Headache, insomnia, and always feeling uneasy? Two tips to help you calmly deal with your uneasy emotions

Have you ever experienced uneasy emotions at work or in your personal life? Do you remember the most recent one?

In psychology, anxiety refers to the feeling of worry and concern caused by invisible threats, negative expectations of the future, and an uncertain future. It can also be understood that anxiety is caused by "negative predictions about the future."

What are the anxious emotions?

Psychologists believe that it includes the following three aspects:

The first is the "anxiety about failure", which often stems from the negative prediction of the future that "it won't go well".

The second is the "uneasiness about the unknown", which mainly comes from the unpredictable prospects.

The third is "anxiety about loss", which is the worry about losing work, position, money, love, friendship, health and other tangible or intangible things that one values.

Anxiety is a very tricky negative emotion. Once it becomes excessive, it can cause many problems. If this emotion cannot be controlled, it can cause trouble in our work and life.

What are the manifestations of anxiety?

First, it will have a negative impact on thinking. Negative emotions will limit our vision and focus our attention on specific things. Once people fall into anxiety, they can only see bad things, such as problems and risks at work, "catastrophic thinking" such as "my future is dark", and it will be difficult to make correct judgments.

Secondly, they will lack confidence in their actions, which will reduce their work efficiency and lead to "avoidance behavior" of avoiding new challenges at work due to fear of failure.

Third, long-term anxiety can have a serious impact on mental health, causing problems such as difficult-to-recover fatigue, headaches, and sleep disorders.

Anxiety can also have positive functions

People who are good at "taming" uneasy emotions can understand the two sides of this emotion, and thus achieve the goal of using uneasy emotions in work and life to play a positive role.

In general, anxiety has three functions. The first function is the "alarm function", which makes us aware of problems and risks that are easily overlooked due to busyness; the second function is the "motivation function" that promotes positive actions. Anxiety can arouse enthusiasm for positive actions to a certain extent and force ourselves to devote ourselves to work with double the energy; the third function is the "promotion function", which can encourage ourselves to face challenges and take a courageous step even if we feel there are risks.

Therefore, anxiety is not entirely a bad thing. The key lies in how to deal with it. As long as you master the skills and avoid being dominated, you can still "tame" the anxiety. Even if you cannot drive the anxiety out of your heart, you can still coexist harmoniously with it.

How to control anxiety?

When it comes to negative emotions like anxiety, we need to be aware of, face and accept them, that is, adopt the strategy of “don’t resist, accept”.

We need to correct the cause of emotions - "distorted cognition": Many times, negative emotions such as anxiety arise because our cognition is stimulated by events such as stress and failure. The process of "stress-distorted cognition-emotion" is completed in an instant, and emotions often occur before we realize it. Therefore, in order to be aware of it, knowledge and training are needed.

Properly "get rid of" stubborn negative emotions: If you feel uneasy, try to shift your attention from the uneasy mood to other things. By focusing on other things, the "rumination effect" of negative emotions will gradually weaken, and finally reach a calm level.

This article was scientifically reviewed by Sang Hong, chief physician of Changchun No. 6 Hospital.

Contributed by "Da Yi Xiao Hu"