince the brain that there is nothing valuable in them, and create a new behavior model.

How to do it? Try following the three-step plan outlined in Brewer’s new book Unraveling Anxiety.

Step One: Identify Your Worrying Habits

If you are often nervous and worried, it is likely that anxiety has become your normal state. According to Brewer, many of our habits develop from attempts to reduce stress or satisfy emotional needs, but in the end we get only short-term relief.

Any habit is a cycle that includes a trigger, an action, and a result. For example:

• Trigger: feeling anxious;
• Action: eat something sweet;
• Result: short-term pleasure, distraction from restless thoughts.

Yes, the habit cycle is the result of anxiety, but sometimes the opposite happens:

• Trigger: no mood to work;
• Action: read the news;
• Result: anxiety about the situation in the world.

Unfortunately, most of us also fall into the most destructive cycle, where anxiety feeds itself:

• Trigger: feeling anxious;
• Action: to worry for a long time that everything is wrong, that it can be even worse, and so on;
• Result: more anxiety.

What could be the reward of endless soul-searching? We feel like we are doing something. Sometimes anxiety even generates a solution, and therefore seems productive – we are looking for a way out of problems. Sometimes we fear a dim future and think that we will lose control of the situation if we stop worrying. Although in fact we scroll through the same fears in our heads.

In the meantime, Brewer points out, being aware of your anxiety habits is enough to pull yourself together.

Step Two: Work With Your Internal Reinforcement System

In our search for solace, over the years we have found some way or another to calm down or distract ourselves. In essence, we were giving the brain positive reinforcement for the disturbing thoughts, encouraging it. This is how habits are formed. The more pleasant the sensations, the stronger the habit associated with them.

But over time, reinforcement may no longer be so positive, outdated. For example, as a teenager, we “jammed” any troubles with sweets and could easily eat a whole cake. And when we grew up, we found that we were sick after the third bite, and we also had to monitor our weight and blood sugar levels.

“The only sure way to change a habit is to re-evaluate it,” says Brewer. That is, to understand what it gives us now. And do it over and over again, whenever we do the same old thing, until the brain updates the reward information and stops sliding back into the old behavior.

What does this mean in practice

Once you’ve figured out the habits that support your anxiety, start to carefully monitor yourself.

• Feeling nervous and worried about the future again? Mentally fix your feelings: tightness in the chest, a lump in the throat, weakness in the knees. Maybe you are nervous because before lunch you didn’t really manage to do anything from the planned tasks?
• Are you working on an important report, mechanically unwrapping a chocolate bar and, without noticing anything, eat it whole without really enjoying its taste? Excitement at the same time as it was, and remains. It may be worth realizing that you are concerned about submitting a report. Return attention to the body and feel hunger. Remember that you missed lunch time and eat normally. Or take with you next time not sweetness, but fruit.

This approach is good because periods of anxiety turn into an opportunity to understand yourself, cease to frighten and create obstacles on the way to peace of mind. And if you can’t track your habits in real time, look back a day or a week ago to see the consequences of a particular behavior.

• Let’s say you were excited about something and lashed out at your partner in vain. What did you feel? No need to analyze the act: try to restore bodily sensations.

Over time, the brain will question the value of anxiety habits, and it does not require willpower. And then there will be room for the formation of new habits.

Step Three: Create New Habits

This is where most of the recommendations for consolidating healthy habits begin. But it may turn out that the brain is not yet ready for new behavior and continues to cling to old connections. Brewer offers several mindfulness practices that can be built into the cycle of disturbing habits and thereby correct an outdated pattern. Some of them are probably familiar to you.

Curiosity. Instead of scolding yourself for excessive anxiety or trying to get to the bottom of its causes, listen to yourself. How does it feel and where? How is your condition changing? You can even say “Hm!” out loud to spark interest.

Breath. Focus on your breath sensations. “Breathe” the parts of the body where anxiety settles, and try to exhale it. Isn’t it better?

RAIN (Recognize-Allow-Investigate-Nurture – recognize, accept, study, take care). This is the name of the meditation practice of mindfulness. Recognize and name the main emotion. Accept it and let it be. Study what happens to the body, how it reacts to thoughts and feelings. Take care of yourself – separate yourself from emotions: they come and go, but you remain yourself.

Observation. From time to time notice everything that you experience: sounds, images, touches, thoughts and feelings.

Goodwill Mentally wish good and well-being to all people in the world, including yourself.

To reinforce these habits, use the techniques from the second step. Only this time there is no need to focus on the negative consequences. Notice how your body responds to interest, gratitude, and love.