Blood Test Anxiety: How I Found my Calm Using this Simple Technique
The mind is a powerful tool, here’s how you can make it work for you and not against you.
When it comes to taking a blood test, there are 2 types of people: those who keep calm and carry on and those who don’t.
If you fall into the latter, don’t feel bad.
Anxiety has a funny way of making things seem scarier than they are.
I’m a cocktail of nerves going for a blood test.
From a racing heart to sweaty palms and light-headedness, my body works against me.
Deep breathing doesn’t seem to help either.
Ironically, it isn’t the blood or needles that scare me but my body’s response to it.
One of my biggest fears is passing out in public because of nerves, but the root cause remains the same: blood test results.
Something I have no control over.
Yet, what I do have control over is how my body responds in the moment and that comes down to what I choose to focus on.
Avoid asking this one question to an anxious person
After having different nurses draw my blood, I discovered the one question that sends my anxiety over the edge:
“Are you okay?”
It’s the equivalent of telling someone to calm down or asking them if it’s raining out when they come home soaking wet.
As well-intentioned as the question is, it has the opposite effect.
It shifts the focus back to how you’re feeling and amplifies the anxiety.
While drawing my blood the nurse asked me how I’m feeling, which only brought attention inward, back to my body.
Which left my mind racing with thoughts like: “Why are they asking me that, do I look like I’m about to pass out?”
“What you focus on expands”- Robin Sharma
Redirect your focus instead using cognitive distraction
The second time around, I had a nurse ask me a different set of questions and it worked wonders.
Instead of asking how I felt, she shifted the focus away from my body, by asking what I do for a living and places I like to travel.
Here’s the important part: She spoke only in French, a language I’m not fluent in.
Even though I understood her, responding required active thought and effort.
Not only did she successfully distract me and force me to practice my terrible French, but she also managed to close the physical floodgates of anxiety.
“At the first signs of physical activation (increased heart rate, sweating, chills, upset stomach, shaking, lightheadedness, etc.), immediately engage in a cognitive task. When you are actively thinking about something else, you are not focusing on anxiety-provoking thoughts.”- Jill (Conquering Cognitions)
Whether it’s getting your blood drawn, or waiting on the edge of your seat for the plane to take off, cognitive distraction is a great way to bring your focus and attention away from how you feel to break the anxiety loop.
Yet here’s the caveat: the task needs to be challenging enough to require your complete attention.
Having someone ask me questions in a language I’m not completely fluent in managed to get my mind off what was happening.
Yet there are many cognitive distraction techniques you can try on your own to curb anxiety at the moment.
The main takeaway
Blood tests aren’t for everyone, and that’s okay.
We all have our “thing”.
The important part is finding ways to cope with the anxiety before the physical symptoms take over.
Everyone is different, and while deep breathing didn’t work for me, speaking in a language I wasn’t entirely fluent in did.
It redirected my attention elsewhere and offered the immediate short-term relief I needed.
While I can’t always rely on the good nature of nurses to challenge my French-speaking abilities or calm me down, I can find ways to distract myself on my own.
Next time around, I’ll try naming all the books from my favourite author (there’s a lot) and see what happens.
