Here’s The Good News: That Pre
Elite athletes know how to harness the power of those jitters to create a positive outcomeand you can, too. Pinpointing your personal place where the magic happens will help you perform at your best on a sports field, at work, and beyond.
“We’ve found that athletes do well when they’re experiencing a combination of negative and positive feelings,” says Jack Raglin, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology at Indiana University in Bloomington. “For some people, a state of near-total relaxation is ideal, but for others it will lead to a poor performance.”
When your anxiety level is low , you’re pretty much the opposite of primed to sprint through a finish line or ask your boss for a raise. But a case of nerves can give you the boost you need to excel in those types of situations. The trouble usually lies on the far end of the spectrum: “Being ‘up’ for an interview is a good thing, but too big a physical responsepalpitations, sweating, tremblingis distracting and not helpful,” says Brian B. Hoffman, M.D., professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and author of Adrenaline.
That too-pumped feeling is all too familiar for many of us. “I had a full-blown anxiety attack the night before one of my first trials,” remembers Jessie Fox, a 31-year-old attorney in Kansas City, Missouri. “The next morning I was still so nervous that I almost forgot the name of my only witness, who was also my client! My hands were shaking while I was questioning him.”
Question And Challenge Your Thoughts
When our mind focuses on these types of unhelpful and irrational thoughts, rather than being rational and healthy, this causes anxiety.
A useful technique to help calm anxiety is to learn how to pause and move past these destructive thoughts, before they have a chance to take hold. Learning this technique may take some practice but is a strategy that is well worth mastering.
When you feel yourself having an unhealthy thought, pause and really think about the following:
- How is this thought going to make me feel?
- Is it a fact or an opinion?
- Is it a rational or irrational thought?
- What are other outcomes to think about?
You may find it difficult to do this technique automatically at first. So try keeping a journal in the evenings, where you jot down any unhealthy thoughts that you had during that day which made you feel anxious. Take the time to consider these thoughts and answer the questions above. By practising this, you will then start to feel able to pause and move past unhelpful thoughts as you have them.
How To Manage Your Anxiety
We all feel anxiety at times. It becomes problematic when it feels unmanageable, which means different things for different people.
- The key to managing anxiety is learning to identify it, understand it, and respond to it with self-compassion.
- Mindfulness techniques like breath work, meditation, and yoga can reduce anxiety and improve cognition.
- Routines help reduce general feelings of anxiety and are often effective antidotes for those with more serious mental health disorders.
- If your anxiety is holding you back, simply imagining success, and encouraging yourself as you would a friend, has also been correlated with motivation and the achievement of goals.
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When I was nine, I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder by my first-ever therapist. My parents dragged me into treatment after repeatedly catching me cleaning their bathroom. I didnt mind, but I was confused. I didnt see anything wrong with what I was doing: organizing their medicine cabinet by color and size, throwing out expired antibiotics and sticky bottles of cough syrup. My favorite part was wiping down the sink with warm water, feeling my worries wash away with stubble and soap scum. Cleaning gave me the sense that I could find inner order among the outer chaos our cramped New York apartment, murmurs of my parents struggling marriage, the growing pains of adolescence.
Its all a practice.
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What Is The Medical Definition Of Anxiety
In a medical sense, anxiety is an emotion characterized by abnormal and intense feelings of fear and unease. It comes with various physical symptoms , some of which can be severe, and it lasts far longer than a week or two. When it becomes a medical concern, anxiety has lasted several months without much reprieve. This is when medical and mental health professionals consider the possibility and presence of anxiety disorders.
According to the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders , the criteria to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder are as follows:
- Experiencing excessive and intense anxiety and ongoing worry more days than not for at least six months.
- Having difficulty managing or controlling the recurring intrusive thoughts and mental symptoms.
- Experiencing at least three of these six symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and trouble sleeping.
- The symptoms are not better explained by another condition, such as an eating disorder or body dysmorphic disorder.
- The symptoms are not due to substance use or another medical condition, such as a life-threatening illness.
- The symptoms are severe enough to affect daily life.
What Types Of Anxiety Disorders Are Most Common?
Some other forms of anxiety that are less common include panic disorder , post-traumatic stress disorder , and selective mutism .
Figure Out What’s Bothering You
In order to get to the root of your anxiety, you need to figure out whats bothering you. You can do this by putting some time aside to explore 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.
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Try These Five Techniques To Get In The Zone:
1. Track yourself. Keep a journal of your anxiety level in relation to how you perform in a few challenging situations. It may differ by scenario: Calm is usually best for speeches jitters tend to be good for athletic events.
2. Fuel properly. Research suggests that carbs don’t just power workouts, they also increase levels of calming hormones like serotonin. Aim for 130 grams daily of healthy starches, like sweet potatoes and whole grains.
3. Sleep soundly. A sleep deficit makes it harder to control anxiety. To get better shut-eye: Turn off all of your gadgets a few hours before you get into bed, and keep your room at a cool 60 to 67 degrees.
4. Breathe slowly. Feeling anxious? Try this exercise: Take six breaths per minute. That’s a four-second inhale, a two- second pause and a four-second exhale. It’s relaxing, and it can also help improve focus.
Start With One Room At A Time
Have you ever gone through the house, pulling out everything at once so you can get around to cleaning it?
This actually makes it a lot harder to tackle clutter.
Start with just one room, like your bedroom.
Go through your closet and take out all of your old clothes you dont wear anymore.
Think about how long its been since youve worn something, and if its longer than 6 months, put it in a box.
Cleaning up one room at a time is very manageable, because you can take a small break once youre done and reward yourself for getting it out of the way.
It will also motivate you to keep moving forward, which is important when you feel anxious.
You dont want to get so overwhelmed that you just give up and let your anxiety take over.
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Should Antioxidants Be Included In Your Anti
Anxiety is thought to be correlated with a lowered total antioxidant state. It stands to reason, therefore, that enhancing your diet with foods rich in antioxidants may help ease the symptoms of anxiety disorders. A 2010 study reviewed the antioxidant content of 3,100 foods, spices, herbs, beverages, and supplements. Foods designated as high in antioxidants by the USDA include:
- Beans: Dried small red, Pinto, black, red kidney
- Fruits: Apples , prunes, sweet cherries, plums, black plums
- Berries: Blackberries, strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, blueberries
- Nuts: Walnuts, pecans
- Vegetables: Artichokes, kale, spinach, beets, broccoli
- Spices with both antioxidant and anti-anxiety properties include turmeric and ginger.
How To Ease Anxiety: 5 Ways To Feel Calmer Right Now
When we’re anxious, our breath becomes rapid and shallow. Deep belly breathing helps decrease anxiety by stimulating the bodyâs relaxation response, lowering our heart rate and blood pressure. Itâs a powerful technique that works because we canât breathe deeply and be anxious at the same time. There are many variations to try, including this simple exercise:
Inhale deeply for a count of 4. Hold your breath for a count of 4. Exhale for a count of 4. Repeat several times.
Exercise is one of the best anxiety remedies, immediately and long term. Going for a walk creates a diversion from worries and releases muscle tension. Grab your headphones or earbuds on the way out:studies show that listening to music brings its own calming effects.
Long term, regular exercise triggers the release of feel-good neurochemicals in the brain, building up resilience against stormy emotions. It boosts confidence and mood, and we donât need to run a marathon to feel the benefits. Washing the car, hiking, gardening, a pick-up game â anything that gets us moving counts. Research shows that 30 minutes, 3 to 5 days a week can help to significantly improve anxiety symptoms, but even 10 minutes can make a difference.
Green tea, long used in Chinese medicine to treat depression, contains the amino acid L-theanine, which relieves stress, and reduces blood pressure and muscle tension.
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Set Small Achievable Goals
Anxiety sufferers tend to set unrealistically high expectations for themselves. To counteract this tendency, set goals that you can easily accomplish. This builds your confidence and your sense of accomplishment.
When you are learning skills to handle stress and reduce your anxiety, small steps work best. For example, if your goal is to integrate deep breathing into your life, start by practicing for one-minute intervals three or four times a day instead of for an hour all at once.
Setting small, achievable goals will help will take you farther than you can imagine over time. It will help you reach your final destination: a happier, low-anxiety life.
Help Someone Who Is Anxious To Temper Their Thinking
Youll be a more useful support person if you educate yourself about cognitive-behavioral models of anxiety, which you can do by reading or attending a therapy session with your loved one. But, in lieu of that, you might try using some techniques that can be helpful to people suffering from anxiety.
Typically, anxious people have a natural bias towards thinking about worst-case scenarios. To help them get some perspective on this, you can use a cognitive therapy technique where you ask them to consider three questions:
- Whats the worst that could happen?
- Whats the best that could happen?
- Whats most realistic or likely?
So, if your loved one is anxious that they were supposed to hear from their parents hours ago but havent, you can suggest they consider the worst, best, and most likely explanations for the lack of contact.
Take care not to overly reassure your loved one that their fears wont come to pass. Its more useful to emphasize their coping ability. For example, if theyre worried about having a panic attack on a plane, you could say, That would be extremely unpleasant and scary, but youd deal with it. And, if your loved one is feeling anxious that someone else is angry with them or disappointed in them, its often useful to remind them that you can only ever choose your own actions and not completely control other peoples responses.
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Do A Daily Or Routine Meditation
While this takes some practice to do successfully, mindful meditation, when done regularly, can eventually help you train your brain to dismiss anxious thoughts when they arise.
If sitting still and concentrating is difficult, try starting with yoga, or walking meditation. There are many free guided meditations on apps like InsightTimer that can help you get started.
Focus On What You Can Change
Many times anxiety stems from fearing things that havent even happened and may never occur. For example, even though everything is okay, you may still worry about potential issues, such as losing your job, becoming ill, or the safety of your loved ones.
Life can be unpredictable and no matter how hard you try, you cant always control what happens. However, you can decide how you are going to deal with the unknown. You can turn your anxiety into a source of strength by letting go of fear and focusing on gratitude.
Replace your fears by changing your attitude about them. For example, stop fearing to lose your job and instead focus on how grateful you are to have a job. Come to work determined to do your best. Instead of fearing for your loved ones safety, spend time with them, or express your appreciation of them. With a little practice, you can learn to pick up a more positive outlook.
At times, anxiety may actually be caused by a real circumstance in your life. Perhaps youre in a situation where it is realistic to be worried about losing your job due to high company layoffs or talks of downsizing.
In this situation, taking action may be the answer to reducing your anxiety. For example, you may need to update your resume and start job searching.
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How To Help Someone With Anxiety
All of us worry and get scared from time to time. But those with anxiety may feel consumed by fears of things that might seem irrational to others. It can be hard to relate to these concerns, and as a result, many people dont know how to best help someone with anxiety. People are often dismissive of people experiencing anxiety, says Joseph McGuire, Ph.D., a pediatric psychologist with Johns Hopkins Medicine. With other medical illnesses, you may be able to see physical symptoms. But with anxiety, you dont necessarily see what the person is dealing with. So its important to be sensitive to what the person with anxiety is going through, even if it doesnt make sense to you. Its distressing to watch a loved one experience panic attacks and face anxiety every day, but there are things you can do to help. It starts with recognizing the signs of excessive worry and understanding the best ways to support your loved one.
Achieving Better Mental Health Through Diet
Be sure to talk to your doctor if your anxiety symptoms are severe or last more than two weeks. But even if your doctor recommends medication or therapy for anxiety, it is still worth asking whether you might also have some success by adjusting your diet. While nutritional psychiatry is not a substitute for other treatments, the relationship between food, mood, and anxiety is garnering more and more attention. There is a growing body of evidence, and more research is needed to fully understand the role of nutritional psychiatry, or as I prefer to call it, Psycho-Nutrition.
About the Author
Uma Naidoo, MD, Contributor
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Try Some Aerobic Activity
During periods of anxiety, your body is filled with adrenaline. Putting that adrenaline toward aerobic activity can be a great way to improve your anxiety. Exercise has numerous advantages for controlling your anxiety symptoms:
- Exercise burns away stress hormones that create anxiety symptoms.
- Exercise tires your muscles, reducing excess energy and tension.
- Exercise releases endorphins in your brain which can improve overall mood.
- Exercise is linked to healthier breathing.
- Exercise is a healthy distraction.
Aerobic activity, like light jogging or even fast walking, can be extremely effective at reducing the severity of your anxiety symptoms, as well as the anxiety itself.
Think About Something Funny
Visualize your favorite humorous moments, says Sultanoff. One where you laughed so hard you fell down and peed your pants. These can be real situations, or they can be situations you saw on sitcoms, in stories, jokes, or cartoons.
If its difficult for you to come up with something in the moment, try picking a couple of memories ahead of time, so you can go to them as soon as you start experiencing anxiety.
Like most mindfulness training, humor visualization takes you out of worrying about things that might happen in the future and focuses you back in your present circumstances, in the now.
It does a few other things too. You experience mirth, which is the uplifting reaction to humor, explains Sultanoff. You feel emotions such as joy, pleasure, or delight all powerful emotions that can help you reduce anxiety quickly.
And if youre able to make yourself laugh by remembering that funny moment, he says, humor visualization is even more effective.
When you laugh, you contract and expand muscles, which reduces physical anxiety, stress, and tension, he says.
Laughter also combats the production of cortisol levels in the body, he adds.
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