How To Calm Your Anxiety Naturally
When it comes to knowing how to manage anxiety, there are multiple natural approaches. Furthermore, different treatments will apply to different types of anxiety. These include:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder : Symptoms include exaggerated and persistent worry and tension, even when there is nothing to provoke it.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder : Symptoms include recurrent and unwanted thoughts , which are accompanied by repetitive actions to temporarily rid the obsessions.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder : Occurs after one experiences a terrifying event that results in grave physical or mental harm, such as abuse, violence, traumatic accidents or military combat.
- Social Phobias: Symptoms include excessive anxiety occurring in normal social situations. These phobias can be limited to only one fear or a generalized fear anytime one is around others. Specific social phobias include fear of crowds, fear of public speaking and fear of public restrooms.
Here are 8 ways to calm your anxiety naturally.
What Is It Like To Have Panic Disorder
One day, without any warning or reason, a feeling of terrible anxiety came crashing down on me. I felt like I couldnt get enough air, no matter how hard I breathed. My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I thought I might die. I was sweating and felt dizzy. I felt like I had no control over these feelings and like I was drowning and couldnt think straight.
After what seemed like an eternity, my breathing slowed and I eventually let go of the fear and my racing thoughts, but I was totally drained and exhausted. These attacks started to occur every couple of weeks, and I thought I was losing my mind. My friend saw how I was struggling and told me to call my doctor for help.
Anxiety Natural Remedies: 15 Ways To Relax & Find Calm
Anxiety can be a disabling condition thats accompanied by long-term stress and a decline in overall health. It contributes to many chronic diseases, even when treated with conventional medications. Thats why we need to use natural remedies for anxiety and other mood disorders that will address the root of the problem instead of putting a Band-Aid on your symptoms.
In fact, anxiety can affect people of all ages, with a lifetime prevalence between 4.3 and 5.9 percent. In addition, 4060 percent of people with anxiety experience signs of depression, which makes it an even more serious and difficult condition to treat properly. And research shows that people with anxiety cannot successfully achieve short or long term remission, with remission rates remaining as low as 38 percent after five years.
The good news is that there are many natural remedies for anxiety that are safe and dont cause adverse side effects like so many anti-anxiety medications. By eating a clean and well-balanced diet that contains important nutrients like B vitamins, magnesium and omega-3s, and using essential oils for anxiety, you will notice an immediate difference in your mood, energy levels and sleep patterns.
Plus, there are many supplements and lifestyle changes that serve as natural remedies for anxiety.
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Relax Your Body To Ease An Anxiety Attack
It’s easy to say, “Just relax,” right? But once you start to observe your body during an anxiety attack, you might find that certain parts of your body clench up during an attack. Make a deliberate effort to tighten and then relax those parts of your body.
Or, if those parts feel like they wont obey during an anxiety attack, pick a body part that will respond, such as your toes or your shoulders. The more you can breathe deeply and relax, the easier it will be to cope.
Reframe Anxious Behavior And Stop Scaring Yourself
As we mentioned, anxiety attacks are mostly caused by apprehensive behavior scaring ourselves with worry and imagining the worst. Therefore, being afraid of anxiety attacks is one of the most common reasons why anxiety attacks sustainand why people develop Panic Attack Disorder. Since fear is the most common reason why anxiety attacks occur and persist, refusing to scare yourself removes the main reason anxiety attacks occur.
When you stop scaring yourself with worry and imagining the worst, you eliminate the most common cause of anxiety attacks. Yes, you can learn to stop scaring yourself. This is the second most powerful way to eliminate anxiety attacks.
For example, rather than thinking, Oh my gosh, this is awful. What if I completely lose it? Use more affirmative language such as, Ok, this doesnt feel good right now. But its just my bodys emergency response and it will end as I stop scaring myself.
Or, instead of thinking, This is awful. I cant stand it! Reframe that thought to, This is what a high degree stress response feels like. Many people go to great lengths to feel this way. Its a normal part of the bodys survival mechanism. Its not dangerous and I dont have to be afraid of it.
The stress response is our ally not our enemy.
Keep in mind that the Stress Response is our ally when in real danger. It gives the body an emergency boost so that we are better equipped to deal with the threat.
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Action Steps For Helping Your Mind During An Anxiety Attack:
Dont try and fight it.Start breathing as slowly and consciously as you can and try and put your full attention on your breath. Keep drawing your mind back to noticing your breath.If you need to move, walk and breath.Use the acupressure sequence for calming anxiety and panic. Our Quick Anxiety Stopper download will give you detailed support and talk you through exactly how to use these points to stop mounting anxiety.
Try Challenging Your Thoughts
Take a deep breath and face your mind. Challenge it. What is the worse it can do? You will see anxiety increase for a second or two, then it will falter and start decreasing.There is only so long your body can hold an adrenaline fueled anxiety state. Running from it and fighting it feed it and sustain it longer than getting as calm as you possibly can using your breath, walking and the Quick Anxiety Stopper accupressure points to diffuse it.By challenging as calmly and quietly as you can you are asking your mind Is that it?Is that the best you can do? And it will begin to settle because it has been questioned by your calm intelligence, which sits higher than your mind and anxiety will lose its power and back down.Once you have succeeded in doing these things once, you can do them again and each time you do the anxiety attacks will be shorter lived and less intense as you gradually build your sense of calm and control.
Update
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Practice Good Sleep Hygiene
Try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day weekends included.
Your routine before going to bed also matters. Consider giving yourself wind-down times. For example, 20 minutes with no devices. Instead, you could read a book or take a bath.
Avoiding potential triggers, like watching TV or scrolling the news on your phone, is key.
Creating a sleep routine will help you fall asleep faster and reduce the chances that youll lie awake, worrying about unfinished tasks or the next morning.
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Controlling Anxiety Takes Time
Theres no quick fix for anxiety, and it may often feel like an uphill struggle. But by gaining awareness of what causes your symptoms, and getting help from your doctor, you can manage your symptoms.
You may find some of these hacks work for you straight away and others may have no effect at all, but the important thing is to keep trying.
Giving in to feelings of anxiety by retreating from the world only served to make my life more difficult in the long run. Continuing to search for solutions that work for me has been key to my recovery. Practice makes perfect, so dont stop trying to find ways that work for you.
Fiona Thomas is a lifestyle and mental health writer who lives with depression and anxiety. Visit her website or connect with her on .
Questions To Ask Your Doctor
Asking questions and providing information to your doctor or health care provider can improve your care. Talking with your doctor builds trust and leads to better results, quality, safety, and satisfaction. Visit the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality website for tips at .
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Best Ways To Stop Anxiety Attacks
Research has found that almost everyone will experience an anxiety attack at least once during their lifetime. People who behave more apprehensively than the general population often experience many anxiety attacks. Some anxious people, approximately 3 percent, develop panic attack disorder .
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , published by the American Psychiatric Association , defines panic attacks as: A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause.
Panic becomes a disorder when panic attacks are frequent and interfere with a normal lifestyle. More specifically, the DSM-5 describes the criteria for panic disorder as panic attacks that must be associated with longer than 1 month of subsequent persistent worry about: having another attack or consequences of the attack, or significant maladaptive behavioral changes related to the attack. To make the diagnosis of panic disorder, panic attacks cannot directly or physiologically result from substance use , medical conditions, or another psychiatric disorder. Other symptoms or signs may include headache, cold hands, diarrhea, insomnia, fatigue, intrusive thoughts, and ruminations.
Anxiety attacks are often characterized as experiencing:
- A feeling of overwhelming fear
- Feeling of going crazy or losing control
- Feeling you are in grave danger
- Feeling you might pass out
- A surge of doom and gloom
- An urgency to escape
When Might I Have Panic Attacks
Panic attacks happen at different times for everyone. Some people have one panic attack then don’t ever experience another, or you might find that you have them regularly, or several in a short space of time. You might notice that particular places, situations or activities seem to trigger panic attacks. For example, they might happen before a stressful appointment.
Most panic attacks last between 5 to 20 minutes. They can come on very quickly. Your symptoms will usually be at their worst within 10 minutes. You might also experience symptoms of a panic attack over a longer period of time. This could be because you’re having a second panic attack, or you’re experiencing other symptoms of anxiety.
“My panic attacks seem to come out of the blue now. But in fact, they seem to be triggered mainly at night when I want to go to sleep but cannot stop my mind racing, experiencing worry and panic about anything that may be on my mind.”
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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
- hyperventilation
Its also possible to experience an anxiety and panic attack simultaneously. The quick coping strategies mentioned above may also help with a panic attack.
Other mindful strategies to cope with panic attacks include focusing on an object, repeating a mantra, closing your eyes, and going to your happy place.
What Is Hyperventilation
Even though your body needs oxygen to survive, and turns that oxygen into carbon dioxide when it’s been used up within the bloodstream, your body also expects a healthy amount of carbon dioxide in your circulatory system as well. Hyperventilation is the act of breathing either too quickly or incorrectly in such a way that you’re taking in too much oxygen while breathing out too much carbon dioxide.
Interestingly, during this time it may feel as though you’re not getting enough air, and your instinct may be to take deeper breaths. But by responding to that sensation by trying to take in more air, you’re actually making your hyperventilation worse, which is why those that try to get deeper breaths often feel their symptoms getting worse, causing further panic.
When there isn’t enough carbon dioxide in your blood, you experience the symptoms of an anxiety attack, including:
- Lightheadedness
- Shortness of breath
- Dizziness and more
Notice how each of these symptoms are the same as when you’re suffering from severe anxiety, which is why it often feels like an “attack” and why the symptoms feel so physical. They build on each other to create an experience that feels like something is terribly wrong.
The most likely cause of hyperventilation is breathing too quickly, which is a common response to anxiety. But it’s not the only cause either. You may also hyperventilate because:
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All Panic Attacks End
No matter how powerful the anxiety attack, it will end. We can end them faster by doing some or all of the above. Nevertheless, all anxiety attacks end. Its only a matter of time.
No one experiences unending anxiety attacks even though sometimes it can feel that way. Riding out the anxiety attack knowing it will end can help you remain calm, which also shuts off the stress response and anxiety attack.
Stress Hormones Are Limited In What They Can Do
Even though anxiety attacks can feel powerful, stress responses and the hormones they produce are limited in what they can do. While they can prepare the body for emergency action, stress responses cant cause you to snap and lose your mind, cant cause a mental breakdown, cant cause you to do something you dont want to do, dont last forever, and will end.
Again, for more information on the stress response and its many actions, see our anxiety attack symptoms section or our Stress Response section.
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Always Seek Professional Advice
Always seek medical advice if you are not sure whether your symptoms, or another persons symptoms, indicate a panic attack. In an emergency, dial triple zero for an ambulance. Its important to see your doctor for a check-up to make sure that any recurring physical panic-like symptoms are not due to illnesses, including:
- Diabetes
How Do You Calm An Anxiety Attack
When anxiety strikes, its important to be aware of strategies that can help you calm down in the moment and manage or reduce your anxiety in the long term. Like many people, you may benefit from lifestyle changes such as eating a well-balanced diet, limiting caffeine and alcohol intake and simply taking time for yourself.
During an anxiety attack, there are also steps you can take to relax your mind and regain control of your thoughts.
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