It isn’t always clear how to identify your anxiety triggers. Anxiety seems to happen way too fast. Suddenly, you are overwhelmed with fear, restlessness, and unrelenting thoughts. The worst part is that you feel as if you have no control.
If this sounds like your experience, don’t feel embarrassed! Anxiety is the most prevalent mental illness in America.
But, just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it is not serious.
Learning how to identify your anxiety triggers doesn’t happen overnight. That’s because everyone is different! However, there are general anxiety triggers out there that affect all of us.
Here are the Most Common Anxiety Triggers:
Sleep Schedule
A shift in sleeping patterns or a lack of sleep is directly linked to increased anxiety.
Social Pressures
Social engagements can really heighten our anxieties. Being around people isn’t always easy, especially right now with the ongoing pandemic.
Social pressures also involve your more intimate relationships. Dealing with stress in platonic or romantic relationships can put your anxiety into high gear.
Medication
Many medications have anxiety as the main side effect. This goes especially for prescription medications, such as birth control and thyroid medicines.
Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol is a depressant. Increased and prolonged consumption of alcohol can make you vulnerable to anxiety.
Caffeine
Stimulants, like caffeine, affect our nervous systems like anxiety does, producing nearly identical symptoms. If you are consuming a ton of coffee, tea, or energy drinks, you are much more prone to anxiety. For more on foods that are known to trigger anxiety, check out this article here on CleverQuotes.com.
Tools to Identify your Anxiety Triggers
Knowing potential anxiety triggers isn’t enough to discover what’s causing your anxiety. There are simple practices that can help you through the process and ultimately change your life!
Self-Reflecting
One of the most important things to do is reflect. Consciously thinking about your emotions is difficult, but reflection is a process that can open up your mind to your anxiety triggers.
Self-reflection doesn’t take hours. You can take just a brief moment to think about your feelings, especially when you begin to feel anxious. This can help you to understand your thought patterns and personal triggers.
Journal
Journaling is a fantastic way to recognize your anxiety triggers. It is such an effective anxiety coping mechanism. You can write out all your thoughts, no matter how bizarre you think they are. No one is going to read them, except you!
Getting all your messy thoughts out will provide an amazing sense of relief. Journaling will also allow you to understand how these thoughts and/or an anxious situation came about.
Reach out to a friend
Talking about your anxieties isn’t easy. But, opening up about your struggles is important. We alone cannot see an entire situation unbiasedly. This is especially true if you are facing major anxiety on a daily basis.
Speaking with a friend or even a family member can give you new insight into your anxiety triggers. Having an external perspective brings in new ideas and perspectives on your emotional needs.
It may sound frightening to open up about your fears, but, remember, true friends are there to help and support you!
Meet with a Therapist
Seeking out therapy is always an excellent idea. Therapists can truly help you to explore your anxiety triggers and their foundation. A therapist’s professional and unbiased support is always helpful. Their job is to assist you in creating more balance in your life!
Anxiety cannot be solved with a flip of a switch. Yet, there are ways to discover how we can finally kick anxiety to the curb once and for all.
We hope that these tips to identify your anxiety triggers help you in your journey. Remember, you are not alone in your struggles. Everyone deals with anxiety and everyone needs support through it. Together, we can make it through to see a brighter more fearless tomorrow!
If you’re a person who lives with anxiety on a daily basis, know that you’re not alone. Check out this next article on CleverQuotes.com which features a collection of quotes on the subject.
