3 mechanisms to help cope with absorbed anxiety

“Absorbing anxiety” refers to a process through which the anxieties of others are impressed on your own nervous system. Fortunately, there are coping methods that can help turn down the volume on the angst around you.

Feeling the emotions and moods of others disproportionately is not a sign of mental or emotional illness. Research has found that many people are highly sensitive to the "vibes" others send out, quickly absorbing and internalizing their anxieties without realizing it.

This tendency can make normal social interaction challenging. It can even interfere with intimate relationships if one partner is constantly subjected to the other’s anxiety, anger, depression and other negative feelings.

Absorbed anxiety can become downright nightmarish if you're already predisposed to anxiety disorders of your own.

The good news is that you can control how much anxiety you receive from third parties — and how you choose to interpret that anxiety.

A logical first step is to reduce your exposure to anxiety-plagued people and situations. The following tips might help:

• Spend less time around panicky friends
• Limit your involvement in groups that communicate high levels of anxiety
• Get away and spend time on your own

In the workplace, train yourself not to check your email every time a new message appears or answer the phone every time it rings.

You can also employ a kind of cognitive self-therapy to talk yourself down from instances of absorbed anxiety.

For example, you could begin with your project manager at work. Let’s say he or she constantly expresses feelings of panic about a job running behind schedule. You might stop and ask yourself whether that job is really lagging so badly after all. If it is, ask yourself whether it has anything to do with your performance.

Chances are that you'll come to see the situation as someone else's imminent heart attack instead of your own, enabling you to react more calmly and efficiently.

In addition to cognitive therapy, other well-known techniques can help you deflate absorbed anxieties that manage to creep in through your safeguards.

• Make sure you get a good night’s sleep
• Keep a balanced diet
• Set aside time for yourself every day to meditate or otherwise rest your mind

You might also want to consider trying these nutritional supplements. They that can reduce anxiety levels with reasonable safety.

• Chamomile
• 5-HTP
• St. John's Wort

Hopefully these coping mechanisms will put you back on a calmer path. Anxiety is tough enough when it's yours — don't submit to everyone else's as well!