In our fast-paced world, Stress and anxiety are more common feelings than ever. Work pressure, Upcoming exams, relationship issues,financial struggles, all of which can feel overwhelming at times. If you’ve ever felt losing yourself by these pressures, you’re not alone. Fortunately, there’s a powerful tool that can help clear the mental fog that stress and anxiety create, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).
NLP helps people learn how thoughts, words, and actions actually affect their feelings and actions. Under the heading of anxiety and stress management, NLP offers some very useful techniques, applicable by anyone. In this blog, I will share with you the top 5 NLP techniques you can use to overcome anxiety and stress and also give you examples of how they work in real-life so that you can manage a similar situation of yours.
You’re all set to give a significant presentation at work. Your heart’s racing, your palms are sweating, and there’s this hitch of anxiety creeping in. Now think of a time when you felt completely relaxed and at ease.Thats maybe when you are on a vacation or after finishing a previous project. It’s because our mind is calm.Isn’t it?
One of the most commonly used NLP techniques for managing stress and anxiety is a real magic behavior that all of us must have.That is the ability to attain calmness in any kind of worse situations.That is in a single term,anchoring. It allows you to introduce a positive state,a sense of calm or of confidence.
The studies show that this technique has proven to be effective at a 30% reduction of the subject’s level of stress while practicing it.
Let’s say you are stuck in heavy traffic on your way to a big meeting and feel yourself tense up. At that you all will think that, “This is awful; I’m going to be late!”.Right? But actually you can turn the situation around to yourself by saying, “This is great; mentally prepare and review some of these important points before the meeting.” You’re taking tension away from the situation and making it more positive to your mind and you can utilize the time more effectively.
This raises up another useful NLP technique of looking things differently.In short reframing. This means changing the way you think about things, so that instead of looking at it as something stressful, you see it as an opportunity or a challenge.By this our mind calms and can handle the situation more easily and efficiently.
It has been noticed that stress could be reduced by 20-25% in a person as they find a silver lining in every situation. It’s only a change in the mind.
3. A Stress-Free You
Imagine you have a stressful meeting that is tomorrow. You won’t be able to fall asleep at night, worried about how the meeting will be. Close your eyes and imagine yourself walking into the meeting room feeling confident, speaking clearly, and getting positive feedback. It makes you happy.Right? This says that by being able to calm your anxiety by training your mind by readying it for a positive outcome.
Here comes the next technique, Visualization that forces you to create vivid images of yourself in a state of a relaxed mind. Perhaps one of the most effective ways to reduce anxiety and stress is by creating such an atmosphere for the brain to experience what one would normally want to feel.Therefore, through visualization of your success in a stressful situation, you prepare your body and mind for that very same event but in a calmer manner.
An American Psychological Association report demonstrates that the anxiety performance related to its regular practice can be reduced to up to 23%, and that visualization is one of the impressive tools to use in managing stressful situations.
4. Breaking the Anxiety Cycle
Imagine that you’re having an anxiety attack. Your heart is racing and your mind may be racing with worst-case situations. At that time clap your hands, or have a cold shower, or even shake your body to break the anxious loop within your head, moving your thoughts to the now.Then you feel a relaxation.A super calm feeling.
This is the technique of breaking the anxiety cycle by doing something unexpected.That is the negative thought pattern is interrupted.Thus it is also called pattern interrupt.A physical action or sudden shift can shock your mind out of the anxiety track and bring it back into the present.
Many therapists report that clients using pattern interrupts can reduce the length of time they experience as well as the degree of anxiety by 15-20%. It’s a very simple technique, but sometimes it’s very effective.
5. Replace Anxiety by Confidence
Let’s imagine that you’re seated in a chair, waiting to have the important interview of a lifetime, but the concept of this will surely irritate you with anxiety. Then Shut your eyes and see in your mind a troubled version of yourself. Now see that you are calm and confident. Imagine the version in which you are smiling, speaking with ease, and handling the interview as if born to do so. Now do a mental lap.That is you push the anxious image away quickly and bring the confident image into focus.
This is another entertaining NLP technique , an effective one to remove unwanted thoughts and feelings such as anxiety from your mind by substituting it with a positive or improved feeling, such as confidence or calmness. It works by “swishing” ,meaning lapping an unwanted image out of your head, replacing it with a favorable one.Thus it’s also called swish technique.
The Swish Technique works by altering the mental focus you have on negative ideas into positive ones that directly influence how you feel in a given time period.
Many users have experienced huge reductions in levels of stress and anxiety while using this technique, with some reporting a 40% improvement in confidence levels before events they dread to cause them stress.
It is pretty easy to feel worried and anxiety-ridden; with simple NLP techniques you can have better control of your thoughts and feelings. These techniques allow you for more practical ways to change your mindset toward feeling calmer and managing stressful situations much better.Now you understand that the NLP is a very simple but powerful technique to get rid of the most irritating and degrading one of our lives,the stress and the anxiety.You can begin to start applying all these techniques to your life, step by step, to reduce anxiety and stress.It would be a great worth.