HOW TO CONTROL ANXIETY NATURALLY IN 10 STEPS - ARTE - 2025

In this article I will explain how to control anxiety, naturally and with simple steps that will greatly improve your quality of life. All of us at some point in our lives have felt its symptoms and we have had to combat and overcome anxiety.

These symptoms cause you agitation, acceleration of thought, loss of control, sweating and a long etcetera and are often treated as a disease. This is the first mistake that occurs, since anxiety is not a disease but a symptom of a problem.

When this happens, the wide range of anxiolytics that are consumed appear and that only stop the symptoms, leaving the problem that causes them unresolved, so it is only putting what I call "a patch". Hence, many people continue to take anxiolytics for years and cannot be cured.

10 steps to manage anxiety naturally

1-Identify what happens to you

This first step is essential, you should know that anxiety fulfills an adaptive function, protects us by activating us for action and makes us react in an energetic way in order to survive.

Imagine that you are walking through the countryside so relaxed and suddenly a brave bull of about 500 kilos appears and runs towards you. It is here where the symptoms of anxiety make their appearance to protect us and give us the energy you need to flee.

Your pupils will be dilated so as not to lose detail of the beast, the heart will beat harder to pump blood to all the muscles and that it reacts more quickly, you will start to sweat which will make your body cool down, etc.

All this change that your body has undergone will make you run to safety or even climb a tree. This one that I describe is the adaptive function, but at present the situation of that bull that chases you is imagined, that is where the problem is.

Our mind imagines terrible things that can happen to us, such as losing our job, not being able to find a partner, our partner leaving us, an argument with someone and a long etcetera that takes a toll on our health.

2-Know the power of your thoughts

Your way of thinking, the way you work out a supposed catastrophic situation using your imagination, is where much of the problem with anxiety lies. That is why the different anxiolytics do not act to change that way of thinking but rather to change the symptoms of anxiety.

The human being is an imaginative being by nature and that often works against you and is reflected in the idea of ​​imagining catastrophes where there are none.

Your brain and mine do not differentiate the real from the imaginary, but rather interpret the thought that you elaborate, which could be real (there is a bull that chases me) or imaginary (I am not going to such a place I do not say such a thing it will not ….. what if…….). In these two situations the mind interprets threat, it will activate us and we will feel fear.

3-Write down those thoughts and make them aware

Write down on a piece of paper the situation that triggers the difficulty, the negative thoughts they generate and the degree of anxiety they produce. This is very useful since everything you have in your head you order when you write it and in turn you make it conscious.

Observe that the thoughts are catastrophic and negative, that as I said before, they are interpreted by your brain as real which triggers real discomfort that turns into anxiety.

The more you are convinced that what you think can occur, the higher the level of discomfort, so you have to doubt what you think. By giving it more importance it becomes solid for you, you become rigid and therefore affect you more.

If those thoughts revolve around the same situation, try not to avoid it. Doing so will lower anxiety a bit but when we are in that situation, anxiety will trigger again at high levels.

You have to expose yourself to that situation again and again and you will see that each time the anxiety decreases, what is called in psychology habituation will occur. This point is of vital importance since you will associate that being in that situation does not mean that everything you thought will happen. You put your own irrational thoughts to the test.

4-Analyze the different possible interpretations of each situation

The same situation can affect different people differently. What is a problem for one is a typical day-to-day situation for others. Nothing is a problem in itself but it will depend on the way in which it is interpreted, as I said before, and the options we have of other alternative interpretations of that same situation.

If you think that a situation only has a possible solution because you think so yourself, according to your own arguments that you do not put it to the test with others and that no matter how much you think and think until you are exhausted, you see no way out, consider yourself a rigid person.

If so, the difficulties you encounter on a day-to-day basis will affect you more. Be flexible, do not demand too much and focus on the solution, reserve the energy to generate alternatives that can give you another perspective of the situation.

The self-registration that I mentioned earlier will help you to draw alternatives from those rigid thoughts that you wrote and that are the cause of the level of discomfort. Focus on looking for possible alternatives to those thoughts and discover that when you find another, more positive thought, your level of discomfort will change.

With this, you are telling your brain that this situation is not so bad either. Discuss the problem with other people, sure they see it differently and add other ways of seeing to your repertoire, do not close yourself. Think that other people have solved it, learn from them it will be very useful.

5-Know the ABC model

This model is by which cognitive psychology is governed and is the key to understanding the role of thoughts, which I explain above. Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive psychology, in one of his books mentions a simple example which is the one I usually use to explain to my patients the importance of thoughts.

Imagine that it is a windy day and you are at home. Suddenly the window starts to make noise and you think that it may be some thief who is trying to enter through the window, then you will feel fear and you will run to call the police.

However, in the same situation, you may think that it is the wind that simply moves it a little, so you will not feel fear. Observe how your interpretation of the wind changes your mood, your emotions, what we have seen so far.

6-Doubt your thoughts, confront them

The thoughts must be taken as hypotheses, something that must be verified.

Ask yourself:

• How likely is this to happen to me? From 0 to 100, what is the degree to which I believe that thought?
• What data do I have for and against?
• Where is it written that this is so? Why do you say it?
• Does the mere fact that you think it mean it's true?
• Is everything you always think true? Has something you thought or were convinced of ever turned out to be false?
• Can I read other people's minds? How do I know this is what you think? Is there a possibility that I am wrong?
• Does thinking like this help me achieve my goals?
• Does thinking like this influence my state of mind?
• If someone close to you knows what you are thinking, how would this person react?
• How would another person resolve the same situation?
• If finally what I think is true, what is the worst thing that can happen to me? Is it worth anticipating the hypothetical consequences? Is it really a catastrophe?
• After questioning your thoughts, ask yourself again: From 0 to 100, what is the degree to which I believe that thought?

Now and taking advantage of the answers you have given to the previous question, develop an alternative and more realistic way of thinking, you will see how what you feel changes and therefore what you do.

"He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary."

7-Don't try not to think

On many occasions you try to avoid thinking so as not to have a bad time. We try to avoid not thinking, get that out of our heads. The result is that the opposite happens, that thought becomes more present and takes on more force.

A thought is nothing more than the connection of neurons, it has no entity as such they come and go. If you give it importance, let's say that you are reinforcing that connection and therefore the brain will mistakenly interpret it as important.

Imagine that I tell you not to think of a white bear, to try hard not to think of a white bear, please try hard not to think of it. Surely the first thing that came to mind is that white bear, so you did the opposite of what I told you. If you've always tried not to think about that worry, and the opposite has happened over and over again, try to impose the opposite.

Let the thoughts flow, do not fear because you think strange things, if you do not care, they will weaken by themselves.

Let him know that we all think a huge amount of things a day, due to our imaginative capacity that we bring as standard, and that of what we think comes true in a very small percentage. So let your imagination run wild and don't fear it, it can even be fun.

8-Practice correct breathing

When we feel fear or anguish, our breathing becomes short and fast. This causes our pulsations to fire and the danger signal reaches the brain. Spend at least 20 minutes a day practicing diaphragmatic breathing.

Go to a quiet place and lie on your back comfortably. Become aware of your breathing, breathe in through your nose, and focus on storing it in your stomach by bloating it. Hold for 5-6 seconds and breathe out through your mouth.

One trick is to put an object on top of the navel and try to raise and lower it, in this way the diaphragm will be exercised. This is usually contracted by excess tension, so I recommend decontracting it by going to a physiotherapist, you will see that you will notice the difference.

9-Learn relaxation techniques

A widely used technique is Jacobson's progressive relaxation. It is a psychophysiological method, which consists of deliberately and systematically tensing and relaxing muscle groups to achieve two fundamental objectives:

1. Eliminate muscle contraction.
2. Replace it with a state of deep relaxation.

Basically this type of relaxation consists of learning to tense and then relax, sequentially, various muscle groups throughout the body, while at the same time carefully and rigorously directing attention to the sensations associated with tension and relaxation. In this way we become aware of the excessive tension sensations and the difference between these and the sensations of relaxation.

To do this, sit as comfortable as possible, keep your head straight on your shoulders and your back should be touching the back of the chair. Place your legs apart without crossing them and place your feet fully on the floor. Put your hands on your thighs and then focus on making your breath conscious.

Start by tense the forehead for a few seconds and focus on feeling tension, then we let go and feel the difference. Then we close the fist of the hand and tighten it with force, we hold a few seconds and then we open the fist and we will feel the difference.

So with all muscle groups. You can look for a video on YouTube where I explain it in more detail and take advantage of its benefits.

10-Practice sports

This last step is very important. You must exercise and feel your body, see that the activation that occurs is normal and has nothing to do with anxiety symptoms. As you exercise more often and focus on the activity itself, your anxiety will soon subside.

Here you can read more about the benefits of sport.

These steps are those that I have seen in many cases that I have had in consultation that work and that if the person commits to carry them out and stop to reflect, they will achieve results.