When you live with anxiety, the mere thought of joining an anxiety support group can kick the fight-or-flight response into overdrive. To avoid attending an anxiety group with other people, you might be willing to fight tooth and nail to escape into the safety of the space under your bed. However, anxiety support groups offer benefits like the ability to share your experiences and challenges, to be deeply heard, and to offer a listening ear in return. These are only a few of the benefits people can reap by joining a support group for anxiety. Here are six more reasons to join a support group for anxiety.

As September is Suicide Awareness Month, it is only appropriate that the subject of suicide and temporary anxiety should be touched upon in this blog. Like with any mental illness, the specter of suicide is never far from the man or woman with anxiety. When you think about it, this makes sense – to someone weathered and beaten by an unending torrent of stress, suicide can seem to be a logical way to end that stress and keep your mind at peace. This, of course, is a failure of logic, for as the title of this blog makes clear, anxiety is temporary, while suicide is forever. (Note: This post contains a trigger warning.)

Every time somebody attempts or dies by suicide, at least six people are left struggling profoundly to deal with the difficult, overwhelming emotions that are a natural part of grief1. Those bereaved by suicide often feel high anxiety and guilt. Unfortunately, however, this intense anxiety and crushing guilt can be overlooked as everyone focuses on the person who has attempted or died by suicide. If you have excessive anxiety, worry, fear, and/or feelings of guilt in the wake of suicidal behavior of someone you care about, know that you're not alone and that your feelings aren't wrong or selfish. The following information can help you identify your anxiety and guilt as well as know what to do about it. (Note: This post contains a trigger warning.)

I’m writing this from a hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m here for a week to go to a metal festival, and I’m having the time of my life. I don’t often take many out of state vacations, for a number of reasons, but being here reminds me of how much of a benefit going away really is.

Constant anxious thoughts can induce great misery and suffering. Automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs, are patterns of thinking that cause anxiety and keep anxiety strong and powerful. Words like "should," "shouldn't," "always," "never," and a host of negative labels we place on ourselves are part of those automatic negative thoughts that can keep us trapped in our private world of thoughts, worries, and fears. Because understanding the nature of constant anxious thoughts can help you choose what to do about them, here are a few facts about anxiety and thoughts.

We all have habits that cause anxiety or worsen existing anxiety. This does not mean that we're intentionally causing our own anxiety, not at all. No one is to blame for their anxiety. Habits are merely things we do (or don't do) because we're so used to doing them, we don't even think about them. Occasionally operating on autopilot and inadvertently doing things that worsen or cause anxiety is actually pretty empowering. When you learn about habits that worsen your anxiety, you can actively stop those actions and replace them with more mentally healthy ones. 

I don’t need to convince you that we live in chaotic, scary times – that’s self-evident. Given that, it’s almost too easy to give in to despair and give up. However, support in a chaotic world is possible.

You may have heard that mindfulness calms anxiety. Sometimes, this can be hard to believe because mindfulness can seem like a trend, like just another passing fad that will soon be replaced by the next craze. Mindfulness has been a part of the human experience for thousands of years, though, so it has long surpassed "trend" status. It has established itself as an integral part of wellbeing. Because mindfulness becomes something you do and a way that you are, you can embrace it and, by engaging in mindfulness, you can calm anxiety. 

Gun control is a hot topic. When online, I generally avoid political discussions. Because so many of them are so prone to devolve into toxic shouting matches, I find it healthier to stay away. Today, however, I’m diving in headfirst. The country is still reeling in the aftermath of the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, and quite frankly, I’m pissed off. Once again, a certain segment of the population is refusing to budge on any meaningful discussion concerning gun control, and I’m just sick of it. If we don’t have meaningful action on gun control, this country is going to drown in anxiety.

The miracle question might just be one of the most powerful tools you can use to overcome anxiety and creating the quality life you want to live. The concept comes to us from solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), but versions of it were used in older theories of counseling too. It's a question that on the surface is deceptively simple, but when you explore it more deeply, it becomes more than a question. It becomes an answer. Put on your explorer clothes, and let's examine the miracle question so you can use it to overcome anxiety.