“Anxiety is going to show up anyway and us fighting with it or trying to get rid of it actually just makes us really exhausted.”
While it can be “really, really uncomfortable” anxiety is a natural experience we can learn to work with, says clinical psychologist Dr Toni Lindsay.
Her new book Everything Anxiety Told You Is a Lie is a therapeutic guide for 14 to 25-year-olds.
With pandemic-and-device stunted social skills and a deep sensitivity to existential threats, today’s young people have it tough when it comes to anxiety, Dr Lindsay tells Kathryn Ryan.
When it hits, she says simple breathing exercises are a great way to soothe the part of our brain that is panicking.
Simply focus on counting your breathing or breathe in for three seconds and then breathe out for three seconds as many times as you need to.
Even when panic seems to catch you unaware, it probably relates to some anxiety bubbling away in the back of your mind, Dr Lindsay says.
Once you identify what you're anxious about, ask whether or not it’s something that's fixable by you - for example, is it fear of the climate crisis or repeatedly showing up late to your job?
Writing down everything that comes into your brain for two minutes can also be revealing.
‘You'll kind of notice really quickly the bits that you can do something with… [or] ‘that's just my brain coming out with rubbish’ because it looks really different when it's on paper.”
Making friends with difficult feelings like anxiety - rather than trying to keep them at arm's length - is central to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the framework Dr Lindsay works with.
One therapeutic strategy she uses a lot with young people is encouraging them to view the different parts of their minds - ie Anxiety Guy or Procrastination Guy - as characters who pop in at different times.
“Then what happens is when anxiety shows up you might have someone saying ‘Oh, Anxiety Guy’s showed up. He's yabbering away today, isn't he.
“Being able to say ‘Oh, anxiety showed up but that's okay. I know what to do with that. Nothing bad happens when anxiety comes, it's just uncomfortable,’ that's a really, really powerful thing … because the thing showing up isn't the problem.”
When it comes to the social anxiety that afflicts so many young people, showing up is actually part of the remedy, Dr Lindsay says.
“The best thing we can do for social anxiety is to actually be social and to be out in the world, and to be going into situations that make us feel uncomfortable.”
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