Not everyone expects to feel anxious after a breakup. Sad and grieved, absolutely. Rejected and angry, quite possibly.
But after a breakup, you might feel as if one of your worst fears has already come to pass. The relationship is over, so what else do you have to worry about?
Anxiety involves more than just worry, though. Research suggests anxiety often shows up as part of post-breakup distress.
This anxiety can include Source:
intrusive thoughts
trouble sleeping
difficulty concentrating
feelings of panic or pessimism about the future
physical restlessness
racing thoughts
You might also find yourself ruminating, or fixating on thoughts about what happened in your relationship and the breakup.
These feelings won’t last forever, but you can take steps to speed them on their way. You’ll find five strategies to help you begin working through post-breakup anxiety below.
Take time for yourself:
Feeling a little lost after a breakup is natural. Romantic partners often help shape your identity and sense of self.
The loss of a partnership can create an absence where you once felt love and connection, triggering pain, stress, and anxious thoughts.
When you feel alone and hurt, spending time by yourself might be the last thing you want to do. You crave the comfort a partner can provide, so you might end up turning to someone else — a friend, family member, even a rebound partner.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with seeking social support. Still, taking some time to reconnect with yourself can help reduce anxious feelings and make it easier to begin the healing process.
To start rekindling your relationship with yourself:
Reflect. Explore how the relationship and breakup experiences clarified your needs and taught you about yourself. How can you use that new insight to build stronger, more satisfying relationships in the future?
Pause. Consider waiting to pursue a new relationship before you truly feel “over” your ex-partner. Looking for a new connection before you’re ready can get in the way of self-exploration and healing. Any anxiety and fears you didn’t fully address might resurface with your new partner.
Take inventory. Explore any new habits and beliefs you adopted during the relationship. Do these changes accurately represent your desires, interests, and values? Or did you adopt new traits in the hopes of building a stronger bond with your then-partner?
Add mindfulness to your days:
Mindfulness is far from a magical cure-all, but making an effort to live more mindfully can helpTrusted Source a lot with day-to-day anxiety and general distress.
When you experience emotional turmoil like anxiety, your instinct might lead you to turn away from that pain, to squash it down and ignore it entirely until it goes away.
Avoidance doesn’t make a good long-term coping strategy, though. The emotions you avoid and block can often grow and intensify until they become too overwhelming to manage alone.
Naming and sitting with those emotions can feel a lot more difficult than simply pushing them away — at first. Over time, you’ll likely find it easier to identify difficult feelings and let them go before they affect your mindset.
Mindfulness-based practices help you increase awareness of your thoughts and emotions, but mindfulness also involves staying present in the moment instead of letting anxiety and worry consume your consciousness.
Living more mindfully, then, can mean practicing gratitude for daily experiences and loved ones, and taking time to enjoy the small pleasures of life.
Keep a balanced perspective:
Breakups can hurt quite a bit, especially when you didn’t want to break up in the first place.
If your partner ended things, thinking of the breakup (or your ex-partner) can intensify feelings of abandonment and rejection. This can, in turn, fuel a cycle of intrusive thoughts and rumination that eventually begins to disrupt your daily life.
There’s also the issue of rejection, which can prompt self-doubt for anyone. Taking on all the blame for the end of your relationship and accepting any “flaws” your ex pointed out without question can do a lot of damage to self-esteem and self-confidence.
Vilifying your ex and pushing all the blame on them might help you get over them faster — but research suggests that this could leave you holding on to negative emotions.
Adopting a more balanced frame of mind, however, can offer a smoother path toward relief.
Breakups often happen in response to several different factors. So, no matter who ended things, there’s a decent chance you both contributed.
Acknowledging your own role along with theirs, as well as any external or situational factors involved, can help you look at the breakup more objectively.
Embrace your favorite activities:
Maintaining a relationship requires you to invest time and energy in your partner and yourself, so after a breakup, you might find yourself with plenty of extra time on your hands.
Free time can be great — when you’re doing well. But when you’re dealing with a breakup, those empty hours might offer what feels like an eternity to mull over what happened and cycle through frustration, uncertainty, and grief.
Rewarding activities can fill your time and offer positive distractions throughout the day. There’s nothing wrong with taking your mind off unwanted thoughts, as long as you don’t deny those emotions completely.
Since anxiety can make it tough to concentrate, relaxing hobbies can help you cope with those moments when settling on a specific task feels impossible.
Watch your favorite comedy, curl up with a good book, or set out for a long walk through your favorite park. Whatever you choose, the key is to pick something that’s easy and brings you joy.
