10 quotes on anxiety to know and overcome it

Anxiety is one of the most common mental disorders, and the worst of all is that it is increasing. The WHO revealed that since 1990 to date, the number of people with anxiety has almost doubled. However, behind each figure there is a person who suffers a state of diffuse anguish that cannot always explain but that causes him enormous discomfort and greatly affects his quality of life.

When we feel that something negative is about to happen from one moment to another, it seems to us that we’re walking on glass and we cannot relax because worries occupy our mind, it is difficult to lead a balanced and happy life. These anxiety quotes can help us better understand that state, to prevent from dominating our lives.

To eliminate anxiety, you must first understand it

1. Fear sharpens the senses while anxiety paralyzes them – Kurt Goldstein

Fear is an emotion that can save our lives in a moment of danger because its function is precisely to prepare us to flee from the situation or face it. Anxiety, on the other hand, does not have an adaptive function but ends up paralyzing us, victims of incessant worries.

2. Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started – David Allen

In many occasions it is we who feed the stress and tension assuming bad habits. In fact, procrastination can become a great burden for our emotional well-being. The constant reminder of the pending tasks or those left in between is usually more stressful than the task itself, so it is usually better to tackle the tasks as soon as possible.

3. The intensity of the anguish is proportional to the meaning that the situation has for the affected person; although he essentially ignore the reasons of his anxiety – Karen Horney

In most cases, anxiety is experienced as a diffuse state of expectation, so that the person is not able to explain the causes of that anxiety. However, the intensity of the anguish will always be directly proportional to the importance and meaning that we attribute to the events. That means that it is in our hands to reduce that anxiety, learning to see things in perspective and assuming a psychological distance from the events.

4. Threats to our self-esteem or the idea that we make of ourselves, often cause much more anxiety than threats to our physical integrity – Sigmund Freud

Stress is a mechanism that is designed to activate in specific situations in which our physical integrity is in danger. Then, everything must return to normal. However, in today’s society, physical dangers have diminished, giving way to other social dangers that generate constant activation. As a result, we live in a state of permanent stress, which often leads to an anxiety disorder.

5. Hiding or suppressing anxiety actually produces more anxiety – Scott Stossel

Suppressing emotional states is not usually a good idea. What we try to repress does not disappear, but it becomes entangled and continues to cause damage. In addition, to repress psychological content we must use a large amount of energy, which eventually generates exhaustion and anguish. If we want to solve a problem, the first step is to recognize its existence. In fact, mindfulness meditation for anxiety is based precisely on recognizing its existence but not being conditioned by it.

6. You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you – Dan Millman

On many occasions, anxiety is the daughter of our obsession with control. When we want to control everything and leave no room for uncertainty and chaos, which are two constants in our lives, we respond with anxiety. The same happens with thoughts, we are anguished when we cannot control them and, as a result, the rebound effect is activated: the more you try to avoid a thought, the stronger it will become. The solution is to let it go, note its presence but not give it as much importance as to allow it to bother us.

7. Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength – Corrie ten Boom

We are not fully aware of the weight of our concerns. There are even those who say that worrying helps us avoid future problems. Not so, the worries are completely useless, unless they give way to an action plan. When worries become recurrent thoughts they only make us feel bad, stealing our emotional energy.

8. Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t take you very far – Jodi Picoult

Anxiety keeps the mind occupied, jumping from one catastrophist thought to another, from an imminent disaster to the next, but those worries do not lead us anywhere, rather they join us in a vicious circle that feeds anguish.

9. Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it – Kahlil Gibran

Thinking about the future is necessary, we need to plan our next steps, anticipate the possible obstacles and anticipate them. That reflective thought does not generate anxiety, what generates anxiety is to want to control every detail not accepting that there may be setbacks that we had not anticipated.

10. The weight of anxiety is greater, by much, than the evil we’re anxious about – Daniel Defoe

Generally, anxiety is the result of excessive worries, it is like a snowball that runs downhill becoming bigger and bigger. As a result, often the psychological consequences that it provokes are much worse than the situation that originated it.