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How Do I Overcome Anxiety

What Are Anxiety Disorders

How Do I Overcome Anxiety And Fear?

According to Harvard Medical School, an anxiety disorder is present if a person has persistent worry for more days than not, for at least several months. Anxiety is a persistent or excessive worry, stress, fear, or unease that causes both psychological and physical symptoms.

These intense feelings are often triggered by everyday stressors or situations that have unknown variables or outcomes. Or you may have anxious thoughts about something that youre unhappy about. Social anxiety is when social situations cause anxious thoughts, dread, and/or panic. However, anxiety can occur in relation to just about anything.

Additionally, a variety of health conditions are known to make anxiety worse. Likewise, anxious thoughts and high anxiety levels can also aggravate or cause physical symptoms and contribute to mental and physical health conditions, such as having trouble sleeping, depression, heart conditions, and digestive issues.

Types Of Anxiety Disorder

As noted above, anxiety can range from mild to severe and can come and go over time. For some anxious thoughts may feel like a relatively minor issue or may present as troublesome, frustrating, or annoying. Or it may feel completely overwhelming and a real detriment to your daily life.

You may have anxiety over one specific thing or a more general kind of anxiety that extends into many facets of your life. For some people, anxiety causes them to focus more inward, others become less introverted and cope by distracting themselves with more extroverted behaviors. However, introverts tend to experience more anxiety, possibly because they may be more in tune with their inner life and anxiety level.

For many people, anxiety is relatively manageable, but others feel ruled or limited by it. How we cope with our anxiety has a big role in how impactful it becomes. For some, anxiety tips over from typical nervousness or apprehension into more profound anxiety disorders. According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 43% of people with anxiety have mild cases, 33% have moderate anxiety, and almost 23% have a severe prognosis.

What Is The Anxiety Trick

The Anxiety Trick is this: You experience Discomfort, and get fooled into treating it like Danger.

What do we do when we’re in danger? We only have three things: Fight, Flight, and Freeze. If it looks weaker than me, I’ll fight it. If it looks stronger than me, but slower, I’ll run away. And if it looks stronger and faster than me, I’ll freeze and hope it doesn’t see so good. That’s all we have for danger.

When people experience the fear of a panic attack, or a phobic encounter, or an obsessive thought, they instinctively treat it as a danger. They try to protect themselves, with some variation of Fight, Flight, or Freeze.

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Identify And Learn To Manage Your Triggers

Identifying your triggers can be something you do on your own or with a therapist. Your triggers might be obvious to you, such as drinking alcohol or smoking, or they can be less obvious.

Long term triggers can take longer to pinpoint considering they could include a due date, a person, or a situation. This may be where you need extra support, such as a therapist.

After discovering your trigger, try to limit your exposure if possible. If you cannot do this, for example it could be a stressful work or living environment that you cannot remove yourself from, other coping mechanisms may be suitable.

Common triggers include:

  • a stressful job or work environment
  • driving or travelling
  • genetics anxiety could run in your family
  • withdrawal from drugs or certain medications
  • side effects of certain medications
  • trauma
  • some chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, or asthma
  • chronic pain
  • having another mental illness

Take Some Time Out For Yourself

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It’s very easy to get sucked into a worry hole, constantly obsessing over the facts that are causing your anxiety.

Taking some time out to practise yoga, visit loved ones, meditate, listen to a relaxing podcast or engage in relaxing techniques like deep breathing.

These measures can provide short-term relief necessary to clear your head.

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The Effects Of Fear And Anxiety

Fear and anxiety often overlap. As noted above, they share many of the same symptoms. But someone that has anxiety will have a more sensitive fear trigger. Even situations that dont present an immediate threat may cause feelings of fear.

For example, imagine that you are in an office and see a group of coworkers chatting casually. This stimulus is fairly innocuous. However, if you have anxiety, you may begin to experience racing thoughts, nervousness, and have trouble saying hello to them. Do your coworkers pose a threat?

In this case, yes. There is no immediate threat or inherent danger your colleagues arent about to run you over or attack you . But if you, say, are concerned that they may be talking about you, youre responding to the perceived threat. Your response is appropriate for what might happen, not whats happening now.

So whats wrong with that? People gossip, right? And werent they probably talking about you? You wouldnt feel this way unless it were true, right? Not so fast.

We assume that our emotions are triggered in response to a certain stimulus. In other words, we react to whatever is happening around us, and we trust our emotions to give us feedback on what we see. However, thats not true.

Why this extra step? Through our experiences and learning, your brain has gotten quite good at predicting. Its helpful because a reactive brain would be too slow to get you out of danger efficiently.

Mind

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Fear is one of the most powerful emotions. It has a very strong effect on your mind and body.

Fear can create strong signals of response when were in emergencies for instance, if we are caught in a fire or are being attacked.

It can also take effect when youre faced with non-dangerous events, like exams, public speaking, a new job, a date, or even a party. Its a natural response to a threat that can be either perceived or real.

Anxiety is a word we use for some types of fear that are usually to do with the thought of a threat or something going wrong in the future, rather than right now.

Fear and anxiety can last for a short time and then pass, but they can also last much longer and you can get stuck with them. In some cases they can take over your life, affecting your ability to eat, sleep, concentrate, travel, enjoy life, or even leave the house or go to work or school. This can hold you back from doing things you want or need to do, and it also affects your health.

Some people become overwhelmed by fear and want to avoid situations that might make them frightened or anxious. It can be hard to break this cycle, but there are lots of ways to do it. You can learn to feel less fearful and to cope with fear so that it doesnt stop you from living.

Focus On Your Breathing

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Breathing is more important than you think. Usually, anxiety begins with short breaths. The short breaths cause a number of negative reactions in your body which quickly become an anxiety attack. The key to overcoming those fast outbreaks of anxiety is to control your breathing.

Fortunately, deep breathing is not complicated. Once you have recognized that you are becoming fearful, stop and focus on your breathing. Take a breath in, and then slowly let it out. Make sure your exhale is longer than your inhale. This isnt just some psychological trick deep breathing forces your body to physically calm itself.

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What Is A Panic Attack

A panic attack is when you feel overwhelmed by the physical and mental feelings of fear the signs listed under What do fear and anxiety feel like? People who have panic attacks say that they find it hard to breathe, and they may worry that theyre having a heart attack or are going to lose control of their body. See the Support and information section at the end of this booklet if you want help with panic attacks.

Figure Out What’s Bothering You

The physical symptoms of panic and anxiety, such as trembling, chest pain, and rapid heartbeat, are usually more apparent than understanding just what is making you anxious. However, in order to get to the root of your anxiety, you need to figure out whats bothering you. To get to the bottom of your anxiety, put some time aside to exploring your thoughts and feelings.

Writing in a journal can be a great way to get in touch with your sources of anxiety. If anxious feelings seem to be keeping you up at night, try keeping a journal or notepad next to your bed. Write down all of the things that are bothering you. Talking with a friend can be another way to discover and understand your anxious feelings.

Make it a habit to regularly uncover and express your feelings of anxiety.

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Anxiety And Sleep Research

There is, however, plenty of research on how anxiety can affect sleep and vice versa.

According to the ADAA, research shows that sleep disorders occur in almost all psychiatric disorders.

In a small 2015 study , researchers examined the relationship between cognitive behavioral therapy and sleep quality in people with anxiety. Researchers found that both sleep quality and sleep latency improved in participants who responded to CBT.

The researchers believe that targeting sleep problems during anxiety treatment might be beneficial for those who have trouble sleeping.

Its important to remember that it can take time to find the right treatment approach for your anxiety. Because of this, you and your doctor may choose to use a variety of different treatment options.

What To Drink To Calm Nerves

16 Best Ways to Overcome Anxiety Disorder

8 Drinks That Calm of 9. The holidays are a time to indulgein food, family, gifts, and yes, drinks. But running around on sugary, boozy beverages won’t leave you running very long. … of 9. Green tea. … of 9. Valerian. … of 9. Cherry juice. … of 9. Black tea. … of 9. Milk. … of 9. Chamomile. … of 9. Water.

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How Science Can Help

The way you cope or handle things in life has a direct impact on how much anxiety you experience tweak the way youre coping, therefore, and you can lower your anxiety levels. Here are some of the top coping skills that have emerged from our study at the University of Cambridge, which will be presented at the 30th European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology in Paris, and other scientific research.

Do you feel like your life is out of control? Do you find it hard to make decisions or get things started? Well, one way to overcome indecision or get going on that new project is to do it badly.

This may sound strange, but the writer and poet GK Chesterton said that: Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. And he had a point. The reason this works so well is that it speeds up your decision-making process and catapults you straight into action. Otherwise, you could spend hours deciding how you should do something or what you should do, which can be very time-consuming and stressful.

People often want to do something perfectly or to wait for the perfect time before starting. But this can lead to procrastination, long delays or even prevent us from doing it at all. And that causes stress and anxiety.

Using do it badly as a motto gives you the courage to try new things, adds a little fun to everything, and stops you worrying too much about the outcome. Its about doing it badly today and improving as you go. Ultimately, its about liberation.

When To Talk To Someone About Anxiety

Experiencing an anxiety attack is reason enough to seek medical help. Consider talking to a mental health professional about your anxiety attacks and the particulars of your anxiousness.

Anxiety often causes people to drink excessive amounts of alcohol or use dangerous drugs to cope with the symptoms of having an anxiety disorder. Substance abuse may provide temporary relief from anxiety, but it is not a long-term solution to coping with a mental illness. If youve relied on drugs or alcohol to manage your anxiety, .

Medical Disclaimer: The Recovery Village aims to improve the quality of life for people struggling with a substance use or mental health disorder with fact-based content about the nature of behavioral health conditions, treatment options and their related outcomes. We publish material that is researched, cited, edited and reviewed by licensed medical professionals. The information we provide is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It should not be used in place of the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider.

View oureditorial policy or viewour research.

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What Does Severe Anxiety Feel Like

Its a constant cycle that leaves people molded so deeply in their anxious state, that many times they subconsciously fear recovery because its so unknown to them, and sometimes dont want to recover. That one struck a nerve Im sure. But as most of my clients I work with know, Im all about getting to the cold hard truth when it comes to peoples severe anxiety, and this simply leads to results not years down the road , but now.

Think about the moments after you came out of your mothers womb. Immediately through the people who were around you, you began gathering information into the hard drive of your brain. This information throughout your childhood years leading up to your teens, and adult years, began creating the person you are today.

Severe Anxiety Is No Accident!

Your fears didnt just appear in front of you one day, you built it up within you in three different ways:

  • Specific Incidents That Have Happened The incidents you noticed that happened to you such as noticing a sensation of anxiety
  • Modeling What you saw in your physical world that you subconsciously began to model yourself after
  • Verbal Programming What you heard from others

They built up confidence within them, ended their mental, emotional and physical fatigue, and never looked back.

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