Motivational writer and speaker Mike Dooley says “Thoughts become things…choose the good ones.” While it might seem simplistic, this sentiment is important to our mental health. The quality of our thoughts have a direct correlation with our experience in the world. Internalizing this understanding is the first step toward working with your anxiety – not against it – to shift your experience with everything around you.
Shift Your Mindset: Befriend Your Stress
Of course, this doesn’t involve just thinking happy thoughts. And this doesn’t mean that all stress and anxiety can be cured with the flip of a switch. And it doesn’t mean that all stress is bad, either. Our anxiety is there to teach us something. When we can get on board with the idea of partnering with this inner teacher, instead of fighting it tooth and nail, we can ease our suffering. It doesn’t necessarily mean the anxiety goes away; it means it does not control us any longer. We control it, and that’s what this is all about.
Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford, says “stress can activate strength.” (1) She believes that we can leverage those butterflies in the pit of our stomach when we are asking someone on a date, or taking a test, or rehearsing the school play. She says we should not look at those butterflies as a source of anxiety, but should instead welcome them with excitement. Instead of letting our rapid heartbeat inspire feelings of “am I enough?”, it should command feelings of “I’ve got this.” You’re doing this because you’re excited to be doing it. Not because you need to prove something. This life is a thrill, not a test.
Shift Your Mindset: Threat Or Challenge
There are a few different types of stress responses, and our body reacts in subtly different ways to them. For example, if your life really is in danger, and that racing heartbeat is not because of the cutie you’re crushing on, there’s a different level of stress hormone released. More inflammation of the blood vessels too. (1) When you’re in imminent danger, your body definitely knows. So, of course, it knows other types of responses too. It knows when it’s being challenged, and challenge can be really good. Rising to the challenge is all about re-framing your perception of what is happening. It’s that go-getter spirit in action. You will do this because you’re excited to.
Shift Your Mindset: Tend And Befriend
With this type of stress response, a different hormone is released: oxytocin. (1) The stress an ER nurse feels is the kind that would elicit this response. Rising to the challenge of helping others in spite of whatever stressful thing or natural disaster is occurring will inspire feelings of togetherness and connection. So dive right in, be the good Samaritan. Use a little elbow grease, help others in need, and reap the benefits of anxiety.
Shift Your Mindset: Growth
New research is being applied to this idea that stress can be seen as an opportunity to learn. Ms. McGonigal says:
“If you think stress is to help you run away from a tiger, of course, that’s not a helpful way to respond to life. But if you understand that what you experience as stress is the biological mechanism by which you are going to learn and grow and develop your strength, now that’s a totally different way to understand why your heart is pounding, or why you’re having trouble falling asleep at night because you’re thinking about something stressful that happened.” (1)
When we’re able to change our mindset around our experience of stress and anxiety, we’re able to get out from under those big feelings. It doesn’t have to elicit a fight or flight response in us, and by taking a moment to discern what we are really feeling, we can leverage that into better performance. Or higher grades, or that long-awaited “she said yes!”
Shift Your Mindset, Shift Your Path
Researchers have noted that school-age children already have preconceived notions of what success means: namely grades and college admissions. Working with anxiety in these younger people is often about untying the knot around those beliefs that there is just this one narrow path in life that you have to walk. Stress for most kids comes around tests, and grades, and the fear that they are not learning enough or that the materials they need aren’t available. (1) By helping kids to understand their different responses to stress, and how to work with them, they are given an opportunity to really shine… and to be themselves in the process.
There’s a saying that “you can’t control the wind but you can adjust your sails”, and this is a great analogy for learning how to shift your mindset where stress and anxiety are concerned. Your anxiety is the wind, and your thoughts are the sails. That means the direction you take is completely within your control; from here you can go anywhere you wish.
