How to Reframe Your Stress and Anxiety Into Productivity

Symptoms of stress, like a dry mouth and a racing heart, are the same as excitement. Research confirms that when people are in stressful situations such as public speaking, instead of telling themselves to calm down, reframing the situation as exciting helps to ride the wave of stress.

Anxiety can drain you and decrease your confidence while reframing your anxiety as excitement will increase your performance.

We can look at stress as either a 'growth' or a 'fixed' mindset.

• A fixed mindset is a fatalistic approach where you believe things are happening to you and can't be changed. This mindset will hold you back.
• A growth mindset sees potential failure as a chance to learn. This mindset can enhance your performance.

Every thought is an intricate pattern of activity between proteins and chemicals, gene expressions, and neural connections in our brain. The more we have a particular thought, the stronger the mental connection becomes.

The more you react to stress with anxiety and fear, the more likely you'll feel the same in a similar situation. There is a fix called 'cognitive reappraisal.'

The goal of cognitive reappraisal is not to turn off your negative thoughts. It is to take a step back and ground your thoughts in reality.

• Recognize when you're busy with a negative path and stop yourself.
• Write down your thoughts and identify what specifically triggered them.
• Challenge your assumptions. Are they true?
• Look for evidence to the contrary. Write all the things down that counter your self-doubt.
• Laugh at yourself. If you think you are bad, tell yourself you're the worst. It will help to show the absurdity of your negative thoughts.