Many of us suffer from anxiety, which is often stress induced. Anxiety can become debilitating where it stops you from progressing in the areas of your life that you want to progress in the most. Islam has some clear ways of treating this problem that I’ll share with you here insha’Allah.

How does Islam treat anxiety? Islam treats anxiety as a fear induced reaction of the mind and the body. It’s a psychological problem, a problem of the mind. People don’t have anxiety about the past, they regret the past and the anxiety is often about the present or the future, where they fear that the past will repeat itself. The number one solution that Islam offers for anxiety, stress and worry, which are all interconnected, is to connect to Allah and change your fear inducing thoughts. Connecting to Allah eradicates the feeling that you can’t handle something. It puts your reliance for a solution on Allah and not yourself. By taking control of your mind you are able to take control of the emotional and physical reactions that we call anxiety.

In this article insha’Allah I’m going to give you 7 ways to treat anxiety in a practical way that can be applied daily. You may be a little sceptical about this, but bear with me as I explain.

Anxiety has the effect of turning us into a recluse, where we avoid people and circumstances and it can really ruin a person’s life unless they can get this in order. Anxiety is often one of the reasons why people turn to substance abuse, often because they are trying to deal with their social anxieties.

There are a number of practical ways that you can deal with your anxiety without letting it take over your life or become your biggest obstacle, as it has done for so many people. In the following list of ways to treat anxiety you may find that one of them is sufficient to overcome the feelings of anxiety and if that is the case then I would suggest practising it as much as possible.

1. Treating anxiety through remembrance of Allah.

The most effective treatment for anxiety is to remember Allah Almighty, The most powerful. You see, there is nothing that you feel anxiety about except that some fear that you have, has induced that feeling of anxiety. There is something that you fear that may have occurred previously or something you are expecting to happen that is causing these feelings of fear. The closer you come to that fear, the more anxiety you feel.

Allah Almighty tells us in the Quran, Surat Ra’d 28:

Those who believe and their hearts are assured by the rememberance of Allah, Certainly in the Rememberance of Allah do the hearts find peace.

So peace of mind can be found in the remembrance of Allah. But in the context that one remembers Allah when they are facing their fears and anxieties. We have to remember that Allah is the most powerful and nothing overcomes Allah. Nothing that we fear is beyond Allah’s ability to deal with.

So you have to tell yourself, “I can handle anything because Allah is on my side and He can handle all of my problems”. So in remembering Allah, you remember that Allah is far greater than any fear that you have and then you put your reliance upon Allah.

As Allah says:

 “those who are patience and put their reliance in their Lord”

Quran, Surah An-Nahl, 42

 

2. Change your Expectations.

Feelings of anxiety often occur because we expect things to happen, or expect things to be a certain way. And when we see that the reality doesn’t conform with our expectations, we become fearful of failure, fearful of not getting what we expect.

Expectations are all managed in your mind and sometimes our expectations are so exaggerated and negative that they induce the fear in us that it’s not possible to achieve what we expect.

You see your mind knows that you have these expectations and it’s looking for signs that your expectations are going to be met. When your expectations are not going to be met, you begin to fear because the mind releases cortisol, the stress hormone, and you begin to feel stressed.

The easiest way to manage your stress levels is to change your expectations which is the thing that actually induces your fear, or creates that sense of the fear in your life. It can be controlled or dispelled simply by changing your thoughts about your expectation.

Most of the time we anticipate or expect serious challenges in the future. Change your expectations and your thoughts about it and things will begin to look less stressful.

3. Tell yourself whatever you fear is not real

The solution is not in the fact that your fear is not real, the solution for you is to talk to yourself in a positive, calming way that empowers you.

In the Quran, Surat An-Nas Allah says:

“from the one who whispers in the hearts of people”

Allah the Almighty is teaching us an important lesson here. He tells us to seek refuge from the constant whispers or the repeated saying of the same negative thing because your mind has the most powerful effect on you.

If you tell yourself over and over again, that you can really achieve something your mind will believe it and will act in accordance to your beliefs. However, if you tell yourself that you’re a failure and you can’t do anything right, and you keep repeating that to yourself over and over, then just the same your will believe it and act in accordance to those beliefs

More importantly if you tell yourself over and over again that you just cannot get anything right, your mind will believe that and your actions will be in accordance and you won’t get anything right because you will sabotage your own efforts.

My suggestion to you is that if you suffer from anxiety, it’s absolutely essential that you begin to talk to yourself in the most positive, empowering way. Feed your minds with complete positive statements about yourself and your abilities.

4. Practice makes fearless

The best way to get over whatever your fear is to practice dealing with that thing over and over again. For example, if you fear speaking in public, or you have some sort of social anxiety, then prepare yourself for the kinds of things that you will talk about in those settings.

The more you prepare, the easier and the less fear you will have. The more you practice, the more easier it will become, regardless of how you’re feeling.

Practice until it becomes so natural to you that you can do it without even thinking.  Often when we are struck with fear and anxiety, we can’t seem to think straight. If you  practise to the point of being able to do something without even thinking, when you feel the fears and anxieties, you will be able to perform regardless and your fears will start to weaken insha’Allah.

5. Race with your fear

Whatever you fear, if you give it time to set in, it will absolutely horrify you. So the quicker you can take action, the quicker you will dispel your fears and anxieties.

If you don’t allow yourself time to think and jump straight to action dealing with the thing that you actually fear, then before you know it, it’s over and you’re fear hasn’t even had time to create that anxiety.

It’s important that you understand that anxiety is something that we fear about the future or something that’s just about to happen. The quicker you take action, the sooner you will realise you can handle it insha’Allah.

6. Don’t Compare Yourself  

One of the reasons that we have anxiety is that we scare ourselves into competing with other people. We keep looking at other people and telling ourselves that they’re doing better than us, that we need to compete with them.

Comparing yourself can be one of the most destructive self induced stresses that most people suffer from. Accept yourself for who you are and where you are right now.

Just tell yourself that I’m going to grow by just 1%. I will work on becoming 1% better every day. Don’t compare yourself to other people who are at a different place in their lives. You weren’t created to be like others, you were created to be special, unique and great at being you.

7. Make a lot of Dua

The most empowering thing that you could do as we mentioned already, is to be connected to Allah, the most powerful. But the 2nd most empowering thing that you could do is to turn to Allah continuously asking for help while you’re taking action. And the key is to be taking action as you’re asking for help.

Many people spend most of their time asking Allah for help. Yet they’re not taking any action. So action combined with Dua is an indestructible force of goodness in our lives. Use it and it will make you indestructible.

As Allah says Surat Al Baqarah 186:

If my servant asks about me informed them. Indeed, I am close, I answer the prayer of the one who calls out.

Ask yourself:

Do you find yourself when approaching something that challenges you, that you start to feel those horrible feelings of stress and anxiety?

You see, most of us fear the challenges in our lives. We worry about facing our fears, and then we are the ones who are afflicted with anxiety.

You can overcome the anxiety by facing your fear and just leaning into it. The challenge that induces fear is often the challenge that helps you to grow and overcome obstacles to become a better version of yourself. But many times, that fear is so strong in our mind only because we’ve given it oxygen to breathe and become bigger than it really is, we didn’t take action.

So my advice to you is step into your fear. The thing that you fear is a challenge that will help you grow. On the other side of that fear is your growth, your success, so don’t let that false fear stop you, just lean into it and you will see that the fear disappears quickly and all of a sudden you find yourself growing and becoming stronger.

The thing that helps me get over my anxieties.

That’s right by the author of this article regularly face challenges and fear inducing situations. The greatest thing that I’ve done to help myself to overcome this problem has been to change my way of looking at this problem.

Understanding that growth requires discomfort was key to this. Because we don’t feel challenged when we are doing things were comfortable with.

I don’t feel challenged about things I’ve done a million times before. So ‘Challenge’ is what induces the fear. It’s ‘doing something that makes me feel uncomfortable’, is what makes me feel anxiety because I’ve never done it before. I keep saying to myself “what if it goes wrong, what if I look like a fool, what if I lose everything, what if I die”.

All of these thoughts go through your mind when you’re about to embark on a new growth experience. It’s because every challenge we overcome helps us to grow.

So, I realised that I need to look differently at my challenges and see them as a normal part of life. See them as the best part of life, because they will help me to grow to become something that would not be possible if I were to sit in my comfort zone.

My advice to anyone suffering from anxiety is face the challenge by connecting with Allah, who can overcome any problem for you. Rely on Allah and don’t rely on yourself solely.

Take the steps that will help you to overcome these challenges and you will overcome your fears. Face your fear daily, or as much as possible. The more you face your fear, the more you realise that the fear is not real.

The less you face your fear, the more fear you have. I’m just saying that this is a psychological issue, a spiritual issue. Turn to The Creator of the heavens and earth and rely on Allah The most powerful and you will be able to handle anything.

Lean into your fear and the fear will be dispelled, your fear will die a death and you will be able to do anything that you want to do.

Above all, rely on Allah, the most powerful to deliver you the results. So just get busy taking action, facing the fear and doing the challenge.