How to Stop Anxiety – 3 Easy Steps

If you’re one of the millions of people who suffer from Anxiety these days, you already know that it is a very unpleasant experience.  It can hit you when you least expect it, and last for hours or even days.  Many people who have anxiety rely heavily on medications to keep it toned down to where they can function on a daily basis.  Unfortunately, medications only treat the symptoms of anxiety, they don’t (and can’t) treat the real cause.

It’s amazing the number of people with anxiety who don’t know what the cause is or how to get rid of it.  So, let’s take a look at the real cause of anxiety.  Then I’ll tell you a quick and easy way to stop it. 

The cause of your anxiety is your thoughts. It’s not all the physical symptoms you’re experiencing, it’s not your feelings, and it’s not the things happening in your world – no matter how chaotic it might be.  It’s your thoughts.  Let me explain.

Our brains work in a very structured, predictable manner.  When you experience something, the first thing the brain does is to categorize that experience.  It looks for past experiences that were similar, and associates that new experience with some experience you had in the past.  Sometimes this is a good thing, but sometimes it’s not so good.

The next thing that happens after your new experience gets “categorized”, is a thought.  After the thought comes a feeling.  And that feeling in many cases is the feeling of anxiety.  The physiological symptoms that anxiety can trigger can include chest pain, shortness of breath, tingling sensations, headaches, and dozens of other possibilities.  These are very real, not imagined.  So what can you do to alter the thought in such a way that it does NOT trigger the feeling of anxiety?

First, Relax.  Find a private place where you can be alone for a few minutes.  Focus on your breathing, make it slow and deliberate.  One of the things we automatically do when we feel anxious is take shallow, quick breaths.  You can alter you breathing by just paying attention to it

Second, once you get your breathing under control, quite your mind and figure out what you were thinking about right before your anxiety began.  This may take a little while but it is essential to stopping the anxiety. 

Third, change your perspective on what you were thinking.  This can be easily done by imagining that everything you were thinking about worked out just fine.  Your unconscious mind cannot tell the difference between what is real, and what is imagined.  So if you imagine everything ending up okay, your unconscious mind will respond accordingly... and your anxiety will stop.  It cannot do otherwise.  For more information on how to stop anxiety, visit my website at  http://www.WesternPaHypnosis.com