THE ANXIETY EQUATION

Why is it that other people appear to show no hesitation or anxiety when approaching a stressful situation? Why am I paralysed with fear in certain situations? Why do I continue to avoid situations due to my anxiety?

If you can’t answer these questions and you struggle to understand why you are soo fearful all the time – The anxiety equation can help explain the specific thoughts that are likely feeding this threat response in you.

The degree of anxiety we feel in certain situations is down to four main questions worth asking yourself:

How LIKELY do I think the threat will happen?
How AWFUL do I expect the outcome to be in this situation?
How do I think I would COPE with said situation?
How much SUPPORT would I be given by the people around me and others?

Anxiety often leads to catastrophic thinking, where individuals envision the most negative outcome possible. Additionally, there is a tendency to believe that this bad scenario is certain to occur.

So, when threatened by something – if we OVERESTIMATE the LIKELIHOOD and the AWFULNESS this will make us feel more threatened & anxious about the situation.

We may also jump to the conclusion that we would not COPE if the threat were to happen. No one would come to our RESCUE. E.g. “I would be a total mess, and it would be unbearable – Everyone would judge me, no one would understand”.

So, if we UNDERESTIMATE our ability to COPE and downplay the possibility of being RESCUED this will push us further into our fight/flight mode.