Strategies for Anxiety

How to support anxiety  

Interview with Jane Waite, Psychologist discussing supportive approaches to anxiety.

Are there any helpful strategies to support someone struggling with anxiety?

Visual supports 

Visual supports can help to provide structure and routine in the day, improve understanding and support instructions which can reduce confusion.  

Visual supports can help support change and aid transitions.  

Also check out the resources on using visual supports for communication from the NCSE.

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Support Regulation  

Create a supportive environment that takes into account sensory sensitivities and provides opportunities for sensory regulation. 

Often the supportive adult needs to tune into the child or young person’s emotions and provide support by:

• use of visual supports to support the child to recognise and communicate emotion  
• provide choice of coping activities to enhance regulation  
• Co-regulation approach – many children ands young people might already know what they need, but some need more co-regulation approaches. They need loving and compassionate support to help them to be regulated and feeling safe in their world.

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Relaxation and Calming Activities  

Children and young people can try relaxation methods such as calm breathing, mindfulness, progressive muscle relaxation and physical exercise. These activities can also be tried outdoors. 

We can use mindfulness-based activities to help children and young people recognise physical sensations in their body. These activities can support making the connection between a particular emotion or event and the related physical sensation. Increasing awareness of their body and emotions is key for successful emotional regulation. 

Supportive Environments 

Schools can make adaptations to the environment to support reducing anxiety experiences, these may include:

• clear visual supports to minimise confusion and support instructions  
• minimise uncertainty in the school day by providing predictability  
• awareness of the sensory environment changes to reduce sensory overload, consideration of autistic persons individual preferences and sensory profile 
• provide access to quiet or calm spaces – particularly at breaktime and lunchtime 

Two free resources that Jane Waite and her team have created to better understand and support anxiety:   

Cerebra: https://cerebra.org.uk/download/anxiety-guide-a-guide-for-parents/  

Autistica: https://www.laddersproject.co.uk/anxiety-and-autism-1