By Dr Ruth Sellers and Dr Wendy Browne | 19 May 2023

Essential top tips to help deal with feelings of anxiety

This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week takes place from 15 to 21 May 2023 and is run by the Mental Health Foundation. The notable theme for the week this year is anxiety #ToHelpMyAnxiety. We are proud to support this cause and our leading Rudd Centre experts at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge Dr Ruth Sellers and Dr Wendy Browne offer their considerable expertise for managing feelings of anxiety effectively. Read on for their practical guide. Resources for support are listed at the end.

Ruth's top tips

Exercise

Evidence strongly suggests that exercise can help our mental health. Whilst we’re focusing on something else, it also means we are not focusing on our worries. I like to run – I find I focus on the run. I have recently tried climbing, it is like a puzzle figuring out how to get to the top and when I’m so focused on climbing, it means I’m not so focused on worries.

Avoid too much caffeine

I find this really hard – it’s not my strong point! I really enjoy coffee. But too much caffeine can disrupt our sleep. A lot of caffeine can also mimic anxiety symptoms or worsen existing feelings of anxiety.

Write things down

I find this helps me a lot if I have a lot of things to do - it can stop too many thoughts filling our minds, and help us prioritise. We can also write down our worries our anxieties – it’s important that we don’t ignore these. When writing things down, it might help to understand more about what affects you and makes you feel more or less anxious.

Talk to someone

It can be helpful to share worries if you feel able to – it can reduce anxiety or fear. You might want to share with a friend or partner, but if you don’t feel like you can, there are organisations that can help [see list of resources at the end]. Anxiety can feel lonely sometimes - It can help to connect with family and friends and spend time with other people to feel less alone.

Take a break (but avoid avoidance)

If you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed, try to take a break. You could set a period of time where you step away from work or school work (or revision). You might want to use this time to go for a brief walk, or to try different relaxation methods, or just take time out. Whilst it’s essential to take a break, it’s easy to avoid things we find stressful, however be aware that this can reinforce the idea that something is stressful and can make us feel worse. It’s important not to avoid tasks we have to do, even if we find them stressful. If we have completed something we were anxious or worried about, we can feel a great sense of achievement and feel more positive when it’s done.

Try to get a good nights sleep

Aim to have a routine, going to bed and waking up at similar times. Sometimes when we’re feeling anxious it can be hard to sleep, especially if our worries are going around our heads. If you can’t sleep, you could try writing down your worries. If you still can’t sleep have a drink (not caffeine) and go back to bed when you feel more tired.

Question your anxiety

It’s good to find out what we worry about and investigate whether there is any evidence to support our worries – we can challenge our worries.

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Wendy's top tips

Two helpful tips that I know of and have found very useful personally include 'Detached Mindfulness' and 'Worry Postponement'.

Detached Mindfulness

This involves changing your attention and relationship with worry. Bothersome thoughts may enter your mind and you can’t control this. However, instead of engaging with the worry, you simply notice it and let it go. Here are some techniques to achieve detached mindfulness (Wells, 2005):

1. Imagine your thoughts are like clouds in the sky. You can’t control them, so just notice them and allow them to pass by.
2. Consider your thoughts as trains passing through a station. You can’t stop the train so you can just notice it and let it pass by without attempting to board.
3. Think about your worries like a misbehaving child. If you pay too much attention to the child to try and control their behaviour, this could make matter worse. Just keep your passive attention on the child without actively engaging with them.

Worry postponement

This is where you allocate a specific time to think about thoughts that are causing you worry and was first described by Borkovec and colleagues (1983). The premise behind this technique it that instead of thinking about worries constantly or trying to force the thoughts away, you instead give them time, but only at a point in the day that you decide on and for a limited duration. If the bothersome thought enters your mind outside of this allotted time, remind yourself that you will get to it later.

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Further Information and Support

References

Borkovec, T. D., Wilkinson, L., Folensbee, R., & Lerman, C. (1983). Stimulus control applications to the treatment of worry. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21, 247-251.

Wells, A. (2005). Detached mindfulness in cognitive therapy: A metacognitive analysis and ten techniques. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 23, 337-355

Rudd publications

Field, A. P., Lester, K. J., Cartwright-Hatton, S., Harold, G. T., Shaw, D. S., Natsuaki, M. N., ... & Leve, L. D. (2020). Maternal and paternal influences on childhood anxiety symptoms: A genetically sensitive comparison. Journal of applied developmental psychology, 68, 101123.

Richards, A., Horwood, J., O’Donovan, M. C., Boden, J., Kennedy, M., Sellers, R., Riglin, L., ... & Harold, G. T. (2019). Associations between schizophrenia genetic risk, anxiety disorders and manic/hypomanic episode in a longitudinal population cohort study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 214(2), 96-102.

Rice, F., Sellers, R., Hammerton, G., Eyre, O., Bevan-Jones, R., Thapar, A.K., Collishaw, S., Harold, G.T. & Thapar, A. (2017). Antecedents of new-onset major depressive disorder in children and adolescents at high familial risk. JAMA psychiatry, 74(2), 153-160.

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Support for children and young people

• The Children’s Society
• Young Minds Support for Children and Young People
• Barnardo’s support for young people

Support for families

• Mental Health Foundation list of support
• Mind: Information for parents, carers, family members and guardians
• Young Minds Parental Support
• Action for Children

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Image attributes

1. Anxiety handlettering drawn with Procreate: Nik on Unsplash
2. Clouds in blue sky: Ashish Bogawat on Pixabay