Paul Eckert on Building Confidence

Let’s face it worry, fear and anxiety are incredibly common problems. But when they take over your life and stop you from really living how you want to then it is time to do something.

Without using drugs there is a range of coping strategies that you can try to help program your bodily, psychological and behavioural responses linked to intense worry, fear and anxiety. These strategies need to be reinforced again and again so think of it as a long-term approach.

1) Think about keeping a diary which will help you monitor your anxieties and become more familiar with any patterns and triggers – for example, you might find that certain situations or people cause you more stress.

2) Improve your breathing – yes, there is a comfortable and an uncomfortable way to breathe! Try to catch yourself if you are breathing rapidly and shallowly -the kind of breathing that you find yourself doing if you’ve had to run for a bus for example. What you should be aiming for is breathing gently and evenly, through your nose, filling your lungs completely and then breathing out slowly and fully. Try practising taking eight to twelve breaths a minute (breathing in and breathing out again counts as one breath). Do not breathe rapidly.

3) Deliberate and planned relaxation - you need to build in planned exercises to manage your bodily sensations as part of your day-to-day life. Under stress, the muscles in our body tense and this can lead to anything from headaches to back pain. Look into relaxation exercises like this one: lie down in a comfortable position and tense your muscle groups, one by one for about five seconds and then let go of the tension for ten to fifteen seconds. Do this for your feet, legs, stomach, back, shoulders/neck, arms, face and whole body. Look into buying a relaxation tape/CD for this.

4) Develop the art of distraction to control your worries and fears. This is easier said than done I admit but there are a few things to try. The first is physical exercise: swimming, jogging, squash etc can help use up the adrenaline which can otherwise make you feel tense. In social situations like a party you could become distracted by helping the host hand round drinks and food. Other distractions include tidying up at home (I found that a good clean up at times helps me when I am wound up about something!) or reorganising the loft etc. anything that will allow you to get stuck in and avoid dwelling on problems. Refocusing is another technique to absorb your attention – in the street you could count how many people are wearing red for example. The techniques have to be practised to be effective.

5) Challenging your worries and fears is another good technique to use. For example, if you find yourself dwelling on something, ask yourself “Is this a realistic worry?” and then replace it with a constructive statement. Challenging the concern is a way of dealing with it at source and interrupting the cycle of increasing tension.

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