Week 4: 3 Common Triggers for Anxiety (and How to Start Gaining Awareness)
You can’t change what you don’t notice. Learning to recognize what triggers your anxiety is one of the most empowering things you can do. I often say “once you have awareness you have choices.” You have to first identify that there is a problem occurring AND THEN you can make choices on what you want to do about it.
3 Common anxiety triggers include:
- Uncertainty: The unknown can create a sense of threat. If you find yourself caught in “what if” thinking or struggling to make decisions, uncertainty might be a major trigger.
- Fear: Fear of doing something wrong, fear of something bad happening, fear of making the wrong decision. There can be so much fear wrapped up in anxiety. Social anxiety and fear of rejection are often rooted in childhood experiences or past criticism. If you avoid expressing yourself or overanalyze conversations, this could be a clue.
- Overstimulation: Busy environments, too many tasks, or constant noise can overwhelm your nervous system. This is especially common in today’s always-on culture.
Start by evaluating a recent time you experienced anxiety. What was happening? What were you thinking? Feeling? Experiencing? Consider keeping a journal. Writing these things out can help you find patterns and can help you look more objectively at your anxiety. You can take it a step further by then identifying how you responded. What did you tell yourself? What did you do physically? The more awareness you have of these patterns and your choices and decisions in these moments the easier it will be to replace the unhealthy patterns with more helpful ones.
New? Explore How Anxiety Shows Up in the Body (Week 3) or continue to Week 5: Grounding Tools That Actually Work.
Check out our online course for more tools and support in managing your anxiety.
