How to Help Someone With Anxiety

By: Dr. Jayson Tripp, MD

2/7/2020

Tips on How to Help Someone With Anxiety

Most of us focus on health conditions that manifest physical signs and symptoms, but mental conditions are real. One of the most common is anxiety, which many people have but do not admit it. Anxiety is caused by a wide variety of factors and it is essential to seek medical care before it takes a significant toll on your life. Anxiety is a human feature and not a flaw, so when someone suffers from it, help them get better and do not make them feel like they have no support. Here are some of the tips on how to help someone with anxiety.


Understand the Problem.

Anxiety  manifests differently in people, and based on evolution, human beings are designed to respond to fear by either, fight, freeze, or flight. It is caused by a feel ing of fear and one of these responses will definitely dominate. Once you understand how one responds to anxiety, it becomes easy to deal with it. This is because the dominant response will define the actions they will most likely take and help you control them. Learn these patterns in the person and determine the best way of helping them.


Learn their Preferences.

The fact that someone is suffering from anxiety does not imply that you can force things on them. Learn their preferences and find out the type of support they prefer rather than just guess. However, we understand from prior studies that individuals with an avoidant attachment style, specifically ones that have experiences with rejection, respond better to practical support. Examples of this support include teaching them how to break tasks into manageable steps among others. People with a preoccupied attachment style like emotional support. All these are general analogies but can form a good basis for helping someone with anxiety.


Learn the Simple Things that Can Help Anxiety.

Many people assume that helping someone who is suffering from anxiety is about doing complicated things. Well, huge problems are at times, solved by the simple things you do and anxiety is no different. This holds true since anxiety is caused by work stress, pressure, relationships and several things going on in an individual’s life. Learn about some of the basic things you can do to ward off anxiety and a lot of this information can be found online. Note that there is no one-fits-all approach to take care of anxiety but learn from how the victim is responding. 

Anxiety is all about the mind and it dictates what someone does; thus, if someone is responding better from what you are doing, it is a sign that you are headed in the right direction. Some things such as physical activity, meditation sessions and yoga classes can help relieve anxiety but it all goes down to what the individual likes.


Break Free of Avoidance Behavior.

Avoidance traits are a massive component of anxiety. They entail someone avoiding what they need to do due to fear and this makes it worse. Reassure the victim that they need to tackle the tasks even if it means doing it in small steps. We all come across situations where we fear to get started on tasks and getting over this is the key to being anxiety-free.

Call Now to Schedule A Consultation

Anxiety is a prevalent problem, and if your friend, family member or spouse is suffering from it, contact a professional. You may find it hard to help them but an expert will be able to step in and take the right steps to get their life back on track. If you are searching for one such expert, check out Serenity Mental Health Centers at https://serenitymentalhealthcenters.com or give them a call at (480) 626-2024 and let them take care of all your mental health needs. They understand how to help someone with anxiety and will do it in the best way possible.

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*All information subject to change. Images may contain models. Individual results are not guaranteed and may vary.