Overthinking is when you get caught in a loop, just thinking about one single event or decision over and over. You might start over analyzing something that happened, regretting an action you took, or worrying about the future of something.
Learning and recognising your emotional triggers is one of the first steps to learning better self-management skills. When you are able to learn your triggers, you’ll start to recognise them when they happen. When you recognise them, you can start to use a new strategy to manage them.
A “trigger” is a thought about a situation that leads to an inappropriate response to that situation. It is common to have personal triggers for anger, stress, depression and anxiety.
Sometimes the feelings of fear or anxiety continue after the difficult situation or sometimes you may feel a stronger sense of fear than other people and this is when anxiety becomes a problem and can affect you doing every day things.
Anxiety is the feeling of fear or panic. It is normal to feel anxious, panicky or fearful about situations in life, such as money problems or exams but often once the difficult situation is over, you feel better and calmer.
1 in 6 young people will experience an anxiety condition at some point in their lives. This means that up to 5 people in your class may be living with anxiety, whether that be OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), social anxiety and shyness, exam stress, worry or panic attacks.
Worry is a total waste of time. It doesn’t change anything. All it does is steal your joy and keeps you very busy doing nothing.
No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of anxiety can change the future.
If you naturally avoid something and worry about it, it won’t go away and it may escalate. Find the most direct route of solving the worry and take action.
If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see.