Gemma Styles: ‘I’m still an overthinker but these six strategies have helped me with anxiety’

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Gemma Styles, sister of Harry, shares six practical tips that have made a real difference to her anxiety and her life. Photo / Getty Images
Having shared her mental health struggles online with her 10 million followers, the sister of Harry Styles has compiled her top tips.

I’ve always been quite an anxious person. I feel it running
through my body – clammy hands, a faster heart rate, my lungs so full I can’t catch a breath. I’ve struggled with it since my teens and after gaining an online following [after brother Harry’s success as part of One Direction], I felt like talking about mental health publicly was something I wanted to do. It’s been such a big part of my life. It would have felt untruthful not to mention it. Now at 33 I’m still anxious, but I’ve got a lot better at dealing with it. Here, I share the strategies I’ve learnt over the years to help me tackle it.

We’ve all heard someone tell another person that they need therapy, as if there’s something wrong with them. Some people can also be put off if they think nothing especially bad has happened to them – they’re “just anxious all the time”. I had integrative counselling, which takes a tailored approach and uses different types of therapy techniques, and I found it massively helpful. I thought therapy was usually about unpicking some mysterious negative experience from the past but sessions focused on talking about what I was feeling right now, which helped me to feel like I was making progress in my day-to-day life.
Always remember that if you’re struggling with something and would like to feel better, you may benefit from some therapy – and if so, your GP should be the first point of call.
One approach I learnt during therapy was to identify what I’m anxious about so I could categorise my anxious thoughts.
For example, am I anxious because I’m remembering something I said and worrying that people think I’m really silly? That’s a “past anxious thought”. Am I thinking about something that’s going to happen and I’m concerned about it? That’s a “feared future thought”.
This exercise really helped me notice patterns in what I was getting anxious about. One way to combat it is to apply logical arguments against yourself, which helps with distancing yourself from the anxious thought and offering an alternative narrative.
In one case, I was having “feared future thoughts” about an operation I had coming up. I dealt with that by learning about what was going to happen during the procedure. Once I knew all the facts, I felt less anxious.
Looking after our mental health is often referred to as a form of self-care but remember it’s not one-size-fits-all.
Having a relaxing bath or investing time into a skincare routine can help some people cope with their anxious thoughts. If these work for you, that’s an amazing thing. But remember it’s not the products you’re using, it’s the fact that you’re investing time and effort in yourself.
The habits that work for you won’t be the same for everyone. Self-care is about looking after yourself and making yourself enough of a priority to implement actions that benefit your mental health, whatever they may be.
When you’re feeling very anxious, notice how you’re talking to yourself. Are you being mean and telling yourself that you’re being ridiculous?
If your best friend came to you and said they were feeling really worried about something, you would try to offer some comfort and, with practice, that’s something we can do for ourselves as well. Practice is how habits are formed in our brains. The more you speak to yourself kindly, the easier it gets.
I suffer from imposter syndrome constantly (a form of crippling self-doubt, even in the face of success). Especially at the moment, when people are saying kind things about my book, which feels incredible but I find quite hard to digest.
You don’t have to suffer from anxiety to experience it (though anxiety can make it worse). It’s universal and applies to so many of us. Even people you admire have these thoughts.
At the moment, I’m often left feeling like I’m not as good a writer as the authors I look up to, they’ve written a better book than me, they’re much more confident and know what they’re doing. I’m trying to take my own advice and remember that this is just in my head.
A lot of anxiety can come from comparing ourselves with others, whether it’s against people on social media, friends or colleagues. It’s something we all struggle with.
We’re told it’s a bad thing and not to do it. “Stay in your own lane”, “concentrate on yourself” and “don’t worry about what anyone else is doing” is the advice frequently spouted.
But this approach only gives us another thing to worry about, if we can’t stop comparing. We’re left questioning: “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I stop doing that?”
Actually, there’s nothing wrong with you. I learnt from my research for the book that our brains are hard-wired to compare.
It’s not to make us miserable – this mechanism has kept humans successful as a species. It keeps us looking around to see where we fit into society. If we didn’t have the ability to compare ourselves to other people, it would be a disaster for humans.
Knowing that we can’t completely remove comparative thoughts, it’s helpful to try and utilise this in a healthy way. As suggested by [self-titled compassion coach] Lucy Sheridan, reframe others’ success as being an example that something is achievable and work on making it happen, rather than finding it disheartening. “Proof it’s possible.”
As told to Emily Craig
Why Am I Like This? (My Brain Isn’t Broken and Neither Is Yours) by Gemma Styles (Bantam, $45) is published in New Zealand on September 17.
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