Introduction
(4-minute read) This post is about anticipatory anxiety. Unfortunately, anticipatory anxiety isn’t officially acknowledged in the mental healthcare industry. It’s unfortunate because it’s very real. Many people suffer from it. However, they receive little to no education about it or help for managing it. By reading this post, you’ll learn what anticipatory anxiety is, what causes it, its common symptoms, and strategies for managing it. If you struggle with anticipatory anxiety, reading the post will help.
What Anitcipatory Anxiety is and Its Causes
Anticipatory anxiety is a type of fear. It is fear stirred up by imagining that the worst will happen in an unpredictable upcoming event. Some examples include imagining the worst will happen in an upcoming—
- Physician appointment
- Meeting with a superior at work, especially for a performance evaluation
- School exam or other graded assignments
- Public speaking
- First date
- Hosting of a dinner party
- Anticipation of storms, fires, floods, and other possible disasters
Causes of Anticipatory Anxiety
Some common causes of anticipatory anxiety include, but aren’t limited to the following:
- Past hurtful experiences, especially traumatizing experiences
- Pre-existing anxieties, especially social anxiety and panic attacks
- Personality traits, especially for those who are Highly Sensitive Persons (HSP)
- A tendency to jump to imaginary conclusions and mind-reading
Common Symptoms of Anticipatory Anxiety
Common symptoms produced by the causes listed above include the following:
- Rapid heartbeats
- Intense emotions
- Panic attacks
- Hyperventilating/shortness of breath
- Tightness in chest
- Muscle tension in neck and shoulders
- Headaches
- Digestion problems
- Insomnia
- Ruminating on the upcoming unpredictable event
- Imagining the worst happening
NOTE: Anxiously imagining the worst increases the chances of it happening because it negatively affects your decisions and actions.
Strategies for Managing Anticipatory Anxiety
If you struggle with imagining the worst happening in an upcoming unpredictable event, take heart. Here are some strategies for managing your anticipatory anxiety:
- Do Heart-Smiling, Heart Cleansing, and Imagining your desired outcome for the event. (This is a practice I teach all of my clients.)
- Interrupt harmful ruminations. (I teach my clients how to do this.)
- Extrovert: Instead of attending to the feelings in your heart and body and the scary thoughts in your mind, shift your attention to your current, external reality.
- Acknowledge that right now, in this moment, you are 100% safe.
- Breathe deeply and relax your muscles. It’s impossible to feel anxious when your muscles relax.
- Understand that anticipatory anxiety is just anxiety. It’s unpleasant to feel, and it can’t hurt you. You’re safe feeling it. Feel it and do the next constructive thing you need to do, and the next thing, and the next. As you attend to your external reality and do things that need to be done, your anxiety calms down.
Summary and Call to Action
Now that you know what anticipatory anxiety is, what causes it, its symptoms, and some strategies for managing it, apply what you’ve learned. Better yet, CLICK HERE and schedule a FREE 30-Minute Online Intial Consult with me. I’ll be glad to talk with you about this and any other concerns you have. Click the link and get started TODAY!