Detached Anxiety: Detachment can be a good thing for anxiety

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Allow me to provide an analogy.

Imagine you are at the movie theatre and watching a really scary movie.  You come to an extremely tense scene in the movie.  You feel your heart racing, your anxiety levels increasing, your hands are sweaty, etc.  Suddenly, though, you have the realization that this is just a movie, and your anxiety level decreases.  I remember when I was younger and watching scary movies I learned to do this process. 

Unfortunately, however, most of us do not utilize this tendency in our day-to-day lives.  But we can.  Often everyday stressful situations e.g. at work, compound on each other and our stress levels increase.

The take home suggestion is to encourage you to learn to detach from a negative situation, even if it’s just for a minute or two, to experience the immediate relief that can be felt. 

Specifically if you feel yourself getting worked up and ready to respond with anger or any other emotional response, take the time out now.  You will learn that you can do this more and more in your life. 

Start by just practicing this suggestion for a minute or two and gradually increase the timeframe.  The process is hard to explain but setting the intention to do this can start the process for you, and like riding a bike, once you actually do it you will get better and better. Just remember my analogy of the movie when you are trying to initiate the process and I think things will begin to flow.

This can become one more technique to add to your anxiety toolkit.