Anxiety with negative feelings: what to do?

This is how anxiety combines emotions with negative feelings.

Anxiety is a type of discomfort as common as it is diverse. In fact, it is such a complex phenomenon that it mixes both disturbing sensations and thoughts, the contents of which depend both on the characteristics of the person experiencing it in his own skin, and on the context in which he finds himself.

Thus, in the anxiety there are always mixed a series of negative feelings that it is complicated to separate and to analyze separately, in an objective way. Fortunately, this does not mean that it is impossible to learn to deal with that kind of discomfort and to avoid that it blocks us or makes us enter in a vicious circle of anguish and stress.

How does anxiety arise?

Anxiety is a psychological state and also a psychological state, given that is embodied both in feelings and thoughts in general, on the one hand, and the state of activation of our body, on the other hand.on the other.

In general, it predisposes us to interpret many of the things that happen around us as danger signals, or warnings to be alert for what may happen. In fact, sometimes this happens even without our knowing very well what it is that we should be prepared to act on as soon as possible. We are simply overcome by a feeling of unease and a sense that things will go wrong if we do not make an effort to avoid them.

Thus, Typical symptoms of anxiety are trembling, sweating, sensitivity to light, dizziness, digestive problems, and even a feeling of anxiety.and in general phenomena associated with the need to stay alert and highly activated in order to react quickly and avoid damage even greater than the discomfort we feel at that moment: there is a subjective experience of overload, that our nervous system is at its limit.

But while this happens in our body in general... what happens, concretely, in our stream of thoughts?

The vicious circle of anxiety and negative feelings

Feelings are the way we interpret emotions, that is, our way of interpreting the fact that we are experiencing them. In the case of anxiety, this is combined with a series of negative feelings, and both elements reinforce each other in a vicious circle..

This mutual feedback between negative feelings and anxiety is embodied in two main phenomena.

Pessimistic forecasts

When we are anxious, we tend to generate pessimistic forecasts about what will happen, and this series of beliefs is in line with the need to stay alert, to have all our senses directed towards possible opportunities to avoid what would harm us. all our senses directed towards possible opportunities to avoid that which would harm us, so as not to suffer all the bad things that would so as not to suffer all the bad things that seem to us that will happen to us.

Psychological rumination

Rumination consists of the tendency to bring to our consciousness over and over again, involuntarily, a series of disturbing thoughts or mental images, which make us feel bad and lead us to think about things that worry us, either about what might happen in the future or what happened to us in the past (on many occasions, both times overlap and become indistinguishable for us).

As we see that no matter how hard we try we are not able to get rid of those thoughts, that predisposes us more to be alert to try not to let them return, or to block them when they appear in our consciousness, which in turn makes us more vulnerable to their influence.or to block them when they appear in our consciousness, which in turn makes us more vulnerable to their influence, since we are alert and reinforcing our anxiety.

Tips to keep in mind.

Here are some key ideas about what you should do

1. Take care of your health

We are much more vulnerable to anxiety when we are physically unhealthy.. Therefore, the first step is to check that we are getting enough sleep, that we are eating well, that we are staying active, etc.

2. Do not block thoughts, manage your attention.

Much more effective than trying to block the negative feelings linked to anxiety is to learn to accept that they are there and limit them. learn to accept that they are there and limit yourself to direct your focus to other aspects of your present. of your present. Mindfulness exercises are often helpful and are easy to learn and practice.

3. Practice moderate exercise

It has been shown that the regular practice of moderate aerobic exercise has been shown to make us more resilient to anxiety distress makes us more resistant to discomfort due to anxiety and allows us to reorganize our thoughts, by offering us a series of well-defined goals linked to sensations that stimulate us at all times through the movement of our body.

4. Go to therapy

If you think that nothing works for you and you continue to feel bad, go to psychotherapy.

Are you interested in psychotherapy for anxiety?

If you notice that you need help to manage anxiety because it gives you too many problems and you can not control the situation, do not blame yourself: it happens to many people, and sometimes it is too difficult to overcome this kind of alterations without external support. Fortunately, anxiety can be treated through a process of psychotherapy.

Therefore, in case you find yourself in such a situation, I suggest you contact meI am a psychologist with more than 15 years of professional experience helping patients, and helping people to manage anxiety in an adequate way is very often part of my work.

My work is based on a combination of the tools and methodologies of cognitive-behavioral therapies and third generation therapies, models of psychological intervention that have proven to be effective in the treatment of many emotional and behavioral problems. You can count on my help both in face-to-face therapy sessions in my center located in Madrid and through online therapy by video call. You will find my contact details on this page.

Bibliographic references:

• American Psychiatric Association –APA- (2014). DSM-5. Manual diagnóstico y estadístico de los trastornos mentales. Madrid: Panamericana.
• Kasper, S., Boer, J. A. d., & Sitsen, J. M. A. (2003). Handbook of depression and anxiety. Nueva York: M. Dekker.
• Phillips, A.C.; Carroll, D.; Der, G. (2015). Negative life events and symptoms of depression and anxiety: stress causation and/or stress generation. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping. 28 (4): pp. 357 - 371.
• Stephan WG, Stephan CW (1985). Intergroup Anxiety. Journal of Social Issues.
• Sylvers, P.; Lilienfeld, S.O.; LaPrairie, J.L. (2011). Differences between trait fear and trait anxiety: implications for psychopathology. Clinical Psychology Review. 31(1): pp. 122 - 137.