In this article we will talk about how you can beat anxiety naturally, just by taking control of a superpower that you already possess. To be specific, we will talk about how you can conquer anxiety by consciously choosing what to focus on. We also discuss some actionable advice that you can use, to tame anxiety.
My struggles with anxiety and how I learnt to tame it
I was in a new environment and wasn’t sure what the future would hold for me. As a result of which, I had been feeling anxious and threatened for days. It felt like the fight or flight response of my body, was being overworked. The nights seemed to be the scariest, as I had to be alone with my thoughts.
As my mind was anticipating the impending doom, from some place or the other, I was actually getting no concrete work done. As my mind continued playing tricks, days turned into weeks. The project deadline kept approaching nearer, resulting in an all out existential crisis for me.
On that fateful Monday afternoon, just 1 day before the project submission deadline, I probably did the most sensible thing in days. I brewed myself a cup of hot black coffee and put Krishna Das’ bhajans at full blast on my headphones, set the timer to one hour, thirty minutes, and told myself, “Screw it ! Let the world collapse if it has to, in the next hour and a half, but I will not get my bum up from this chair, until the timer beeps.”
As the timer started ticking, I felt like a fish out of water. But as I persisted, I started to feel something that had alluded me for weeks. I had started experiencing a certain level of calmness again, coupled with joy, which perhaps is a by product of a calm mind. As a result, I had the most peaceful sleep that night.
Unfortunately I was not able to submit the project on time. However, I was not too bothered by it, as I had discovered something much more profound about myself and the human psyche. I discovered that a human mind feels most anxious and agitated, when it is distracted. Conversely, this means that if you want to beat anxiety and live a peaceful and happy life, you need to train your mind to stay focused.
How deep focus helps you beat anxiety ?
Hungarian Psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book “Flow“, says that processing capacity of a human mind is 120 bits per second. Which means that your mind can only process 120 bits of information per second. That’s why you can’t understand when more than two people are simultaneously talking to you.
Given that a human mind can only process 120 bits of information per second, we can thereby infer that if you really set your complete attention to the task at hand, then there is no bandwidth left in your mind, to fret about the future, to worry about the problems in your love life or even worry about your illness. In fact Winifred Gallagher, in her book, “Rapt“, talks about how the quality of her life improved after she was diagnosed with cancer, just because she decided to take control of her attention and consciously choose what to focus on.
Therefore, a sure shot way to beat anxiety, is by getting completely engrossed in the activity you are performing, such that you don’t have any metal bandwidth left to bemoan the past or worry about the future. This state can be called as “flow”, which is a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.
Ummm… Now the question is…
How to reach a state, where you are completely absorbed in the activity ?
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whom we had introduced earlier, states that in order to achieve a state of flow through the activity at hand, there should be a right balance between the difficulty of activity and skill level. If an activity is too difficult, it results in anxiety. If an activity is too easy, it results in boredom.
For example, when you are starting to learn to play tennis, just hitting the ball to the other side is an achievement. But as you get better at it, you need to increase the challenge. Maybe you need to learn to serve, maybe you need to play a game, maybe you need to play a game with a good player. To maintain flow, ensure that you have a balance between challenge and skill level. First practice and upskill, then challenge that skill and finally, repeat.
To conclude, the next time you feel anxious, try doing this…
Our mind can only process certain amount of information per second. Therefore, the key to beating anxiety is to deeply focus one’s mind to a task, so that there is no bandwidth left in our mind to process any worries.
Next time you are overwhelmed with anxiety, firstly you need to consciously take control of your mind, by detaching from the environment. This can be done through a short meditation, a long walk, or journaling ,or playing guitar.
Once you have detached yourself, just decide to take up a task, any task. If you find it boring, may be try increasing it’s difficulty level, e.g: you may time yourself while performing the task and set rewards if you manage to complete the task within the stipulated time. Whereas, if you find the task too difficult for your current skill level, try breaking down into simpler tasks which you feel you can perform and build up from there.
If you are feeling overwhelmed and do not know what to do in life, I highly recommend that you checkout this article :
Read This If Feel You Have Lost Your Way in Life
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