How To Calm Your Anxiety and Regain Control of Your Life

You feel your mind racing, and multiple scenarios of imminent disaster flood it and make it hard to think straight. Perhaps you become aware that you are breathing too shallowly, becoming lightheaded. Your muscles become tense, and this happens all too often.

If this sounds familiar, it can be anxiety. That’s why we must put you back in the driver’s seat and understand what anxiety is, what its causes, and how it becomes an anxiety disorder.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a normal, natural feeling we experience in stressful situations. It’s an emotion all animals feel, though this reaction can malfunction in humans.

It works similarly to fear, but fear is a reaction to an immediate threat and usually subsides quickly. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a reaction to uncertain threats and can last much longer.

Why do we get anxiety?

The quick answer is that we were wired that way. Anxiety is part of our detection and protection system that helps us survive in the wild. 

Humans emerged around 300,000 years ago, and just like other animals, we needed some kind of automatic mechanism to kick in and save us from predators. After all, early humans didn’t have weapons to kill a predator or a house to hide in. We had to run for our lives or grab the nearest rock and fight.

This started to change around 8,000 years ago as we formed safer environments and established civilizations. But despite our leaps forward in many areas, our modern brains still have that primal part—the amygdala—which is much less useful in the age of airplanes, computers, and mortgages.

The amygdala alerts other parts of the brain that you need to engage in fight-or-flight. Once the hypothalamus receives this message, it triggers a stress response in the body. 

The functions of anxiety cannot be simply “activated” or “deactivated” as they are crucial for survival. Mobilizing energy and resources during the era of constant physical threats was reasonable. Worrying and feeling anxious meant that the danger was close, and people needed to be ready to survive. 

The threats are distinct in the present day; however, our brains continue to function as they did during the hunter-gatherer era of humanity. We do not have to deal with wild animals but with work deadlines, social pressure, and too much information. To not let anxiety lead us, we need to find new ways to stay in control.

Luckily, we’ve developed the prefrontal cortex—a newer, more sophisticated part of our brain that can rationalize the amygdala’s panic. The hypothalamus also helps us by reminding us that we’ve been in a similar situation before, and it ended well. 

But sometimes, this rational and reassuring mechanism malfunctions and your threat detection system starts seeing life-threatening scenarios in everyday situations or thoughts and reacting to them as if we’re still living in the jungle.

What triggers anxiety?

According to Dr. Elizabeth McMahon, an expert in treating anxiety disorders, five things can cause your lifesaving protective reaction to go off when you don’t need it.

1. Genetics

First, we can consider the genetics, temperament, and nervous system you were born with. If you suffer from anxiety, chances are you’re not the only one in your family.

2. Chemical triggers

Did you know that you have a higher chance of having an anxiety attack 24-48 hours after you’ve been drinking alcohol? Chemicals in your body can trigger anxious feelings when there’s no need for them and when it seems like they’re out of your system. If you are experiencing anxiety, it is important to be vigilant and observe whether certain medications, such as coffee or marijuana, are contributing factors.

3. External stress triggers

This is a no-brainer: if you’re more stressed, your anxiety is more likely to go off, even if you’re not in actual danger.

4. Self-talk or unrealistic self-demands

How you talk to yourself is also important, says Dr. McMahon. Do you tend to be negative, harsh, critical, or demanding? Do you strive for perfection above all else? This makes anxiety more likely.

5. Unhelpful lessons from past events

What has happened to you in the past can trigger a lot of emotions and anxiety. “So, if you were humiliated by a teacher in middle school, your brain may remember that and make you anxious,” says Dr. McMahon, “Even if you’re just going on a date, or you’re just going to present to your colleagues at work.”

Is anxiety a result of childhood trauma?

Some researchers believe that anxiety is a sign of the unmet need for security and attachment in childhood. Dr. Gabor Maté, a renowned Canadian physician, claims that psychological anxiety is a coping mechanism resulting from childhood trauma.

“The child’s greatest need is the connection to the parents,” says Dr. Maté. When the parents are not around, the child cries in fear and panic. If the parents don’t tend to their child immediately, this anxiety becomes entrenched in the child. That’s why he recommends parents never ignore a crying child.

Is the modern world making people more anxious?

In 2019, one in every eight people on the planet had a mental disorder, with anxiety and depression being the most prevalent, according to the WHO. But only one year later, the number of people with anxiety rose by 26 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Maté says the modern lifestyle increasingly isolates people and creates a greater threat. We live in a society where human social contact is often replaced by the cold and impersonal world of the internet and where young people have fewer opportunities for meaningful employment, belonging, and a sense of purpose. This general threat breeds anxiety in people whose need for connection wasn’t met as children.

What are the symptoms of anxiety?

If you ask different people, “What does anxiety feel like?” they will describe some overlapping symptoms. Still, here are some common symptoms of anxiety:

• Nervousness and restlessness
• Trouble sleeping
• Tense muscles
• Difficulty concentrating and focusing 
• Uneasy, worried, and alert
• Panicky and terrified
• You have shortness of breath 
• Your heart is racing 
• Dry mouth
• Hand tremor and body shaking
• Feeling dizzy, lightheaded and weak
• Feeling like your digestive system is out of control 
• Feeling nauseous

Often, these symptoms all hit at once. Dr. McMahon says that when you see the danger that’s not there, you misinterpret things that are happening in your body as dangerous, and you start thinking you’re going to pass out, have a stroke, or have a heart attack.

Let’s examine the intended purpose of anxiety symptoms and contrast them with the current feelings they elicit.

	What it was intended for	What people may feel today
Muscle tension	Your body prepares to run or fight by tensing the muscles. You clench your jaw and show your teeth, telling a predator you’re also a threat.	You’re trembling. You feel shaky, weak, and tense at the same time. This gives you headaches and muscle aches, especially in your neck and shoulders.
Increased heart rate	Your heart pumps more blood to carry the much-needed oxygen since you’re about to fight or run.	Your heart is pounding. You feel palpitations—something you don’t usually feel, and it’s scary. You may even think you’re having a heart attack.
Dilated pupils	Your eyes widen your field of vision so that you can see the threat when it comes at you from any direction.	With your pupils dilated, more light gets into your eyes, and things start looking too bright or blurry. You might see spots or get tunnel vision.
Digestive system	Your digestive system shuts down because it wants all your energy to go into the fighting or running muscles. In this state, your body should not waste time drinking or digesting.	With your digestive system on pause, you may feel nauseous or have butterflies in your stomach. Or you may lose the feeling of hunger for several days.
Blood flow	Since your body wants all the blood and oxygen in the main trunk muscles for fighting or running, it constricts vessels in your limbs, head, and skin.	Since your body wants all the blood and oxygen in the main trunk muscles for fighting or running, it constricts vessels in your limbs, head, and skin.
Concentration	When your brain sends your body the message of danger, you stop thinking about anything else and start looking for danger to find its source.	You have trouble focusing on what’s important, or, on the flip side, you focus too much on unimportant things.

What is an anxiety disorder?

Worry, tension, nervousness, and dread are described in every classical definition of anxiety. However, if you also experience social and physiological problems because these inner feelings are so strong or occur repeatedly, you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder.

Your condition is no longer considered normal if it persists months after it first appears and starts to negatively impact your personal life, career, and relationships. This is what’s classified as an anxiety disorder in psychiatry.

Anxiety is the most common mental disorder in the US, affecting nearly 30% of adults at some point in their lives. [2] So maybe the thought that so many people experience it will somewhat take the edge off your anxiety. 

What types of anxiety disorders are there?

According to the American Psychiatric Association, there are at least seven types of anxiety disorders [2]:

• Generalized anxiety disorder: characterized by anxiety that is excessive, persistent, and unreasonable. A generalized anxiety disorder occurs in 3.1% of the US population. [3] In lighter cases, GAD still allows people to function, but in severe cases, you won’t be able to perform any important daily activities, leaving you skipping school or missing deadlines at work. 
• Panic disorder: This anxiety condition is characterized by recurring, unexpected panic attacks—intense episodes of fear that trigger physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness, and a sense of impending doom. This condition affects 2.7% of the US population. [4]
• Specific phobias: A phobia is an intense fear or anxiety of something particularly that persistently and significantly interferes with one’s life. [5] There are hundreds of different types of phobias, and there’s one diagnosis for almost all of them: specific phobia.
• Social anxiety disorder: People with a social anxiety disorder (7.1% of people in the US) feel immense worry that people think badly of them all the time, in all kinds of surroundings. [6] And this feeling can be so intense that it brings about panic attacks in social situations. Take a social anxiety quiz to get more insight into whether you have it.
• Separation anxiety disorder: Adults with separation anxiety have an excessive fear of leaving their parents, partners, children, or people they are comfortable with. Being away from these people and thinking or dreaming about it makes them anxious.  The percentage of people with a separation disorder lowers with age: 4% in children, 1.6% in adolescents, and 0.9%-1.9% in adults. [7]
• Selective mutism: This condition is characterized by the inability to speak in specific circumstances due to anxiety or fear (usually affects children, rarely adults)

What is high-functioning anxiety?

Some people are nervous all the time, but they still get things done and work well in society. The term “high-functioning anxiety” is a subset of generalized anxiety and describes individuals who experience anxiety but perceive themselves as functioning reasonably well (it is not a mental health diagnosis)

Instead of paralyzing terror, high-functioning anxiety usually looks like high productivity. Consequently, they give the impression of having achieved great success in their careers and personal lives, but deep inside, they suppress or used to live with constant anxiety and fear.

Here are some of its common traits:

• Constant worry and feeling like a failure make you an overachiever and perfectionist. Your high level of anxiety drives you forward.
• The people around you don’t realize you experience perpetual anxiety because you’re still meeting all expectations.
• You make impossible demands on yourself and feel under a lot of pressure to fulfill them.
• On the outside, you seem calm, but on the inside, you are perpetually doubting yourself on the inside.
• Thinking too much, overanalyzing, and trying to predict every possible outcome overwhelms you. Even simple tasks require immense amounts of mental energy.
• You find relaxing hard, even when you have free time. 

Do I have anxiety or an anxiety disorder?

The short answer is: if it affects your daily life and you start avoiding things and activities because they make you anxious, you have an anxiety disorder.

Here’s the more extended version: worrying and being stressed is healthy and normal. It’s even useful because it teaches us to be resilient and solve problems. But here’s a simple anxiety disorder definition:

• It’s disruptive (affects your work, school, and personal life)
• It’s irrational (triggered by thoughts, small or non-existent things)
• It’s chronic (occurs frequently, e.g., every time you go to a meeting or social event)
• It’s paralyzing (makes you want to avoid triggers, thus limiting your opportunities and making you feel lonely and isolated)
• It’s terrifying (you catastrophize and only think about the worst-case scenarios)
• It’s holding you back from being happy (you always expect something bad to happen, even if you feel good for a moment)

If this overactivity of your stress response causes your emotions and anxiety to spiral out of control about small or non-existent triggers, that’s an anxiety disorder right there.

Coping with anxiety

One of the saddest things is that although anxiety disorder therapies exist and are pretty effective, only one in four people (27.6%) get treated. [8]

The reasons vary, but the stigma around mental health problems is still a major one. Other times, it’s the cost of psychotherapy for anxiety that people can’t afford—not every insurance package covers mental health care.

Plus, not every facility has trained professionals who can help with this. And then some people don’t believe in therapy or don’t think anxiousness can be treated.

Is anxiety curable?

Yes. But need to understand that anxiety disorder therapies help regulate your anxiety levels, meaning it stops being a disorder. It won’t go away completely because you’re human. And here’s why that’s a good thing.

Without the worry, we wouldn’t care about many things that matter. You wouldn’t care about making a good impression at a job interview or having savings in your bank account. You would also forget important things, like finishing that school project with your kid. And you wouldn’t care about the consequences of your clients not liking your products. 

All these situations may trigger a certain amount of anxiety and stress, but we can overcome this and even improve our overall mental health as a result.

What’s the treatment for anxiety?

Anxiety disorder treatment is primarily about changing brain patterns, and here are the top three ways to do that. 

1. Lifestyle changes

Let’s start with the things you can do without external help—lifestyle changes. You know the basics: eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep (I can’t stress enough how much healthy sleep influences our mental health).

If you can get into meditation — great. Mindfulness and breathing exercises, like the 333 rule, have been proven to be effective treatments for anxiety. They can relax your muscles, slow down your heart and racing thoughts, and bring you back to reality.

2. Counseling

If you can’t handle anxiety on your own and can get professional help, do it. It’s a long journey (sometimes, you won’t see the first results until 10 weeks in). The gold standard of psychotherapy for anxiety disorders includes:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): a short-term, goal-oriented psychotherapy that addresses and attempts to change thinking and behavior patterns.
• Interpersonal therapy (IPT): focuses on improving interpersonal relationships and treating interpersonal problems.
• Psychodynamic therapy: examines unconscious processes and unresolved conflicts from the past to gain insight into present behavior.
• Exposure therapy: systematic and controlled exposure to feared stimuli or situations to reduce anxiety and overcome certain fears or traumas.

These approaches are research-based and proven in practice, so you can choose the best option. However, you need to remember that while an anxiety therapist can take the edge off your disorder, you still have to do a lot of internal work yourself.

3. Medication

Medication calms down your amygdala’s overactive stress response, providing relief and support in the short and long term.

But it’s important to know that therapy tends to have a more enduring impact, and medications, while beneficial, may bring side effects like tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal. So please, listen to your healthcare provider and never resort to taking serious anxiety medication on your own.

Extra (Tik-Tok) tip

Many other anxiety treatment hacks exist, but I found my favorite on TikTok. There’s a theory that if you acknowledge your anxiety, your brain gets confirmation that the anxiety was necessary and keeps repeating it. So, some people try not to react to the nervousness their brain throws at them. Samantha Chung is one of them.

She shared a TikTok video, explaining that your anxiety thinks that it’s very important, so you need to humble it and almost make fun of it to shock your brain and make it think: “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you don’t need anxiety right now.” So, when she feels anxiety kicking in, she throws her hands in the air and loudly tells the brain: “Nothing to see here!” 

It might look like new Tik-Tok trends, but this method is aligned with the newest approaches in psychotherapy. For example, in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), the cognitive reframing technique is used to “replay” the brain’s response. [9] Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) uses humor and conscious detachment to reduce emotional intensity. [10]

Why is avoidance bad for treating anxiety?

You may have noticed that “avoiding triggers” is not on the list of anxiety treatment options. That’s because anxiety is not an allergy: you won’t get better if you limit your exposure to the trigger. In fact, avoidance will make anxiety worse. Here’s why.

When you avoid elevators, parties, public pools, gyms, and other triggers, you chip away from your full life bit by bit. It may feel good in the moment to avoid anxiety triggers, but it’s not good for you in the long run. Living inside a tiny comfort zone is very limiting. Don’t let anxiety make your decisions. 

Instead, think of a smaller, manageable thing you believe you can overcome and do it. Embrace the fear. I know it’s hard, so don’t do everything at once; you’ll get overwhelmed and drop the idea. Start small, and in time, you’ll make your decisions, not your anxiety.

What are some quick tips for getting over an anxiety episode?

Here are several quick remedies for anxiety relief (some of which are so discreet no one will notice you’re doing them):

• Trace a finger around the fingers of your opposite hand while practicing slow breathing for several minutes.
• When you feel anxious, tell yourself you’re excited about something, not in danger.
• Move forward: go for a walk or a run if possible. This will involve your body and show your brain you’re physically safe.
• Try a butterfly hug: cross your arms at the wrist with your palms flat, lay them on your neckline, and gently tap your body with alternate hands. You can also choose to perform the same action on your forearms, which is more discreet. This refocuses your brain on an activity it needs to concentrate on.
• Try the 15-second breath: inhale for four seconds, hold it for a second and a half, exhale for eight seconds, and hold it for a second and a half. Repeat eight times (for two minutes).
• Write down your emotions and ask yourself if your feelings are true. The best app for this is Breeze: mental health app.
• Ask yourself, “What if it all works out?” and think about possible positive outcomes.
• Contrastingly change your temperature — get a hot drink or go outside in the cold.
• Congratulate yourself for having anxiety (like you’re acknowledging the useful reaction of your brain), but don’t give in to it.
• Ask yourself what you feel with all your senses: what do you see/hear/feel/taste/smell?
• Rub your face, palms, and hands gently.
• Look at an object up close and then beyond it back and forth for several
  minutes.

Final thoughts

Anxiety isn’t an illness; it’s just an emotion and every emotion matters. Remember, you’re your own best friend and support system. Be kind to yourself because beating yourself up only leads to more struggle, while building yourself up fosters improvement. Don’t be afraid of anxiety symptoms; instead, focus on understanding and managing them with a friendly and supportive mindset.

Whether it’s therapy, humor, breathing, medication, rationalizing your thoughts, tapping your forearms, or combining them all, I believe you will find the anxiety treatment that works best for you.

Sources:

1. Anxiety disorders, WHO, 2023.
2. American Psychiatric Association. Anxiety Disorders. In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed
3. Prevalence of Generalized Anxiety Disorder Among Adults, Statistics, NIH.
4. NIMH: Panic Disorders. Prevalence of Panic Disorder Among Adults, Statistics.
5. NIMH: Specific Phobia. Prevalence of Specific Phobia Among Adults, Statistics.
6. NIMH – Social Anxiety Disorder: More Than Just Shyness.
7. Masi G, Mucci M, Millepiedi S. Separation anxiety disorder in children and adolescents: epidemiology, diagnosis and management. CNS Drugs. 2001
8. Alonso J, Liu Z, Evans-Lacko S, et al. The treatment gap for anxiety disorders is global: results of the World Mental Health Surveys in 21 countries. Depress Anxiety. 2018
9. Crum J. Understanding Mental Health and Cognitive Restructuring With Ecological Neuroscience. Front Psychiatry. 2021
10. Kastner Christian T. A lighthearted approach to mindfulness: development and evaluation of a humor-enriched mindfulness-based program in a randomized trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 2024.