If you find yourself becoming overly anxious, use the following steps to help you calm down and

start to regain control.

1) Breathing is the short circuit for anxiety

I know I know, you hear a lot about 'deep breathing' to help you relax and reduce anxiety, but
bear with me.

Quicker, shallower breathing is the first trigger which catapults all the other anxious symptoms
into action. So by controlling breathing you control all the other anxiety symptoms as well.

If you purposely breathe out longer than you breathe in, your body has to calm right down
(regardless of what tricks your imagination is playing on you).
So if you start to feel fearful:

 Stop
 Focus on your breath
 Take a breath in (to the quick count of 7 in your mind)
 Then slowly breathe out (to the quick count of 11 in your mind)
If you do this for a minute or so, you'll be amazed how quickly you've calmed down. We call this
'7/11 breathing' but the numbers are up to you, just as long as the out-breath is longer than
the in-breath.
"That's all very well!" I hear you say. "But when I get anxious I forget everything and all good
advice goes out the window!"

Good point and well made. This brings us to...

2) Prepare for peaceful performance

If you get anxious and fear upcoming events, you'll notice that just thinking about that
interview, speech, or whatever will start to cause physical responses – namely, anxiety.

So you might be thinking about next Wednesday's dental appointment and find yourself
breathing more quickly or your palms getting moist. This in turn primes your body to become
even more anxious in the actual situation and so the vicious cycle continues. And note the role
of the imagination in priming your mind and body to feel fearful (see opening story).

But you're going to find that breathing in a relaxed 7/11 way whilst imagining the upcoming
situation ahead of time calms the association down, priming your mind to feel more relaxed
naturally and automatically when the actual situation arrives.
So when you find yourself thinking about the future event, do 7/11 breathing.
One symptom of too much fear or anxiety is not being able to think clearly (Nasrudin stumbled
into the nearest tomb!). This happens because the emotional part of the brain 'swamps' the
thinking part so as to avoid, say, over-analysis getting in the way of running like Bejessus from
a lion.

But in most modern situations we want to retain clear thought. And keeping your 'thinking
brain' working actually calms you right down. The next step helps you do that.
3) Use a different part of your brain
When we become very anxious, it's harder to think clearly. But if we force ourselves to use
parts of 'the thinking brain', this will dilute the emotion and begin to calm you down.

The easiest way to do this is with numbers. You can scale your own fear from 1 to 10, 10 being
the most terrified it's possible to be and 1 being the ultimate relaxed state.

When you're feeling anxious, ask yourself: "Okay what number on the scale am I right now? Am I
a 7, or a 5?" Just doing this will lower anxiety because it kick-starts the thinking brain, diluting
the emotion and automatically making you calmer.

I recall the first time I gave a speech to three hundred people. Just before I was about to start,
I was feeling more anxious than I would have liked. So I scaled myself at a 6, breathed longer
out than in for a few moments, and waited for myself to go down to a 3 before starting. I took
control. Scaling (sometimes known as 'grading') your fear puts a 'fence' around it, making it
more manageable, and forces you to think.

4) Get control of your imagination

Fear and anxiety thrive when we imagine the worst. We developed imagination to be able to
project into the future so we can plan ahead. However, a side effect of being able to imagine
possible positive futures is being able to imagine things going wrong. A bit of this is useful;
after all, there really might be muggers or loan sharks. But uncontrolled imagination is a
nesting ground for anxiety and fear that can spoil otherwise happy lives.
Some people misuse their imagination chronically and so suffer much more anxiety than those
who either future-project their imaginations constructively or who don't tend to think about
the future much at all. Anxious, chronic worriers tend to misuse their imaginations to the
extent that upcoming events feel like catastrophes waiting to happen. No wonder whole lives
can be blighted by fear and anxiety.

Some people don't even really know they are doing this. So:
 Sit down and do your 7/11 breathing.
 Count yourself down from whatever number you deem yourself to be to a 2
or a 1.
 Imagine seeing yourself in the situation you were dreading, but see yourself
being calm, composed, cool, and comfortable and things going well. Doing this
starts to recondition your mind to feel calmer and more upbeat about upcoming
events or regular situations which were causing anxiety.
02:33

5) Use the AWARE technique

Fear and anxiety can feel as if they 'just happen to us', but we have much more control than we
realize. AWARE is an acronym standing for:

A: Accept the anxiety. Don't try to fight it.

W: Watch the anxiety. Just watch it and when you notice it, scale your level of fear and start
to breathe longer on the out-breath.
A: Stands for 'Act normally'. Carry on talking or behaving as if nothing is different. This sends a
powerful signal to your unconscious mind that its over-dramatic response is actually not needed
because nothing that unusual is going on. Like fire fighters coming out and seeing that no
emergency is happening and so going back to the fire station.
R: Repeat the above steps in your mind if necessary.
E: Expect the best. One of the greatest feelings in life is the realization that you can control
fear much more than you thought possible.
Overcoming fear and anxiety will give you the 'spare capacity' in life to focus on what you
really want to be and do. It takes effort, but imagine the rewards.