4 QUESTIONS to ask BEFORE taking anyone’s advice on beating anxiety
If you’ve been troubleshooting anxiety for awhile, you’ve probably heard a lot of different - possibly conflicting, and often bad - advice.
“Just relax!”
“Have you tried not thinking about it?”
“Your physical symptoms aren’t real, it’s all in your head.”
“Anxiety is something you’ll live with for the rest of your life. You just need better coping skills.”
There is a lot of confusion and misinformation out there about what anxiety is and how to fix it.
So before you take someone’s advice, here are four questions to ask them first. I compiled these over many years of trial and error, getting deep into a particular method and then discovering that it was taking me full speed in the wrong direction. Once I started asking these questions, everything changed.
1. Have you had anxiety and recovered successfully?
Anxiety can feel very isolating, and if the person giving you advice has no clue what you're experiencing on a day to day basis, it can make it worse.
On the other hand, you would be surprised at how many therapists currently struggle with anxiety. Ask them to be honest about their own experience and whether they believe anxiety can be overcome, or only managed.
2. Can you explain the root causes of anxiety?
Anxiety is not a mystery. It's rooted in the ways our brain learns to deal with stress. If someone tells you anxiety is a genetically-inherited brain chemistry imbalance...
..run the other direction.
The brain chemistry hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked by science. It's a story that pharmaceutical companies told for a long time, but there is no support for it in the research.
3. Can you explain the logic behind my current symptoms?
Symptoms have a logic to them. They're not random. If you took your car into the shop because it was making weird noises, you would want the mechanic to explain...
... what those noises were about before you let him under the hood of your car to start fixing stuff.
Similarly, symptoms like a racing heart, difficulty breathing or swallowing, intrusive thoughts, etc. have specific causes that can be explained.
4. Can you explain the difference between the body, the mind, the brain and the self?
To fix anxiety, we first need to understand the correct relationship between the body, the mind, the brain and the self
If someone can't explain the difference to you, it's going to be next to impossible for them to explain what's not working and how to fix it for the long term.
In resilience,
Caitlin