Sometimes you may find yourself stuck in a series of doubts, trying to figure out different ‘what-ifs’ and outcomes, which may eventually affect your mental health. Described as the feeling of uneasiness and nervousness, anxiety is a mental condition affecting about 40 million adults in the United States annually.
Anxiety may negatively impact your daily life as it also affects your social relationships and even ruin your diet and sleep cycle. Although remedies like self hypnosis can help manage anxiety and restlessness, you can also consider other simple yet effective tactics to overcome it.
This article has compiled five methods that can be applied to overcome anxiety. Read on.
- Seek Help
You should avoid running away or ignoring factors that trigger your anxious feelings. Instead, you should face them directly. Otherwise, they’ll always have control over you and make you experience panic attacks and restlessness.
Make an effort to visit a professional therapist who may help you in your recovery journey, especially when you have experienced any trauma in the past. Some of the methods your mental health physician may use include:
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): The therapist may hypnotize you to assist you in decreasing levels of stress and anxiety resulting from traumatic experiences. The process may help get rid of the emotional charges of any trauma.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: This method involves identifying the triggers (negative thoughts and behaviors) that may be causing the feelings of restlessness, panic, or fear. Your therapist will also suggest ways for you to cope with these negative emotions in a healthier manner.
If you cannot visit a mental health professional in the meantime, talking to a friend can also help you cope with anxiety. This is also another way to release suppressed emotions and feelings in a healthy, controlled environment. It’s crucial you understand that the more you try to bottle up emotions, the more overwhelming it can become.
- Exercise
This is another proven method that you may utilize to manage your anxiety. Exercise may help you manage anxiety by:
- Diverting your thoughts and attention from factors that contribute to anxiousness and restlessness.
- Exercise plays a crucial role in changing the brain chemistry, ensuring it produces sufficient amounts of compounds such as serotonin and endocannabinoids, which may leave you with a relaxed and calm feeling.
- Engaging in exercise may help trigger the frontal regions of your brain, which is responsible for controlling threat detection and activation of proper fear-related behaviors in response to threatening stimuli.
- It may also help your body expand resources that strengthen your resilience to negative emotions.
- Break Up With Caffeine And Alcohol
It’s normal for most people to have a cup of coffee after a long hard day. But it’s essential to understand that caffeine, a stimulant found in coffee, may worsen your anxiety or even trigger an anxiety attack. Reducing caffeine intake can also improve the quality of your sleep, and a good sleeping habit is known to improve mental health as well.
Although caffeine may improve your vigilance and attentiveness, excessive consumption may increase the intensity of restlessness and anxiousness, especially in individuals with social anxiety disorder.
If you want to cut out caffeine from your diet, it’s advisable you do it slowly to avoid experiencing caffeine withdrawal. Symptoms associated with withdrawal may be similar to those caused by anxiety.
Alcohol, on the other hand, is a depressant and may lead to anxiety and restlessness. Some people may use alcohol to mask feelings of anxiety. However, this increases your chances of developing addiction and dependence and may negatively impact your life.
- Listening To Music
Listening to music may trigger a reward system in your brain responsible for improving feelings of motivation and self-worth, helping alleviate anxiousness and restlessness.
Although music is a short remedy for stress and restlessness, listening to your favorite song or genre could be more effective.
- Consider Anxiety Medications
For many years, humans have been using medications to overcome anxiety. If you have tried all of the above strategies but still experience anxiety and restlessness, you may consider visiting your doctor who may prescribe drugs that can help manage anxiety and related issues.
Possible Risks
- Drug interactions may reduce the efficiency of anti-anxiety medications. This could happen if you’re also taking other kinds of medications on a regular basis. So, talk to your doctor and disclose this information.
- Although most medications are considered safe, the doctor should advise you whether you will experience any side effects, which might affect your daily life.
- Possible development of tolerance and dependence.
Takeaway
As discussed above, anxiety is a serious mental condition that might affect your daily life and how you relate with other people. In case of an anxiety attack, it’s recommended to seek professional help, exercise, listen to music, and avoid excessive caffeine and alcohol consumption to have it under control.