Stop Trying To Be In Control All The Time
You constantly check the weather before a big outdoor event. You replay a clumsy comment you made, or get enraged at the airport when a flight’s delayed. When you desperately try to take command of things that can’t be controlled, you’re like the swimmer who panics and slaps at the water, panickingthis gets you nowhere. Instead, imagine that you’re floating along on the water with your arms spread out, looking up to the sky. It’s a paradox, but when you surrender to the moment, you actually feel far more in control, Leahy says.
Soak In A Bath Or Take A Shower
If youre stressed, a warm bath or shower not only loosens tense muscles, its a nice way to get some peace and quiet. Plus, sometimes the physical act of getting clean has a way of purifying the mind.
And if youre having trouble sleeping, you may want to take a bath before getting in bed. A 10 to 15 minute soak has been shown to help people fall asleep 10 minutes faster.
What Are The Treatments For Anxiety Disorders
The main treatments for anxiety disorders are psychotherapy , medicines, or both:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy that is often used to treat anxiety disorders. CBT teaches you different ways of thinking and behaving. It can help you change how you react to the things that cause you to feel fear and anxiety. It may include exposure therapy. This focuses on having you confront your fears so that you will be able to do the things that you had been avoiding.
- Medicines to treat anxiety disorders include anti-anxiety medicines and certain antidepressants. Some types of medicines may work better for specific types of anxiety disorders. You should work closely with your health care provider to identify which medicine is best for you. You may need to try more than one medicine before you can find the right one.
NIH: National Institute of Mental Health
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Allow Yourself To Feel What Youre Feeling
Depression and anxiety are medical conditions, not the result of failure or weakness, and theyre absolutely not your fault.
Without a doubt, the unwanted emotions they cause can lead to plenty of distress. But knowing depression and anxiety result from underlying causes and triggers, not anything you did or didnt do, can promote self-compassion instead of criticism or self-punishment.
Try Doing These Things More
- Connect with friends and loved ones through video chats, phone calls, texting, and email. It really helps to feel the strength of your connections to your friends and loved ones, even though you may not be with them in person.
- Stick with sources of credible medical information, so you can avoid misinformation about the virus and the illness it causes.
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Find Time For Yourself
While it might be difficult to arrange some time to do things around a busy schedule, your mental health must pursue activities that you enjoy.
Hobbies can come in many different forms, and whether you like things such as art, music, playing games with friends, cooking, and many more, there is a good chance youve already established some interests before.
If you havent been able to find the time for them, its important to try to do so by managing your time, which was discussed in the previous section. Creating a hobby and finding time for yourself is a healthy way to manage stress, and negative thoughts, and ease anxious feelings.
Some people who are stressed or anxious can also become depressed because they cant figure out how to make time for their hobbies however, depression can make people lose interest in the things that they used to enjoy as well.
If this sounds like you, you can also use this time to rediscover yourself and try to find new hobbies and activities that catch your interest. Try group activities with friends to rekindle an interest or find a new one. You may find something that sticks with you and provides you with some fulfillment and excitement that you could have been missing out on.
This kind of positivity in your personal life can also be just what you need to help you learn how to relax and cope with the challenges of everyday life, such as work, school, family, friends, and relationships.
How To Cope With Anxiety And Depression
Anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. Heres what you need to know if they strike simultaneously.
Aleksei Morozov/iStock
Do you sometimes worry so much that it interferes with your everyday activities? Or feel so blue that it completely clouds your outlook? Do you often experience these or similar feelings together? Youre not the only one.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America , anxiety disorders which include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder are the most common mental health problem among U.S. adults, affecting 18.1 percent of the population each year. And mood disorders which include major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective disorder are the leading cause of disability.
Moreover, the incidence of developing depression in addition to an anxiety disorder or vice versa is high. Many people with major depression also suffer from severe and persistent anxiety, notes Sally R. Connolly, LCSW, in Louisville, Kentucky. And some experts estimate that 60 percent of people with anxiety will also have symptoms of depression, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness .
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Tools To Help You Cope With Anxiety
One of the most important things to remember about anxiety coping is that coping actually happens inside of you. There are many strategies to help you cope, but what will eventually help you cure your anxiety forever is your own mental strength. Everyone has it, but it often requires taking care of your body and re-training your mind for how you should react to anxiety and stress.
Still, the following will help promote better coping, and give you an opportunity to control some of the issues that lead to anxiety symptoms:
These things may not cure anxiety on their own, but they will help you learn to control the way anxiety affects you, and you’ll often find that they assist your ability to mentally cope – in some cases enough to cure it completely.
Aim To Get A Good Nights Sleep
Not enough sleep can worsen symptoms of both anxiety and depression but too much sleep can also affect well-being and mood.
Experts recommend most adults get
These tips can help you get the sleep you need:
- Make a habit of going to bed and getting up around the same time each day.
- Turn off electronic devices about 1 hour before bedtime.
- Create a soothing ritual that helps you wind down before bed.
- Keep your bedroom dark, cool, and quiet.
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Signs Of An Anxiety Attack
These are some of the more common mental and physical symptoms of anxiety:
- feelings of danger, panic, or dread
- nervousness or restlessness
- numbness or tingling in your extremities
- feeling hot or cold
If you notice that quick tips havent been working, you may want to consider seeing a professional for help. Especially if you believe you have GAD and its interfering with routine activities and causing physical symptoms.
A mental health professional can help with streamlining the process of identifying your triggers, maintaining long-term strategies through behavioral therapy, medications, and more.
Anxiety may always be a part of your life, but it shouldnt overtake your day-to-day. Even the most extreme anxiety disorders can be treated so that the symptoms arent overwhelming.
Once you find what treatment works best for you, life should be a lot more enjoyable and a lot less daunting.
Practical Ways To Cope With Anxiety
Whether you are dealing with ordinary day-to-day anxiety that comes with lifes responsibilities or you are struggling with one of the many different types of anxiety disorders out there, learning how to cope with these feelings can be very challenging on your own. In this article, you will learn about some different ways you can find relief living with an anxiety disorder and start managing stress and anxiety and improve your mental health. Seeking help from an online therapist is a great place to start.
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How To Stop Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are a very different beast. They still benefit from controlling anxiety, and you should still strongly consider the tips above, but when you’re suffering from panic attacks, you often need more than that. Panic attacks cause another form of anxiety – fear of getting a panic attack – and the irony of this is that this fear can actually cause panic attacks. Luckily, there is one strategy that can be effective at coping with panic attacks:
Do nothing.
This is not entirely true, of course. There are effective ways to prevent panic attacks and train yourself to control the severity of these attacks. But the start, you need to learn to do nothing.
That’s because there are many important things you need to understand about panic attacks:
Reducing the severity of your panic attacks will actually help treat the panic attacks, because you’ll start to fear them less. That’s why if you learn to do nothing when you have a panic attack, you’ll actually start coping with your panic attacks better.
The other way to cope with your anxiety attacks is through distractions. Healthy distractions like walking or talking on the phone stop you from focusing too much on your worries, and prevent your anxiety from taking over your thoughts. Any healthy distraction is a good distraction for dealing with panic, and finding one that works for you is a great start.
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Food Prep For Support
Honestly, who has the time or energy to cook a balanced meal after working all day? And if you have anxiety, it might feel even more daunting to make space for cooking. Enter: meal prepping.
Alleviate some of the coming weeks stress by carving out a couple hours during the weekend to make a big pot of food. And if you depend on takeout to get you through the week, meal prepping can be a real money-saver.
There are also certain foods that may help your body manage anxiety.
- Eatyogurt and berries for breakfast. The probiotics in yogurt and the anti-oxidants in berries, are both thought to have anti-anxiety effects.
- Wake up with green tea. This caffeinated bev may have help curb stress.
- Snack on almonds. Almonds anti-oxidant rich and a super good , a nutrient our bodies need to function properly.
- Incorporate omega-3- rich foods. Toss in ingredients like shrimp and kidney beans into your dinner. Taking omega-3 supplements is associated with a reduction in anxiety levels.
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Meditate And Practice Mindfulness
A main goal of meditation is full awareness of the present moment, which includes noticing all thoughts in a nonjudgmental way. This can lead to a sense of calm and contentment by increasing your ability to mindfully tolerate all thoughts and feelings.
Meditation is known to relieve stress and anxiety and is a primary facet of CBT.
Research from John Hopkins suggests 30 minutes of daily meditation may alleviate some anxiety symptoms and act as an antidepressant.
How Can You Help Someone Dealing With Anxiety
The best way to help someone dealing with anxiety is to provide support. Listen to and help the person come up with a plan, and validate their feelings even if you dont understand them. You can also suggest doing a calming activity together, such as a deep breathing exercise. Helping them find a support group or resources can be helpful.
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Tips And Strategies To Manage Anxiety And Stress
At some point, anxiety and stress affect everyone. They can manifest differently in different people, and the level of anxiety one experiences can vary, but there is one thing for certain: there are ways to manage anxiety, even if it feels out of control.
Of course, if anxiety is affecting your everyday life and getting in the way of your daily productivity for an extended period, please seek assistance. Find Help
Information about causes and treatment goes a long way in helping to understand anxiety and stress, but there are also some physical and mental things you can do when feeling anxious or stressed. Some coping strategies from ADAAs experts include:
Force Yourself To Move In Big Ways And Small
It may be hard to find the energy to work up a sweat when you’re feeling blue or like you have something more pressing to take care ofbut that’s often the anxiety talking. Extensive research on the correlation between exercise and mental health shows that regular exercise is associated with lower neuroticism, anxiety, and depression. This refers to designated gym or home workouts, but it also includes simply getting up and moving frequently around to avoid a sedentary lifestyle.
Getting regular exercise, even if it’s just going for a good walk, is also known to improve sleep onset and qualityanother major influence on anxiety and mood.
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Be Disciplined About Getting Enough Sleep
A 2013 study published in The Journal of Neuroscience supports the idea that sleep deprivation can have serious health consequences, including ratcheting up anxiety levels. Sleep expert Matthew Walker, PhD, explains in his 2017 book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, that “here is no major psychiatric condition in which sleep is normal. This is true of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder”
But while sleep disruption is known to trigger or exacerbate conditions like anxiety, and vice versa, Walker points to reassuring research by University of California, Berkeley psychologist Allison Harvey, PhD: “By improving sleep quantity, quality, and regularity, Harvey and her team have systematically demonstrated the healing abilities of sleep for the minds of numerous psychiatric populations.”
While there’s no one-size-fits-all number when it comes to sleep, the average person should aim to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep every single night. For those suffering from anxiety, many of the above coping techniques, such as avoiding caffeine, practicing breathing or meditation techniques, and seeing a therapist, are also effective ways to improve sleepas sleep trouble and anxiety often go hand in hand. Here are 11 healthy habits to adopt to promote a better night’s sleep, based on scientific research.
Improve Your Time Management Skills
Many people become stressed and anxious because they feel that they only have so little time to do what they need to do each day.
Although peoples schedules can indeed become jam-packed with tasks and responsibilities, by carefully examining how you carry them out, you might realize that youre not utilizing your time efficiently. Perhaps youre not prioritizing the most important things, or youre procrastinating, and it seems like you dont have enough time, leading you to rush yourself or panic.
How we utilize our time can change how we feel throughout the entire day. For example, going to bed earlier and leaving ahead of schedule for work can help you avoid traffic and from worrying about running late.
Learning to manage your time better will take some time to fully get the hang of, but you can start implementing various techniques today to ease anxiety, fear, and panic. For instance, you can write out and schedule everything that needs to get done each day and start making priorities to help manage anxiety.
Youll probably find that you havent been making the best use of your time before. Still, once you learn how to manage your time better, youll feel less stressed, anxious, and pressured to get things done at the last minute, and most likely, youll have some more time to do other things that you like and spend time with the people you care about which can then benefit your mental health.
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How Can I Treat Anxiety
Anxiety can be treated in a variety of ways. One common treatment option is cognitive behavioral therapy , which helps provide people with tools to cope with anxiety when it occurs.
There are also certain medications, like antidepressants and sedatives, that work to balance brain chemistry and prevent episodes of anxiety. They may even ward off the most severe symptoms.If youre looking to go a more natural route, though, there are little and big ways you can help combat anxiety.
You can make adjustments to habits, like exercise, sleep, and diet. You can also try something totally new, like aromatherapy or meditation. No matter what your lifestyle demands, theres a natural way to help reduce anxiety for everyone.
It Can Help Treat Nausea
Given its potential impact on your digestive system, lemon balm may also help relieve feelings of nausea.
A 2005 review assessing the results of several studies on lemon balm found the herb to be useful in treating gastrointestinal symptoms such as this. Although this is a promising development, its important to recognize the study limitations.
Many of the studies looked at lemon balm used in conjunction with other herbs. Further research is needed to determine the efficacy of lemon balm when used alone.
How to use: Drink a cup of lemon balm tea at the first sign of nausea. You can find loose-leaf or bagged options at your local grocery store or online.
Theres also research to suggest that lemon balm can be used to relieve menstrual cramps and premenstrual syndrome .
A 2015 study researched the effect of lemon balm in reducing the intensity of cramps in 100 high school girls. The girls took either a lemon balm essence or a placebo for three consecutive menstrual cycles. The intensity of PMS symptoms was analyzed before and one, two, and three months after the trial. The group who took the lemon balm reported a significant reduction in symptoms. Further research is needed to confirm these findings.
How to use: Take 1200 mg of lemon balm daily for optimal results. This will allow the herb to get into your system long before its time for PMS symptoms to appear. Continued use is thought to reduce your symptoms over time.
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