Arthur Ellis Mental Health Foundation
Why should anxiety be so scary?
Anxiety can be a tricky one, despite 100% of human beings having it. ‘What?! I don’t have anxiety!’ Yes, you
do. Whether you’re a CEO, a new recruit or someone who has been in their role forever and knows it like the back of their hand. Anxiety is an emotion, it helps us
analyse risk, understand if and when there may be danger and trigger our probing skills to fi nd answers to things we don’t know. It can be an incredible tool if we set ourselves up to be able to manage it well. Anxiety is the worry or concern
about uncertain future events. Lucky for us, because pretty much everything in our future is uncertain. Over the years, mental health aware-
ness has helped grow people’s under- standing of when they are anxious and what it is. What it has failed to do is teach people how to manage it – turning it into a more clinical beast than it should be for the day-to-day anxiety we experi- ence and turning it into an uncertain thing in itself.
Jon Manning Founder and Chairman Arthur Ellis Mental Health Foundation
Doesn’t that sound unproductive, given its defi nition? Anxiety comes when we spend so much time thinking about the future, we forget the present. Let me ask you some questions that I’d like you to answer as quickly as you can: ■ Could you tell me what you had for dinner on Monday night last week? ■ Do you ever drive into the offi ce and forget the commute? ■ Are you ever asked questions you absolutely know the answer to but for the life of you the answer isn’t there until a random time, days from now
T at’s the fi rst stage of us not being able to manage our anxiety as well
as we could. It shows we are so future focused that our brains aren’t even registering what’s happening in the present. At Arthur Ellis, we prefer to work practically, fi nd what can we do to improve
how people naturally control and manage anxiety in a preventative way. We can do this by practicing being in the present. Do you have an
activity you do that you would describe as being therapeutic? Usually, this is an activity that helps us not do a million things at once, not think about a million things at once, but gives us one thing to focus on calmly. T is could be reading a book, writing, painting, gardening, cleaning, cards, puzzles, drawing, washing the car or tending to house plants. T ere are loads of things . Even though these behaviours may seem trivial, or may be the things that
drop off as soon as we become busy, these behaviours off er our brains the ability to rest. More importantly, it is helping our brains become used to keeping us
in the present. So, the next time we are in a future facing situation, we can get ourselves back to the present much easier. T at’s what builds resilience. Arthur Ellis provides training in partnership with the British Quality
Foundation to help workplaces bring the goalposts forward with mental health, developing preventative strategies, training, talks and even one-to- one support for colleagues and their families. All profi ts from workplace training are donated to our charity, providing support to children, young people and vulnerable adults.
To fi nd out more about the help that is available through training workshops, visit
www.arthurellismhs.com
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