Worrying can be helpful. It propels us into action and prevents procrastination. Even more importantly, it protects us from potential perils. But, of course, too much worrying is problematic. Too much worrying boosts stress and leads to anxiety.

But you’re not powerless over your worry-filled mind. There are many ways you can retrain your brain to reduce your worrying ways.

Below, Kathryn Tristan shares several suggestions. Tristan is a researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine and author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012).

Some of the strategies you’re using to reduce your anxiety might actually perpetuate and heighten it instead.

Kathryn Tristan, author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012), reveals three common tactics that can backfire.

Q: What are some anti-anxiety strategies that actually don’t work?

A: Often people use three common coping strategies that do more harm than good. In a nutshell, these are pills, booze, or avoidance.

Scientific studies suggest that 1 out of 2 people in the U.S. will suffer at some time in their life from anxiety, depression, or addiction. That means you, me, someone in our family, a friend, etc., is currently or will be dealing with one of more of these life-altering issues.

Why?

Many of us regularly fall into the bleak, bottomless pit of the comparison trap. Maybe you even compare yourself to others in a whole lot of areas: profession, school performance, parenthood, money, looks.

It’s hard not to. Making comparisons is often how we gauge our progress. It’s how we figure out the bar in the first place.

“Without others, we have no way of knowing how we ‘measure up,’” according to Christina G. Hibbert, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and expert in postpartum mental health.

So how do we break out of comparing ourselves to others?

Your intentions are pure. You want to help.

It might be your friend, your spouse, or one of your parents. It might be a co-worker, your sister, or your child.

If you’ve never had a panic attack, however, it can be difficult to imagine how panic feels. Thus, it can be difficult to comfort someone who is legitimately panicking.

In a way, I can only speak for myself. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a therapist. I’m just another woman with panic disorder, after all.

But thankfully, I’ve established a pretty large support network in my nine or so years of dealing with panic. Friends, family members, and internet acquaintances all seem to agree on one thing: “help” can sometimes hurt.

The quotation marks are intentional. To the non-panicker, “just calm down” might be the first phrase to trip out of your mouth during a friend’s surprise panic attack. We know you mean well — really, we do.

But phrases like that have the potential to fan the fight-or-flight flames. Find out how in today’s video:

Sometimes anxiety and worry can seem to spring out of nowhere. Before you know it, you’re upset and your brain is buzzing with bothersome thoughts.

But your anxiety isn’t that random. “Your anxiety is actually a process,” writes Holly Hazlett-Stevens, Ph.D, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, in her book Women Who Worry Too Much: How to Stop Worry & Anxiety from Ruining Relationships, Work & Fun. “It’s made up of a series of thoughts, feelings, sensations and behaviors.”

The key to better understand your anxiety and worry is to examine all these components individually. Once you know how your anxiety and worry manifest, you can work on reducing them.

Have you ever done a Google search for “anxiety management tips”?

You will find a bewildering number of results. Over 4 million, in fact. (Protip: if your anxiety stems from information overload…well, searching for anxiety management techniques on this massive internet of ours might make things worse…right?)

So…if you’re looking for effective anxiety management techniques, where should you start? What should you click on? Do you click on the very clinical-looking PDF document from a large university’s psychology department? Do you check out the tips on a local therapist’s website? Do you check the Psychcentral Library? The NIMH website? Should you read something written by a doctor? A psychiatrist?

I’m neither a doctor nor a psychiatrist. I’m just a plain old anxiety sufferer like the rest of you. Why should you care about what I have to say?1

ON AUTHENTICITY

Now, let me say this: I think there are some fantastic resources out there that are written by mental health professionals. Many of those resources are right here on Psychcentral. A therapist’s perspective on anxiety management and recovery is invaluable.

But earlier this week, a few of my Twitter followers were left a bit stymied by this blog post about dealing with anxiety. Several said that the advice didn’t feel authentic or realistic. One friend on Twitter said the advice felt “simple and condescending.”

Julie Hanks, LCSW, a therapist and blogger at Psych Central, works with many clients who are besieged by stress. What her clients typically discover is that they aren’t necessarily overwhelmed by stress, they’re overwhelmed by their emotions.

“As [my clients] learn to unpack the anxiety, they discover that their worry, stress, and sense of impending doom is the not just anxiety, but the culmination of years of unprocessed emotions of all kinds,” said Hanks, who’s also a media contributor and private practice consultant. “Anxiety is often the label that clients have given to the experience of being emotionally overwhelmed.”

So the key is to get to your core emotions. It might be tricky to identify these emotions, Hanks said, but doing so lets you know what you really need to feel better.

She offered these four tools to spot your core emotions.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Dr. Tina Tessina.

There is always something on TV to scare us. Hysterical articles in the media sell papers and attract eyeballs to websites, but usually exaggerate facts. If you listen without evaluating what you’re being told, it’s easy to become frightened. There’s a reason why I don’t usually waste time and energy on panic and drama.

I see the negative results of panic every day. People get upset, they’re afraid of emotional consequences and they overreact, which can actually create the consequences they fear.

Panic is an overreaction to a real (or even imagined) problem. Frightening yourself beyond the real need to deal with a problem puts your body into fight or flight mode as though your life were immediately threatened.

In the last decade, our understanding of the neurology of habit formation has been transformed.

A quiet revolution has upended our concept of the way patterns work within our lives, societies, and organizations. And much of what we have learned has come from studying the simplest of habits — such as why people bite their nails.

In the summer of 2006, for instance, a 24-year-old graduate student named Mandy walked into the counseling center at Mississippi State University. For most of her life, Mandy had bitten her nails, gnawing them until they bled.

Lots of people bite their nails. For chronic nail biters, however, it’s a problem of a different scale.

Medical marijuana is a hot topic that has slowly made its way into politics, health care, psychiatry, and education — into society itself.

Diverse opinions on either side of the many issues in our society are common; the people in power still argue about gay marriage and abortion, religion and taxes. It’s fair enough for people to take sides, but when it comes to medical marijuana, it is worth the debate.

Like all social and political issues that start slowly and suddenly catch fire, the opinions regarding the use of medicinal marijuana are exhausting. ProCon.org, an accredited website that focuses exclusively on the use of medicinal marijuana asks the question: “Is medical marijuana an effective treatment for depression, bipolar disorders, anxiety, and similar mood disorders?”

Let’s find out.

If you struggle with anxiety, you probably have a mean streak. That is, you’re probably very mean to yourself. You probably have no problem being harsh and overly critical of your thoughts and behaviors — particularly when you’re having a tough time with anxiety.

You might blame yourself and see yourself as less-than because anxiety follows you everywhere, from home to work to the grocery store.

You also might think in shoulds: I should have more control over my anxiety. I should be a better public speaker by now. I should never be scared of something so silly. I should be ashamed. I should be different.

And you might think that being harsh toward yourself will curb your anxiety and whip you into calmer and cooler shape. Or maybe you think that being self-critical is simply being realistic. That you’re realistically evaluating your shortcomings or weaknesses. Or maybe being self-critical has simply become your default, your automatic response to anxiety (or anything else in your life).

But guess what? This kind of thinking often backfires and actually can boost your anxiety.

The previous post discussed what’s behind a fear of flying: In order to fly comfortably, we need to be able to develop awareness and process of underlying emotions, soothe emotional and physical symptoms triggered by fear, and resolve the perceived threats that drive the fear.

When not addressed, these components feed off of one another, and can make our flight experience cognitively, physically, and emotionally quite uncomfortable. In essence, this is the fear of flying.

Fear of Flying?… Not Anymore! is a program I designed to directly address these areas of cognitive, emotional, and physiological dysregulation during flying. In addition to my work as a therapist, I have a background in and an ongoing study of aviation, including flying airline and general airplane simulators on a regular basis. This knowledge of aviation enables the combination of tools from both the therapeutic and aviation worlds to resolve people’s fear of flying.

The program utilizes a variety of therapy techniques integrated with passenger flying education. Its goal is to build situational control and mastery over the complete passenger flying experience. Some people have even found the program makes flying enjoyable, even after decades of not getting on a plane.