What is Anxiety? How can a Planner Help?

Anxiety is medically defined as “a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness.”

Anxiety disorders are described as “… conditions in which you have anxiety that does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, schoolwork, and relationships.”

Different levels exist, ranging from physical symptoms to performance to social functioning. Anxiety is a complex disease and, depending on your point of view, it is becoming more common or medical professionals have more accurate methods to diagnose. Anxiety sufferers such as myself have also found more acceptance and, therefore, more willingness to discuss the condition publicly.

What Causes Anxiety?

No one really knows, although evidence points to genetic predisposition, stress, childhood trauma, and brain chemistry.

Finding the Right Treatment for Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety can be a difficult and overwhelming experience. Thankfully, there are treatments available to help manage the symptoms of anxiety disorders. Two of the most common treatment options are psychotherapy and medications. Although either of these options can be beneficial on their own, many people find that combining the two is the most effective approach.

Exploring Your Options

When it comes to treating anxiety disorders, everyone is unique and may respond differently to different treatments. That’s why it’s important to work with your doctor or therapist to find the best treatment plan for you. You may have to experiment with different combinations of medications and therapies before you find one that works best for you.

The Power of Therapies and Medications

Psychotherapy can help you understand your anxiety and learn new coping skills, while medications can help you manage your symptoms in the short-term. Together, these two treatments can help you build a foundation for long-term relief from anxiety.

How Planning Fits Into Treatment and Management

A survey conducted by self-help author Robert Epstein found that the most successful activity for reducing anxiety is planning. Why? Put simply, planning gives us space to mitigate stress by organizing our future selves. This allows us to organize our goals and actions more efficiently and acts as insulation against emergencies.

How Planning Helps Me

I have a lot of thoughts and sometimes they are overwhelming. Grabbing a pen and paper is the most efficient way for me to calm the tempest in my head by simply writing all my thoughts down, regardless of how out of context or outright bizarre they are. These sessions are often referred to as brain dumps. The plan is to get everything that is on your mind committed to paper. Some people prefer to type these out. I find that writing them automatically creates natural patterns, so I prefer the pen and paper method. Whatever works best for you to release the tension from the pressure of disorganized thoughts is what you should use. Experiment.

Some people like capturing their brain dumps in one place, like a bullet journal or a list. The Getting Things Done method involves writing each thought, idea, task, project, grocery item, goal, etc. on one piece of paper and putting it in a physical inbox. My preferred method is to take an 11″ x 17″ paper, fold it in half, and start writing. I then mark out anything redundant, because I don’t censor my thoughts so sometimes I have duplicates. I then go through the list and highlight anything that I am currently working on or have noted to work on. My reasoning is that if I already am tracking that item and it pops up again, perhaps I am missing something. I can analyze the item and see if I need to prioritize it. If it feels like it is already under control oftentimes my brain lets go and the item disappears from future brain dumps.

Finally, anything that is new gets related to like items by using a different colored pen and drawing lines to connect the ideas. I put the date on the brain dump and archive it after I take the new ideas and organize them. I keep my ideas as reference material in Trello. I have another Trello list that is a big amorphous blob of goals, projects, tasks, and what ifs that stay on a Someday/Maybe list. Important actionable items are reviewed and planned in my next weekly planning session, so I am careful to write them and I paperclip them to my planner page for the date of my next review. My big review is weekly. When I am busy, I review daily. I also perform a monthly review just to make sure that I am making progress on my projects and goals. I review quarterly and yearly as a way to move between competing priorities.

More about my specific planning and the reasoning tomorrow.