Two Types of Thoughts that Create Anxiety.

Anxious Thoughts Impact Daily Life

You’re noticing you have been more anxious. You have struggled with anxiety for a while now, and it is getting more difficult to ignore. Anxiety is keeping you up at night thinking about what could go wrong and planning to make things better. It’s difficult to stop worrying. You feel it in your body. The anxiousness is getting stronger. It is hard to figure out what is causing it and why. You go about your day trying to problem solve your way out of anxiety, but it keeps popping up in more unexpected places. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why you are feeling anxious. You feel like it is taking over your life.

You just want a good night’s sleep and a plan to figure out how to start managing anxiety so you can start feeling better and taking it easy rather than feeling tense and anxious all the time.

Anxiety is a normal and healthy emotion that nearly everyone experiences. Some levels of anxiety are healthy and help us pay attention to situations that could be potentially dangerous or cause additional stress. In some people, anxiety can grow to a level that overrides their ability to think through the problem alone. Once we hit our threshold of what we can reason through, the anxiety takes over. It is difficult to manage because anxiety has taken over. After all, we cannot think through situations as we usually would. When this happens, people often blame themselves for not handling it or feel like something is wrong with them. This just isn’t true. It’s not your fault; it is a normal brain-based process. A part of anxiety treatment is skill-building, to learn skills to guide yourself through anxious thoughts and act proactively to manage before you hit your threshold of what you can handle. With time and consistent practice, you can learn how to manage your anxiety and feel confident in your ability to tackle anxious thoughts as they come.

Thoughts play a considerable role in anxiousness. The thoughts we have to create the feelings we are experiencing. They make up what we think about each day and our internal experiences. If our thoughts are negative, it might feel like it is raining and overcast all the time. In contrast, if our thoughts are more positive and realistic, we can coach ourselves through daily struggles and feel more peace.

Throughout the day, we have thousands of thoughts that cross our minds. If we can get a fraction of those thoughts helping to balance out the anxiety, we can create new habits that lessen anxiousness. Being intentional and curious about our thoughts helps to choose which thoughts are helping to manage anxiety.

Future Thinking

Future thinking is a category of thoughts about what is to come and how we feel about it. Future thinking causes us to predict what is coming down the line without knowing what will happen. What if thinking can increase anxiety if applied to negative and undesired situations. What if thinking can be rooted in our feelings about ourselves and others. Having what-if thoughts is normal; it is typical to think about the future.

Here are some examples of anxiety-causing future thinking:

What if I don’t succeed?
What if I don’t know what to do?
What if I don’t have enough money?
What if they don’t like me?

What we do with the thought is what matters. Do we agree with the anxious feeling that comes from what-if, or do we consider the opposite?

What if it works out well?
What if I trusted myself to do this?
What if I create a plan to make it until payday?
What if we get along great?

Another strategy is to turn “What if” into a “What” or “How” question about the present.

What can I do to make this successful?
How can I make this a success?

We cannot control what happens in the future; we can only control what we do in the present by being intentional about what we are thinking and doing.

Feeling Thinking

Often feelings are fleeting, and we can feel more than one feeling at one time. Throughout the day, we experience many emotions. Changing the way we think about ourselves moment to moment is exhausting. Just because we feel a feeling does not mean that feeling accurately describes who or what we are. Humans are complex. We go through a wide range of emotions. Even the most successful and confident people feel weak and unsure of themselves. That doesn’t mean it is true. We all have value and worth beyond measure. Feelings are not factual. We must develop a stronger and deeper sense of self to fall back on to help us remember who we are, even when experiencing difficult feelings.

If you are struggling with anxiety and want support in managing anxious thoughts, I am here to help. As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I have helped many people learn to manage their anxiety. We all have times when we need support in addressing what we are experiencing. Anxiety treatment can help you gain skills and progress to your goals using evidence-based approaches.