Coping With Anxiety

Many anxiety products proclaim miraculous results such as, “Curing your anxiety within one month, or your money back!” or, “With just this one special technique, you can learn how to lead a life free of anxiety and get everything that you want…and more!” While the occasional person does completely turn around his or her life and experiences dramatic improvement in a very short period of time, cases like that are fairly rare. People who turn around that fast may not improve because of the product, but because of the placebo effect (where someone gets better from a condition simply because he or she believes that some product, technique, or service will help him or her get better). I recall an episode of Scientific American where a small number of people recovered from severe depression even though they were administered sugar pills – a perfect and extreme demonstration of the placebo effect.

For most people, however, the placebo effect only has a nominal effect. Using the Scientific American example, most people who took the sugar pills in that study experienced either very little recovery from depression or no improvement at all. For most people, the focus instead is coping with anxiety, rather than curing it. It seems that many anxiety conditions can be cured – any simple phobia, PTSD, and panic disorder may all be curable. Curable, to me, means that the condition is completely eradicated from a person’s life; they experience no emotional arousal when the situation that used to cause anxiety occurs. However, the more chronic anxiety conditions that seem to have some biological component – social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder all seem to not be fully “curable” in that they no longer have any presence in a person’s life. Rather, the more realistic view of these conditions is that their presence in one’s life can be minimized to the point where they no longer have a significant impact in a person’s life.

Therefore, the only choice that a person has is to begin coping with anxiety. For people with social anxiety disorder, this means that they construct their entire lives around getting better from anxiety (see ASN’s Tips for an Anxiety Friendly Diet,The Benefits of Counseling, Anxiety and Exercise, and Cognitive Behavior Therapy for various coping methods). For the other chronic anxiety conditions, this seems to be the case as well, although the methods used may differ. For myself, a sufferer of social anxiety disorder, I have learned to use God (believing someone outside of myself is working toward my greater good), counseling (although not currently because the previous counselor and I agreed I was ready to handle this on my own), journaling (which helps me to process anxious thoughts and also simply to remove them from my head), exercise, supportive friends (telling friends about the different struggles I have had with social anxiety disorder really helps), medication (helpful at times, however I am not currently on any medication), and taking risks (I took risks – going out and joining different groups and clubs in order to move out from isolation and into the world). For me, this seems to be the right formula, however, I believe that this may not be the right mixture for everyone. After all, experience has shown that different things work for different people, and what works for one might not work for another.

All that can really be done is that people try different methods for coping with anxiety until they find the right methods that work for them. I found some methods that really did not work for me over the years. One counselor introduced me to the Buddhist technique of “mindfulness,” which is supposed to help one move outside of his or her head and instead become engaged in the world around him or her. Basically, the counselor had me take notice of everything around me, which at that time, was everything in his room. So, I would notice the chair, the desk, the picture etc..., however, what ended up happening for me was that I also realized that these items were incredibly mundane. There was a desk, chair, and picture, but so what? They were plain and ordinary, not exciting, and certainly not something that my mind found very engaging. Perhaps, I was not being mindful enough and really examining every last detail of these objects, but whatever the case was, I decided that mindfulness was simply not something that would help. Of course, the caveat here is that someone else may find this technique incredibly powerful, and if that is in fact the case and this helps that person to cope with anxiety, then more power to that person!

Another method that I found to not work for me was medication (see ASN’s Anxiety Medication - Don’t Believe the Hype! and Further Thoughts on Medication for more about medication). While medication did help in the short term, I ended up deciding that the potential side effects and consequences of long-term use of medication outweighed the benefits that I was experiencing. (It is my opinion that medications are declared “safe” in a reckless manner because of the big money drug companies are making off of them). Some days, even after having been on the medication for some time, it seemed to really have no benefit at all. Further, the medication made me dependent on a pill, and the pill did not fix the condition, but rather it simply provided a mild reduction of the condition’s symptoms. So, rather than looking at an internal fix for the problem which can make the problem better in the short-term and the long-term, I was looking for an external fix, which would only work in the short-term. I sincerely believe that only God and I can change me, not something that comes from the outside, and therefore, I decided that it was time to move off of medication. What I learned was the medication did make life better for the year or so that I took it, but the difference was not always noticeable (possibly for more than half the time I took the drug), and when I went off the drug, I really did not feel any better, and I certainly did not feel “cured.” However, medication, like mindfulness, can be incredibly helpful for other people, and while it really did not do anything for me, it may be incredibly helpful for others, if it is used in the right manner.

In sum, coping with anxiety seems to be what those of us who have more chronic anxiety conditions must do in order to live life. It is up to each of us to discover the right mix of methods that help us to reduce our anxiety levels and move on with living our lives. This is a great challenge, however, it can be done, and remember also that it is always okay to ask for help!

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