No-fuss anxiety tips #1: Know Your Anxiety Nemesis

What’s anxiety like for you?

Rather than avoiding it, can you get to know your expereince of anxiety, so it becomes less daunting?

Welcome to the first blog in a series of 20-short articles with simple tips and techniques for managing anxiety. This first blog looks at ways you can get to know, and even befriend the nemesis that is your anxiety. I’ve designed this whole blog series to be quick read, no-fuss whilst also drawing on therapeutic thinking from a range of psychological and psychotherapy theories. My hope is that, rather than feel like anxiety has the upper hand, you’ll have some tried and tested ways to tackle anxiety.

What these tips won’t do is explore the origins and purpose of anxiety for you – this type of deeper exploration is what counselling offers. That said, having strategies for managing anxiety is a great place to start. Each article is designed to be quick read, no-fuss. So, let’s get started on this first technique: knowing your anxiety nemesis. 

Get to know Your anxiety

Most people who experience anxiety want to run as far away as possible from their anxiety. A sort of don’t notice it, don’t feel it, don’t mention it, don’t think about it approach. Rather than avoiding all things anxiety, it can be helpful to get to know your anxiety, to lean into it and be curious, to even befriend this experience, so you have less fear around it. Getting to know your nemesis can make the monster less scary. To gain a greater awareness of your own unique experience of anxiety, with the goal of becoming more aware of your own responses and what helps. 

The observing mind

Today, to increase your awareness of your experience of anxiety, try to describe what sensations and you notice when you experience anxiety? Aim to describe the physical, mental, emotional, and behavioural changes you notice. It’s important to attempt this description without judgement. Some people call this the “observing mind”:  noticing and observing without judgement. Using the phrases “I notice….” Or “right now, I am aware of…..” are useful starters. This can help you to recognise your own signs and symptoms of anxiety, so you are more able to act when you begin the experience indicators of anxiety.

A neutral detachment

With enough practice of non-judgementally noticing your anxiety as a neutral room-mate, rather than an enemy, you may notice that your anxiety simmers down a bit. We call this approach of noticing and naming, without resiting “detached mindfulness”. It’s an evidence-based anxiety technique that helps with observing anxious thoughts without getting sucked into engaging with them (Myers & Solem, 2026). Rather than resiting the anxiety, the anxious thoughts and sensations can become more like temporary background noise, creating a sense of mental distance and reducing emotional reactivity.

Next steps?

If this blog has caught your interest, feel free to check out the other mini-blogs in this series on anxiety - blog #2 on breath techniques anxiety is the next topic in the series.

And, if you’d like to talk through how counselling can help you with a deeper exploration of your anxiety, do make contact with me, Claire Law.

I’m a BACP Senior Accredited Psychotherapist offering professional counselling and psychotherapy in Preston, Lancashire and online for adults based in the UK.

I offer a simple, no-pressure approach to people who are considering therapy - and can chat through how I work, and to share with you my availability for new clients for either:

• In person counselling for anxiety at my therapy room in Preston.

• Online counselling for anxiety via MS Teams.

References:

Myers, S.G. and Solem, S. (2026) Detached mindfulness as a stand-alone intervention: a Systematic Review and meta-analysis. Front. Psychiatry 17:1771705.