How To Deal With Anxiety
Most of us are dealing with stress on a daily basis. We live in a hectic world that values being busy over relaxation. Constantly having to hustle and grind wears us thin over time.
The more that someone is exposed to stress increases the chances of them developing an anxiety disorder. Generalized Anxiety Disorder(GAD) is one of the most common mental health issues in the world. If affects millions of people in the United States alone.
Dealing with anxiety every day comes with a set of challenging symptoms that make it hard to function and feel normal throughout the day. Thankfully, when you are experiencing anxiety, there are ways to manage it.
How To Deal With Anxiety
Counteract Your Thoughts
One of the most challenging parts of anxiety is uncontrollable thoughts. For example, you may start worrying that you will mess up a big presentation at work. Which then in turn causes you to worry about your job being in jeopardy. Our brain likes to jump around from one thought to the next by playing into a baseline fear.
What you can do to take the control back is counteract these thoughts. If your thought is, "I'm going to mess up this presentation," try "What proof do I have that it will go badly?"
Over time, this will help you recognize what thoughts are justifiable worries and the ones that are the "negative inner critic" voice.
Breathing Techniques
When anxiety runs rampant, it causes mental as well as physical reactions. For instance, anxiety manifests itself physically by causing someone's heart to race, feel sweaty, and causes their breathing to become rapid and shallow.
This is due to the body's natural response to highly stressful situations. As challenging as the physical reactions can be, you can use your body to actually calm you down again.
Your body's natural response to anxiety impacts your breathing. However, you can actually use your breath to calm yourself down.
Known as deep breathing, these techniques take some practice to get down right. With that said, they are easiest to learn during moments when your anxiety isn't completely amped up.
A simple one to start off with is:
Inhale deeply for 5 seconds
Hold your breath for 5 seconds
Slowly release your breath for 5 seconds
Repeat steps 1 through 3
You can do this exercise for any length of time until you feel a little more relaxed. It is best if you try to do this for at least 2-3 consecutive minutes to fully feel the positive impact it can have.
Exercise
Exercise has more benefits than helping with physical health. It is also proven scientifically to be beneficial for mental health, as well. When our body is active, it naturally releases feel-good endorphins into the body. Endorphins such as serotonin can help promote feelings of happiness and relaxation overall. They also help to decrease the stress hormone cortisol.
Walking in nature, especially, can have a huge impact on mental health. When you are out in nature, you are surrounded by a lot of different smells and sights. These serve as a great way to distract you from the thoughts and worries that are bothering you.
Counseling
There's nothing wrong with admitting that you aren't at your best right now. Most people try to hide that, but truthfully, every single human goes through things that test them in profound ways. Anxiety is definitely one of those. But, as challenging as anxiety is, it's also a mental health concern that can definitely be dealt with easier.
If you are struggling with anxiety, don't hesitate to reach out for help. Anxiety therapy can help you get to the root cause of what is causing your worries and together, we can come up with even more ways to naturally combat it.