Identify Your Triggers: The Secret To Lowering Anxiety

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

Every year, about 40 million people, or 18% of the US population1, report struggling with anxiety.  Anxiety is a mental, emotional, and physical experience characterized by worry, tension, overthinking, insomnia, panic, and in severe cases, symptoms like rapid heart beat, trouble breathing, sweating, and feeling unreal or out of control.  If you struggle with mild anxiety, such as slight overthinking about work, or severe symptoms, like full out panic attacks, tracking your symptoms and identifying your triggers may be the answer.

Read on to learn how to identify and track anxiety triggers in order to reduce or even eliminate anxiety altogether.

Lack of Sleep

Research indicates that missing even one night of sleep can cause more activity in areas of the brain associated with anxiety2. If you work late hours or stay up doing homework, socializing, or scrolling through social media, you may feel more anxious the next day than if you’d had an adequate night’s sleep.  Aim for 7-9 hours of shut eye per night to promote healthy brain functioning.

Caffeine

A while back, I wrote an article on the mental health benefits of caffeine. While caffeine may benefit some, it may cause spikes in anxiety for others.  Everyone’s body is different.  Pay attention to how your system reacts to caffeine, and go for decaf or half-caf if necessary.

Changes In Blood Sugar

If you are diabetic, you may already be familiar with this.  However, even if you’re not, skipping meals can cause low blood sugar, which causes jitteriness and anxiety.  Make it a goal to eat three well-balanced meals per day, plus snacks, in order to avoid unnecessary anxiety.

Social Triggers

Social events, like parties, can be very anxiety-provoking for some.  So can ruptures in social relationships, such as conflict or a romantic breakup.  Learning communication skills and conflict resolution strategies, leaning on friends for support, and talking to a therapist can help you manage anxiety caused by social experiences.

Overpacking Your Schedule

For many, feeling productive can ease anxiety, but a schedule that’s too busy can create anxiety.  Make sure that you’re planning breaks throughout your work days.  Be intentional about planning alone time for rest and reflection.  Being careful not to over-plan can also help make sure you’re eating and sleeping enough, thus further reducing anxiety.

Isolation

On the flip side, too much alone time can also cause anxiety.  People are social beings.  Even if you’re an introvert, make sure you’re spending time with others regularly.  Now that the pandemic is coming to an end, opt for in-person hangouts for a richer experience.

Alcohol

Alcohol in the right amounts can be a stress reliever for some.  Others report that even one glass of wine can cause them to experience anxiety, usually the next day.  Be mindful of how you feel before, during, and after drinking.  If you’re drinking as a form of self-medication or experiencing unpleasant mood symptoms during or after drinking, consider cutting alcohol out.

How To Track Triggers

Recently, a client of mine introduced me to the mood tracking app, Daylio.  Daylio allows you to rate your mood multiple times per day and select activities you engaged in that day, such as walking, sex, drinking, and more.  You can also enter notes about your thoughts and feelings.

With Daylio, you can also view graphs representing your moods over time and export your mood log to a spreadsheet, so you can share it with your therapist or keep it for your own records.

Using Daylio or other mood tracking apps can help you identify your anxiety triggers.  Journaling your moods, daily activities, meals, sleep, and alcohol consumption can also work if you prefer a more low-tech tracking strategy.

Identifying anxiety triggers takes time and awareness.  At first, it can seem like work, but once you start learning what triggers your anxiety- and therefore how to avoid it- the process is completely worth it.  For more information on anxiety or to begin working with a therapist trained in anxiety-reduction techniques, reach out to a counselor at ELEVATED Life Counseling.

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The Mindset Shift That Could Permanently Improve Your Relationship Satisfaction

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

Imagine you’re in the market for a new car.  There are several things on your list of qualities the car must have:  four doors, five-star safety features, adequate trunk space, and over 20 miles of miles per gallon of gas.

You’ll likely find a number of cars that meet this criteria, so what do you do?  Do you test drive a few and ultimately pick one that meets your needs and falls within your budget?  Or do you go above and beyond- test driving dozens, analyzing which rides the smoothest, which has a backup camera, which has satellite radio, a sunroof, the best speakers, built-in GPS navigation?

It turns out, the way you pick your next car is likely similar to the way you choose a life partner.  And your decision making process might actually impact how satisfied you are with your choice.

Maximizers vs. Satisficers

Maximizers are people who attempt to make the absolute best decisions possible.  They often compare the small details of each option to one another and might even continue to compare their choice to others after making it.

Satisficers also want to make right decisions, but don’t compare choices nearly as much.  They simply look for what meets their needs, and when they find it, they accept it without worrying whether or not they could have found something better.

In the context of relationships, satisficers are more likely to settle down with the first person they date who treats them well and meets their standards, whereas maximizers may continue to date and break up with partners until they find one they feel is superior to the rest.

Who’s Better Off?

Nobody wants to marry or stay with the wrong person.  Maximizers often rationalize their decisions to break up with one “good enough” person in pursuit of someone “even better” by thinking this will make them happier in the long run.  Satisficers, however, may be the ones who are better off.

Research shows that the relationship satisfaction of maximizers, despite their efforts to find perfect partners, tends to be less stable than that of satisficers.  Maximizers are often happy with their partners initially, but experience more relationship dissatisfaction as their partner’s looks decline with change, or if their partner experiences a reduction in income.  Maximizers are also more likely to compare their partners to other people’s partners, which of course is a problem, since “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

Satisficers are better able to weather the changes in their partners’ looks and financial circumstances, since they chose them on the basis of their essential needs being met and don’t typically bother themselves with thinking about what else is out there.  They experience less anxiety, fear, and regret, as they’re not overwhelmed with options or thinking about what they might have missed.  Satisficers are, to put it simply, more easily satisfied.

How To Be More of a Satisficer

In a culture that promotes trading up via swiping on dating apps or even divorce, becoming more of a satisficer takes intentional effort.  The strategies below can help increase satisfaction with healthy, good-enough relationships, and reduce the impulse to continue searching for someone perfect.

List out your needs and wants

In relationships, needs are the qualities in a partner required for you to feel safe, valued, supported, and loved.  Wants are like the icing on the cake.  While they’re enjoyable, they are not absolutely necessary.  Whether you are dating or in a long-term relationship, listing out your needs in a relationship vs. your wants can help you realize when the person you have is enough to hold onto.

Limit your choices

Some dating apps allow for endless swiping, which can create the illusion that there is always someone better right at your fingertips.  Set a limit for yourself on how much time per day you’ll allow yourself to spend swiping, or opt for an app like Hinge that limits the amount of likes you can send in a day.

Commit

After identifying your needs and finding someone who fulfills them, make the decision to commit to this person.  As difficulties in your relationship arise, assuming they aren’t egregious offenses such as abuse, opt to work through them instead of dumping your person and beginning the search for someone better.  Remember, all relationships come with unique struggles, no matter how perfect your partner seems at first.

Communicate

When you notice an area for improvement in your relationship, openly communicate your feelings to your partner, rather than assuming you’d be better off finding someone with the qualities they’re missing.  Tell your partner what’s bothering you, get to the root of why it’s happening, and decide together what can be done to address it.  Communication will help fix the problem, and your vulnerability will bring you and your partner closer together.

At some point or another in any of your relationships, you will realize that your partner is not perfect.  Remember this truth as you date, as well as once you’re already committed.  While searching for the best of the best might seem like an attractive way to avoid relationship difficulty later on, the truth is, relationship happiness in the long run comes from finding satisfaction with your partner, as imperfect as they may be.

3 Strategies to Help You End Relationship Anxiety for Good

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

What if my partner stops loving me?  Are we really compatible?  Am I with the right person?  Are they cheating on me?

These are questions that anyone who’s ever been in a relationship has likely asked themselves at some point.  Frankly, never questioning whether you and you and your partner are a good match, if they’re faithful, and what you would do if the two of you broke up wouldn’t be healthy.  But if you struggle with relationship anxiety, these thoughts can quickly become obsessive and even detrimental to your relationship.

What is Relationship Anxiety?

Relationship anxiety can be defined as persistent and excessive worry, overthinking and hyper-awareness about your relationship.  If you have relationship anxiety, you may often fear that:

• you are dating the wrong person

• you are not attracted to or losing attraction to their partner

• your relationship is moving too fast or too slow

• your partner is cheating on you

• there is someone better for you out there

• you are not good enough for your partner

• you will emotionally hurt your partner

• your partner will leave or abandon you

All relationships include uncertainty, and some anxiety about them is normal. Difficulty or inability to stop the constant stream of questioning and doubt, however, may be an indicator of relationship anxiety.  

Relationship anxiety can show up at any stage of a relationship.  While some may experience it early on, others may begin to grow anxious after several years of dating the same person or even after marriage.

The Effects of Relationship Anxiety

Anxiety in any form can be distressing.  In extreme cases, it can lead to physical problems, such as headaches, muscle tension, nausea, fatigue, and gastrointestinal problems.  

Relationship anxiety may cause you to constantly overthink what you say, how you look, how you feel, and how your partner behaves.  You may feel distracted by your thoughts and grow less present in your relationship or begin exhibiting relationship-interfering behaviors.

Relationship-interfering behaviors associated with relationship anxiety include

• withholding your opinions or feelings about issues in the relationship

• pushing your partner away physically or emotionally

• picking fights to see how your partner responds

• trying to make your partner jealous

• withdrawing or avoiding your partner

• scrutinizing your partner or becoming overly critical

Although they are often done in effort to reduce or cope with relationship anxiety, these behaviors can cause the exact problems in your relationship that you originally feared.

What Can You Do?

Mindfulness

You know the phrase “going down the rabbit hole”?  It’s one of my favorite ways to describe what happens in your brain when anxiety takes hold.  Anxiety is a chain reaction.  It starts with one uncomfortable thought or feeling, like fear when you remember that time last week when your partner looked at his phone and smiled, then said he saw a funny meme.  All of the sudden, you’re imagining him texting someone else and sifting through every detail of your last 5 dates, obsessing over whether you missed any signs he’s really cheating on you.

Anxious thought spirals often seem helpful, like they’ll eventually lead you to figuring things out, but they really just create more confusion.  To tame anxiety, practice noticing your thoughts one by one.  After noticing each thought, let it go.  This will help you stay present in the moment, where you can truly learn more about your partner and your relationship.

Communicate

Constant worry about your partner getting angry or annoyed by you can make it difficult to voice your concerns about the relationship, but avoiding these topics will only increase your chances of struggling with unresolved issues later down the line.  Instead of holding back, voice your needs to your partner in a calm yet confident voice.  Spend time journaling about what you want to express beforehand to increase your confidence during delivery.

Talk To a Therapist

When you’re stuck in your head, it can be difficult to differentiate between anxious and realistic thoughts.  Talking to a therapist can help you sort out your thoughts and feelings in order to determine which are worth paying attention to.  A therapist can also help you understand what you’re looking for in a partner and what it means to be in a truly healthy relationship.

If you’re struggling with relationship anxiety, relief and clarity is possible.  For more information about relationship anxiety or a free 15-minute phone consultation, reach out to admin@elevatedlifecounseling.com.

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He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

By Erinn Williams, LCPC

Last week I wrote about how happy couples edit.  I talked about this concept as it applies to people who want to spew every last complaint about their partner to their partner in the name of intimacy.  The concept of editing also applies when it comes to people who experience anxiety about the state of their relationship.  Let’s explore this further.

If you’ve ever found yourself feeling overly concerned about the strength of your relationship, worrying about how much your partner loves you, or feeling on edge that you are not enough for your partner, then you might have relationship anxiety.  This fairly common experience can be tricky to pick apart.  It is often difficult to determine if your concerns are simply stories you’re blowing up in your own mind or actually based on actions your partner has taken.  When it goes unchecked, this anxiety has the capacity to wreak havoc on even the best suited pairs.

Relationship anxiety usually presents itself in a couple different ways.  Generally, it is the experience of being preoccupied with the state of the relationship.  When you sense that your partner is displeased with you or something is “off” in the relationship, the anxiety worsens.  When anyone feels anxiety or fear, the natural response is fight or flight and relationship anxiety is no different.  

The fight response doesn’t necessarily mean arguing with your partner, but more so that you will fight to keep your relationship.  You may find yourself incessantly calling or texting your partner to repair an argument.  “Chasing” your partner when they are trying to get healthy space is also common because space feels like a threat to the security of the relationship.  You may also bring up every single concern that crosses their mind such as “Why do you love me?”  “Are you mad at me?”  “Is everything alright?” 

On the other hand you may experience a flight response.  For example, after not getting a text back from your partner for several hours you may internally determine that the relationship isn’t worth it, that you don’t like them anyway, and that you will ultimately begin to distance yourself and withdraw from the relationship.

Though this type of anxiety gets a bad rap, it’s not all bad.  It is helpful in that it guarantees that someone is looking out for the relationship and has a pulse on how it is functioning.  A partner with relationship anxiety is highly attuned (though at times perhaps too attuned) to the health of the relationship.  It is only when the anxiety is not carefully dealt with that it becomes a problem.

So how do you deal with this type of anxiety?  The first step is to try to date and partner/marry people who have a relaxed posture to love and connection.  What this means is that you’ll want to find a partner who enjoys being in relationships rather than finds them scary and threatening.  If you date or are in a relationship with someone who runs from commitment, this will only exacerbate the anxiety and create a chasing dynamic (the more they run away from commitment, the more you pursue them).

It is important to check the facts of each situation where your anxiety rears its head.  To go back to the example of not receiving a text back for several hours, your anxiety might jump to conclusions: they are mad at me, I’m not important to them, they are with someone else right now, they’re cheating on me.  Recognize these thoughts as assumptions or interpretations, not facts.  Then, list the facts of the situation.  If the facts indicate that something is truly off or wrong, then check in with your partner.  If there are no facts to support the assumptions in your mind, try to manage your anxiety.

It is okay to ask for reassurance from your partner, but don’t overdo it.  We all are susceptible to feeling insecure at times and asking your partner to reassure you that they love and care about you can be really effective in decreasing your worry about the relationship.  However, don’t make this your go-to strategy every time you feel a spark of insecurity.  This will lead to your partner’s burnout (“I’ve told you a million times I love you, why don’t you believe me?”) and will likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ultimately, if managing your anxiety rather than acting on it is a tall order, therapy can help.  You can begin to unpack where these fears originate and help you build your arsenal of coping strategies.  The goal is to gain mastery over the art of knowing when to problem solve because the relationship is truly at risk, when to ask for reassurance because you’re feeling insecure, and when to sit with the fear and anxiety because it’s not based on the facts.