Do You Have Extreme Anxiety? Here's How You Can Handle It
Anyone who has anxiety knows that it can be hard to explain to others. That’s because anxiety is a feeling, or rather feelings, triggered as a response to stress that takes over your mind, and it’s different for everyone. I’m sure we’ve all experienced anxiety at one point or another, like right before a big job interview or when you’re about to go on a first date with someone new.
These are just a few examples of anxiety that show up in our lives, but for people that struggle with high functioning anxiety (HFA), it can look a little different. In fact, most people with HFA don’t even realize that they are dealing with severe anxiety every single day. It can feel like a “buzzing” in the background that never really goes away and is constantly keeping us on our toes.
General anxiety is one thing but having HFA and persistent levels of severe anxiety could be signaling a much deeper problem that needs to be addressed. Overtime, that anxiety can build up inside us and lead to exhaustion, burnout, or worse. While you can’t stop anxiety completely from popping up, there are some great ways to deal with extreme anxiety that don’t involve this cycle of overfunctioning and burnout.
What Is High Functioning Anxiety?
High functioning anxiety is exactly what it sounds like - someone who has anxiety but is still able to function. Sometimes, these people work even harder, to the point of burnout or exhaustion, because they’re so afraid of failing. Their anxiety is telling them that failure is not an option, but in reality, it’s okay to make mistakes sometimes.
My own anxiety is constantly telling me to work harder, despite everything inside me begging me for a break. Instead, I push those feelings away because I’m afraid they’ll stop me from being successful. This is a common fear for people with high functioning anxiety.
Instead of recognizing our feelings and working through our anxiety, we push it away and act like it doesn’t exist because we’re afraid to confront our own emotions. We continue this cycle of over exerting ourselves because we think that’s what we need to do in order to be successful.
We find our happiness in our work, career, and in the success we achieve. The whole while our anxiety is stirring up inside us and we feel like we could explode at any second. There has to be a healthier way to live...right?
Ways to Deal With Severe Anxiety
There are healthier ways to handle anxiety and HFA than to repress your anxiety and act like it isn’t there. In fact, some of the best ways to deal with your anxiety is to do the exact opposite of ignoring it. Instead, you should focus on recognizing and accepting your emotions so you can learn how to deal with your anxiety, even when it feels uncontrollable.
1. Recognize and accept your anxious feelings
The first step to being able to deal with your anxiety is to recognize and accept the feelings that arise when your anxiety is triggered. Because people with HFA tend to negatively judge any emotion that isn’t happy or content, we can get caught up in justifying our reactions, rather than just acknowledging them. This keeps us stuck in our heads and continues the cycle of awful anxiety and negative self talk.
2. Try some meditations and mindfulness hacks
Meditation seems to always have this stereotype of humming to yourself in silence or attempting downward dog, but it doesn’t have to be. What I suggest instead are mindfulness hacks - ways to get into your body and out of your mind. Sometimes, these hacks are simply taking a deep breath and doing a full body movement. Moving our body helps get us out of our heads. Even simple meditations like taking three deep breaths allows us to get back to the present moment and reconnect with our minds and bodies.
3. Reflect on self and take the time you need
I always encourage myself and my clients to give ourselves some time to calm down and reflect when a wave of anxiety hits. As overthinkers and high functioners, we often run off our initial impulse to push our emotions away because we’re afraid to feel them or we’re scared they’ll get in the way of our productivity. Give yourself some time to process your anxiety when it arises, so that later, you can analyze them with a clear mind and see them for what they really are.
Work With an Anxiety Coach
My mindfulness hacks are simple but effective ways to cope with severe anxiety, but that doesn’t always mean that handling anxiety will be easy to do. In fact, the thought of having to deal with our anxiety is the very thing stopping us from getting the help we need. That’s where I come in.
As an anxiety coach, I’ve made it my mission to help other people dealing with HFA. I do this through my coaching services, which allows me to have a more one-on-one approach with clients that want to really dig deep. I also have a self-guided course that covers emotional recognition and healthy ways to deal with anxiety.
Set up a free consultation ith me today to learn how an anxiety coach may be able to help you cope with your extreme anxiety.