Anxiety: name it, tame it, aim it

Someone taught me this catchy little framework a few years ago. It's helped me over the past few weeks as we all absorb the news from the Ukraine. It sounds simple, almost a little trite, but don’t be fooled - it’s based on sound psychology and neuroscience, explained a bit below.

Name it - label how you feel

Step 1 is to name (also known as ‘label’) how you are feeling. Psychologists (such as David Rock) have shown that you that you can reduce internal tension by up to 50% simply by noticing and naming your state. Naming your state helps you create distance from it. It takes us from a sense of “I am this…” to “I am feeling this…” : we are not the emotion exclusively.

Tame it – distancing /mindfulness

You will already have tamed an emotion up to 50% just by naming it. But you can take this further. Try a perspective question (e.g. how important will this be in a year from now? how else might someone handle this?). Distancing is a brilliant tool for regulating anxiety and other difficult emotions. I love Ethan Kross’s research and book Chatter for more on this.

You could also try mindfulness techniques to slow down and tame your stress response – box breathing is one of my favourites. Google it for more info. Or this one: notice 5 things you see, 4 you feel, 3 your hear, 2 your smell, 1 you taste. Doing this helps reduce cortisol levels – the hormone associated with anxiety.

Aim it – take action

From a more distanced perspective we can now choose how to respond instead of being led by our triggers. Taking action has been shown to help us break the state and get out of the trap of rumination – repetitively going over a thought. It may just be action for its own sake. Something as simple as going for a walk. Or it may be action to directly address the anxiety.

Ask yourself: What options do I have? What can I do? What action will I take? What will I commit to? When?