Anxiety is defined by Dr. Wendy Suzuki as “the psychological and physical response to stress.” This stress can be either real or imagined—the body can’t tell the difference. Either way, stress is an unavoidable part of life, and it’s necessary for our growth, learning, and evolution as individuals and as a species. While we may long for a quiet life, it’s often through facing challenges that we experience the greatest opportunities for learning and personal growth.
Rather than trying to avoid stressful situations altogether, we can learn how to manage our response to stress. The first step is awareness—simply noticing when we’re feeling anxious. By allowing ourselves to sit with the discomfort, we learn that we can endure it. This space gives us the opportunity to make a conscious choice about how to respond.
Coping Strategies for Anxiety
Next, it’s helpful to consider coping strategies to manage anxiety. These are intentional efforts to reduce the psychological and physical impact of stress. By using these strategies, we can regain some control over our response to anxiety. Studies with survivors of traumatic events have found that individuals who believed they had control over their responses were less likely to develop PTSD.
Here are some practical strategies you can use to alleviate anxiety (and you may already have your own methods to add to the list):
- Talk about your feelings
- Exercise
- Engage in hobbies
- Spend time outdoors
- Keep a journal
- Spend time with friends
- Meditate
- Play with kids or pets
Neuroplasticity: Rewiring Your Brain
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change its structure and function in response to our experiences. Essentially, our brains are wired for learning and growth. This means that the more you practice using healthy coping strategies when anxious, the better you will become at managing stress. Over time, anxiety can shift from a source of distress to a useful signal, indicating that you need to take care of yourself.
Building Resilience
Managing anxiety is one piece of the puzzle; the next piece is reframing anxiety for a positive purpose. This involves building resilience—the ability to handle stress and bounce back from difficult experiences. Resilience doesn’t mean avoiding stress, but rather acknowledging its impact and having the tools to manage it effectively.
Resilience is built not only through our successes but also through our failures. The key is what we learn from failure and how we apply those lessons to handle future challenges. Stanford Professor of Psychology Carol Dweck, in her research on mindset, describes this process as cultivating a ‘growth mindset.’ Dweck found that individuals who view effort as a necessary component of learning tend to see failure as an opportunity to develop new skills. This mindset doesn’t make failure any less painful, but it allows us to see it as a learning experience rather than a defining one. Studies show that having a growth mindset helps buffer the effects of stress and reduces reliance on unhelpful coping mechanisms.
Increasing Resilience: Practical Tips
In addition to Dweck’s growth mindset, research has shown several ways we can increase resilience:
- Cultivate a Positive Mindset: Studies have shown that a positive outlook can reduce feelings of low mood, lessen anxiety, and speed up recovery from stressful events. A significant part of this is taking care of our overall well-being, including getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, and maintaining a strong social network.
- Refocus Attention: By redirecting our attention away from negative thoughts and focusing on what we can control, we can avoid internalizing failures as reflections of our self-worth.
- Seek Support: Seeking help from loved ones when needed can provide a buffer against stress.
- Practice Self-Compassion: Being kind to ourselves is essential in counteracting negative self-beliefs that limit our growth. This practice fosters resilience by preventing self-criticism from undermining our efforts.
- Engage in Altruism: Helping others has been shown to promote recovery from trauma and strengthen our social connections.
- Practice Mindfulness: Developing a daily mindfulness or meditation practice has been linked to reduced stress and a decreased reliance on unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as alcohol or drugs.
Building resilience is not a quick process. Like any skill, it takes practice. Over time, however, managing stress becomes more automatic, and we develop a stronger ability to cope with life’s challenges.
The Power of Compassion
Finally, compassion is perhaps the most important element in this process. Without self-compassion, our inner critic can run wild, exacerbating our anxiety. The inner critic is that judgmental voice we all have that fuels our fears about not being “good enough.” If left unchecked, this voice erodes our self-esteem and blocks opportunities for learning and growth.
What often starts as well-intended messages from figures like parents or teachers gets internalized as beliefs about what we must do to feel valued. For example, a common belief might be, “If I’m not being productive, I’m being lazy.” These negative self-beliefs contribute to anxiety by keeping us in a state where we feel inadequate. By recognizing the source of our inner critic and observing our negative thought patterns, we can slowly reframe them, replacing self-criticism with self-compassion. This leads to greater self-acceptance and a reduction in anxiety.
Conclusion
In summary, we are not fixed in our inherited narratives. With effort and guidance, we can change our mindset and approach to stress. Understanding how to manage anxiety, build resilience, and practice self-compassion can help us navigate life’s challenges more effectively and experience growth in the process.
Useful references
Good Anxiety. Harnessing the power of the most misunderstood emotion by Dr. Wendy Suzuki
https://www.wendysuzuki.com/good-anxiety
Mindset – Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential by Carol Dweck
Michelle Gale 