How To Minimize Anxiety

Mrs. C’s blood pressure was high at 160/82 and her heart rate was 90 beats per minute. After I greeted her in the exam room, I brought up her abnormal vital signs.

“My blood pressure was 134/70 just two days ago at my PCP’s office. When I come here, I am anxious. I am an anxious person.”

In my practice, I come across patients who feel anxious when they come to their office visits with me. When asked what they are anxious about, the answers are usually similar. Either they are worried about being told that the treatment is not working or their disease is getting worse.

Anxiety happens when you are thinking about something that causes you to worry. You may think of the worst case scenario. When you feel anxious, your body physically feels tense, uneasy  or not yourself. You may have rapid heart rate, high blood pressure and have a feeling of shortness of breath. You may have trouble sleeping because those thoughts and worries keep replaying over and over in your head.

Anyone can feel anxious at any time. It depends on how you think about a situation. It is natural for many people to think of the worst possible outcome and that it would happen. This causes a lot of anxiety.

As physicians, it is common to feel anxious. You may worry that you are not making the best recommendation for your patients. You may worry that the treatment is not working. You may worry about how anxious your patient will be and how that will affect your encounter experience. Whatever is causing you to feel anxious, there is the uneasy feeling. There may even be a doom and gloom feeling. Your anxiety may interfere with your ability to focus. Whenever you want to do your work, your mind happens to go back to the thing you are worried about. That anxiety keeps returning and is interfering with the way you work. It is interfering with your decision making. You question if that decision is the best decision or not. You go back and forth because you are worried that you made the wrong move. This constant worry interferes with your day. You are not as efficient as you want to be – which itself causes you to be more anxious about not being able to finish your work on time. When you are anxious, it is difficult for you to sleep well. Without a restful night’s sleep, the vicious cycle of trouble focusing and prompt decision making continues.

It is normal to feel anxious from time to time. It is crucial to identify what is causing you to feel anxious. It is important to recognize that it is not the situation or the people that causes you to feel anxious. It is your opinion about that situation or those people that causes you to feel anxious.

Anxiety does not have to define who you are. In other words, instead of believing that you are an anxious person, say that you are a person who feels anxious easily. You may think that those are two ways to say the same thing. There is a subtle difference. If you believe that you are an anxious person, you are letting anxiety define who you are. You are also giving yourself the excuse or the permission to feel anxious without the need to open to the possibilities of other emotions. When you think that you are a person who feels anxious easily (or even think that you are a person who feels anxious all the time), you are the person who feels the emotions. There is room to change that. You can become the person who feels anxious less easily.

When you find yourself feeling anxious and it is affecting your work or your life, take a break. Pause. Identify what your main thought that is causing you to feel this way. Be open to other possibilities. What is another perspective to view the situation? How does that feel when you think of it that way?

Focus on the present. Yes, it is good to be prepared. It is important to expect the unexpected. It is important to anticipate the worst case possible. It is also important to allow your mind to consider other possibilities. What if the outcome will be alright?

Anxiety is a normal human emotion. Allow yourself to experience it when it comes to you. While you are acknowledging your feelings, ask yourself what you are thinking that brought it on. Take a pause. Breathe. Focus on the present. Think of other possible outcomes. Practices like daily meditation and mindfulness help with easing anxiety. If anxiety is causing excessive worry that it is interfering with your daily life, do not hesitate to seek help.