Yesterday, I wrote about how awareness of your anxiety symptoms is key to properly managing your anxiety and living a better life free of worry, fear or panic.
It is important to remember that learning about the different types of anxiety coupled with exploring the many symptoms of anxiety will allow you to gain a better understanding of what it is you are personally going through. And like with anything in life the more you understand, the more you become aware of what is going on, the better equipped you are to deal with the situation.
For the longest time I never knew what it was I was experiencing, I simply thought there was something wrong with me. I had no idea what anxiety was or what the symptoms of anxiety were.
The feeling of not being able to breath, brought on thoughts that maybe I had some sort of respiratory problem. The constant upset stomachs made me believe that it was simply hereditary, after all many of my family members also experienced frequent upset stomachs, they all blamed it on the removal of their gallbladder.
Today, I know this is rubbish and simply not true. It had less to do with the removal of their gallbladder than it did with their thoughts and their environmental influences. The stresses, the diets…etc.
Once you have identified the type(s) of anxiety you’re experiencing and the symptoms associated with it. It is now time to look at how these symptoms could be potentially triggered.
Over the years I have been able to organize these triggers in two main categories.
- Controllable Triggers
Controllable triggers are triggers that you can personally manage. I have found that these have been the easiest to implement and the most effective in quickly eliminating many of the symptoms I once experienced.Without getting into too much detail ( I’ll save that for a later post), here is a list of controllable triggers:
- Caffeine (coffee, teas, colas, energy drinks)
- Alcohol / Drugs
- Food ( sugar, processed carbohydrates, junk foods….)
- Sleep / Rest
- Your Thoughts ( this one is vitally important)
- Uncontrollable Triggers
Uncontrollable triggers are triggers that are typically beyond your control. You can however control the way you view them, think about them, and perceive them. It’ s like a game a poker, you are dealt a certain hand ( a certain environment, upbringing, heredity, and set of experiences) and you have to play with what you have.As humans we are all unique. We all come from different backgrounds and have experienced different things throughout our life. Complaining won’t change how we were raised, what genetic disposition we inherited or what sort of environment ( stressful, loving, chaotic…) we grew up in.
Let’s take a look at some uncontrollable triggers, again not going into too much detail, saving that for a later series of posts.
- Heredity
- Life Experiences
- Environment ( your upbringing, values, belief systems…)
- Weather
- Heredity
My goal with this post was to give you a basic overview of the triggers that can cause you to experience heightened levels of anxiety. I also wanted to share with you the two categories of triggers, controllable and uncontrollable, and why they are different in terms of how you’ll have to approach them to better manage your anxiety.
Over the next few days, I’ll be diving deeper into each one of the triggers I have posted above. Explaining how they affect you, why they tend to heighten your level of anxiety, and what you can do about it. You don;t have to live your whole life with these symptoms and challenges, there is a way out of it, and my goal is to share my knowledge of what has worked for me, and hope that you too can manage your anxiety and eliminate panic attacks from your life.
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