The Best Ways To Deal With Anxiety
Many people worldwide wake up feeling anxious and go to bed feeling the same way. The majority of us are stressed and overwhelmed with everything that we deal with daily. From careers to families and social and household responsibilities, we juggle a lot throughout our day and week.
The reality is that millions of people have chronic anxiety, or generalized anxiety disorder(GAD). It goes beyond stress over external factors and is a feeling that doesn't go away easily. This can be very frustrating for people when they feel anxious but can't pinpoint the exact reason why.
Anxiety is challenging to deal with, but the good news is, there are many ways to deal with it. Here are just a few of our favorite ways.
How To Deal With Anxiety
1. Grounding Exercises
Anxiety often occurs because of the fear of the unknown. It's a gut feeling that something bad could happen and your brain goes into overdrive, thinking of every way it might. Uncontrolled and negative thoughts make you feel like you can't focus because your brain is hyperfocused on the future.
Grounding techniques counteract that by forcing your brain to focus on something else momentarily. One of the best grounding techniques is done by using your five senses. This exercise takes some time to get through, so that by the time you have gone through it, you should notice that you are feeling calmer.
Identify five things you can see
What are four things you can hear?
What are three things you can touch without moving?
What are two smells you can sense?
What is one thing you can taste?
2. Breathing Techniques
When anxiety ramps up, your nervous system forces you to become hypervigilant. It is trying to alert you that something is wrong or there is danger. Even if there is no real danger or evidence that something bad could happen.
As your body enters this state, it tends to impact your breathing patterns. This is why you might notice your breath becoming more shallow and rapid.
Breathing techniques help you naturally counteract this. You can force your body to calm down by breathing in specific patterns. One of the best ways to do this is by:
Slowly taking a deep breath in
Slowly exhaling
Repeat as necessary
3. Exercise
You don't have to go into a full workout to receive the benefits of exercising for your mental health. When your body is moving, your brain naturally releases hormones such as serotonin. This hormone is responsible for promoting feelings of happiness and calmness. While these hormones are released, they also reduce the hormone cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone released when someone is anxious, sad, or overwhelmed.
Great ways to exercise while not being too strenuous or time-consuming are:
Walking
Yoga
Pilates
4. Journaling
Many people hear the word journaling and equate it to a "Dear diary" type of situation. Journaling does not have to be that at all. Journaling refers to the practice of writing down your anxious thoughts to release them out into the wild, so to speak. This helps your brain to not be hyperfocused on your thoughts. Another helpful tip while doing this is writing your evidence for worrying about that specific thing. This will help you see the difference between what is justified to be worried about versus the lies that your mind tries to trick you into believing.
5. Therapy
Mental health is no longer as stigmatized as it once was. While society has a way to go before there is no stigma, it is heading in the right direction. Because of this, more people are realizing the benefits of therapy.
Therapy allows you to talk about your worries in a safe, judgment-free space. Most importantly, it helps clients get to the root cause of their anxiety. Feel free to reach out to learn more about anxiety therapy and how it can help you.
