The mind is a very powerful tool and has so much influence over everything and it is important to find calm. When we are feeling anxious, angry or even depressed we can get very much into our own heads. When this happens we will get very fixated on what is not working or what is annoying us. In turn this will give us tunnel vision and stop us from seeing the bigger picture. The more into our heads and our thoughts we become the more wound up we will get which will raise our stress levels and the amount of cortisol running around our body. We will find ourselves in fight or flight.
A bit of anxiety is normal in life, and serves to keep us on our toes and make us perform at our best. It is when things get out of control that we need to do something to get out of our heads.
Take a person who has a fear of public speaking. They have been asked to do a presentation at work, and he starts to worry about humiliating himself, forgetting his words and looking foolish. This will affect his ability to prepare for the event. He may struggle to fall asleep at night and he will be in a state of high alert. The chances of the speech being a success will at this point be unlikely.
If he were to change his focus, do some things to calm himself down he will gain some clarity. If he then visualises success it is much more likely the event will be successful.
Being trapped inside our own heads can stop our body from doing things it might naturally do. It can literally stop a labouring woman from having contractions, a breast feeding mother producing milk and it can also increase our experience of pain.
So how can we find some calm?
Find some way of getting some calm and lowering our emotions. As a human givens therapist we teach 7:11 breathing. Slowing the breath down, lengthening the out breath and breathing into our diaphragm will help reverse the fight or flight response if practised for a few minutes each day.
Creating a safe space in our heads which we can visit when we feel overwhelmed. If we do this while focusing on our breathing we should feel a lot more calmer.
Make sure your basic emotional needs for exercise, sleep and food are taken care of.
A grounding technique can be a useful thing to practise. This might be to notice all the things in the room which are red. Or noticing something we can smell, or pay attention to things we can hear.
If social anxiety is a struggle, trying to focus on what the person infront of you is saying to you and something which is interesting to you rather than what they think of you and how you don’t know what to say.
A bit of introspection can be necessary at times. It can help us reflect on what we are doing and what we might need to change. If we get too much into our heads we may not be able to see the wood for the trees.