NLP has many different techniques to deal with anxiety. That’s the beauty of a methodology with so many ingredients that combine to offer many solutions.
Simplistically speaking, there are the following:
- External behavior: Verbal and non-verbal
- International state: Emotions
- Internal communication: Thinking
The NLP pie
If you have already taken an NLP training, you will recognize the parts above as the NLP Pie. All three catalyze each other, they offer a synergy. Changing our thinking allows us to feel different emotions. When we feel these emotions, they result in a different body language. The things we say change, as well as how we say them. Changing our feelings, we automatically start to have other thoughts. These cause us to behave differently. Also, by changing our behavior, we can change our thoughts and emotions. Ever noticed that when you do cardio you start to think and feel different?
Doing a more traditional NLP technique for aniety
Some people find it difficult to do more traditional NLP patterns that relate more to intervening with the emotion or the thought itself.
Though people can feel anxiety for different reasons, people change their breathing when they feel anxious.
The breath often becomes:
– Shallow
– Fast
– Irregular
– Stops entirely
When we stop breathing, we don’t get enough oxygen into the brain. Often my NLP coaching clients don’t know what thought preceded their anxiety, it’s just there.
An NLP Practitioner knows how to work with concepts like submodalities, which we also use for phobia relief. Or powerful anchors, which we use to change emotional states. The NLP Master Practitioner knows how to work with the anxiety pattern on a timeline.
NLP technique for anxiety: superman
But what can you do if you want to use an NLP technique for anxiety that doesn’t require NLP training?
Four simple steps:
1. Step out of the spot you are sitting or standing in.
2. While you do this, imagine stepping out of the anxiety.
3. Take a breath at the same time.
4. Adopt a body posture of confidence: stand straight, stand tall, expand your chest, and put your feet firm on the floor a little apart (shoulder width). Put your hands to your side, like a superman pose.
Science of anxiety
It has actually been scientifically proven that both breathing and adopting a different body posture reduces anxiety. So this is an NLP technique combined with the latest neuroscientific intervention for anxiety and other similar emotions.
Resources
Book
The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity – Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D
Video
How to fix the most common form of anxiety
Former student
We are looking for a former student who wants to write an article about a coaching or NLP technique for anxiety,
