Anticipation Anxiety
Anticipation anxiety is the anxiety that we experience prior to a feared trigger. This trigger can really be anything: Monday morning, a job interview, a plane ride, a test, an unwanted conversation, a medical appointment, trying a new food or activity. This common type of anxiety can range from mild and barely noticable to incredibly impairing. Many times, the discomfort from anticipation anxiety can be far worse the the discomfort experienced during the actual event. Have you ever wondered why this happens?
The human brain has a unique ability to create an emotional response to a feared or imagined stimuli that is just as painful and vivid as a real event. It has obviously served us in positive ways. It has allowed us to create safety measures that protect us from future or possible threats (locks on doors, seat belts, helmets, etc). The downside is that it also allows us to think and imagine detailed, terrible, scenerios that lead us to feeling uneccessarily miserable at times as well.
Some of the congitive distoritons (negative patterns of thinking) that can maintain this type of the anxiety are: fortune telling (predicting a bad or scary outcome), overgeneralization (assuming that because something turned out badly in the past, it will always turn out the same way) and mind reading (assuming that we know what others are thinking or are going to think about us).
If anticipation anxiety about an upcoming situation or event has you on the hook right now, you can try a few of my favorite tips to tame it:
Practice staying in a curious, present mindset by saying “ Let’s see” or “Let’s see how this goes”. Sticking with a “let’s see” mindset allows us to stay in the moment and let the situation unfold instead of staying focused on our future expectations. Spoiler alert*** Humans are not great at seeing into the future or reading minds****
Postponing the worry. This is particularly helpful when the feared trigger is weeks or months away. Basically, when you notice the thought pop into your head, you tell yourself “I will focus on this later” or “I will focus on this when the event gets closer”. Most of us are better at letting our guard down and shifting our awareness away from the worry when we know that we have a plan to deal with it at some point in the future.
The goal is to get back to trusting in your own ability to handle life as it comes. Most of the people that I work with are MUCH better and handling life events than they think. I bet you are are as well.
