One of life’s cruelest mental conditions, anxiety is worse than depression in many ways. While depression is seen as being harder to deal with, that’s not the case. In terms of your day-to-day life, studies have shown that having anxiety is much worse. It may not lead to suicidal thoughts, as depression can, but in terms of how you live your life, it can cause all sorts of problems.
Feeling anxious, to a certain extent, is normal. Anxiety helps us to get out of the way of harm and acts as a warning for when we need to take action. However, if the fear that you’re experiencing is persistent and overwhelming, this is a sign that there’s a problem. If you dread everyday situations, this shows that for you, anxiety may be a problem. If it’s interfering with your daily life, you’re suffering from an anxiety disorder.
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Many people don’t realize it, but anxiety isn’t just one condition. The term ‘anxiety’ is used to classify a range of conditions. Including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and panic attacks, and social anxiety disorder. In terms of who are most commonly affected, anxiety doesn’t discriminate. However, recent studies have shown that there is a link between anxiety and genetics. This means that if a blood relative suffers from anxiety, you are twice as likely to as well.
While anxiety can have detrimental effects on your daily life, the good news is there are ways to manage it. To make living with anxiety easier for yourself, here are a few treatment methods that you can try.
See a therapist
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One of the most effective treatments for curing and managing anxiety is therapy. The reason that therapy is one of the best treatments is because, unlike medication, it doesn’t just mask the problem. Speaking to a therapist helps you to work out what the underlying cause of the condition is. Something that’s crucial for moving past it. There are so many benefits to treating anxiety with therapy, so it’s more than worth a try. From helping you to work out the issues behind it to teaching you how to relax, therapy comes with many benefits. It can also show you how to cope with anxiety in a more manageable way. As well as how to solve any problem, no matter how unsolvable it may seem.
Therapy teaches you the best ways to deal with anxiety and gives you the knowledge and mindset that you need to overcome it. It isn’t by any means, an overnight cure. However, with perseverance, therapy can have surprising results. The good news is that there isn’t just one type of treatment, there are various ones to try. So if you don’t find the initial method used helpful, there are other routes to explore. The most successful treatments, however, tend to be cognitive, behavioural and exposure therapy.
Talk about your greatest fear
Be it with a friend or a therapist, talking about your biggest fear is an amazing way to deal with the problem. You see, the chances are that the fears that cause your anxiety are unlikely to come true. This means that you’re worrying unnecessarily. To make you see how silly your fear is, the
best thing to do is explain it to someone else. Sit down with a friend and explain what it is that you’re worrying about, making sure to be as descriptive as possible.
Tell them the same worry three or four times, each time going into more and more detail. You’ll find that by the third or fourth time, your story, and worry, becomes a little silly. You’ll realize that you’re most probably worrying unnecessarily. As after sharing your worry, it all seems a bit silly. This method may not work for everyone, but it’s definitely worth a try.
Exercise and eat healthy
Exercise is a natural antidepressant, and can work wonders for helping to deal with various mental conditions. If you want to make your anxiety more manageable, making time to exercise is crucial. Studies have shown that in as many as 80 percent of cases of anxiety, exercise can work better than medication.
According to a recent study, one session of exercise can help to alleviate the symptoms for hours. Sometimes, even days, depending on the severity of the condition. The same study also showed that following a regular exercise schedule can make the effects more long-term. Of course, like all treatments it doesn’t work for everyone. For some people, exercise can help manage anxiety, while, for others, it can make the symptoms harder to deal with.
As well as exercising, it’s also essential that if you want to manage your anxiety, that you’re careful about what you eat and drink. The worst foods and drinks for anxiety include caffeine, sweet treats and processed foods. That’s why it’s best to stick to healthy foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, as much as possible.
Use herbal medicine
While doctors tend to prescribe drugs for treating anxiety, herbal treatments can be just as effective. Naturally, the results vary from person to person. But there are plenty of non-drug treatments for anxiety that you can try. For instance, research has shown that chamomile tea can have great results for reducing anxiety symptoms. The reason for this is simple, some of the compounds in chamomile can have similar effects to valium. Studies have also revealed that passion flower extract can also make anxiety easier to deal with.
Another treatment that has become increasingly popular in recent years is Cannabidiol or CBD. While researchers are still exploring how CBD can help to reduce anxiety and make the condition easier to manage, it’s a great method to try. The results might be inconclusive but in most people, CBD will make anxiety much easier to deal with. You can find out more at Herbal Extracts about CBD and how it can be used to make managing anxiety, and other medical conditions, easier.
Distract your thoughts; Don’t think
When it comes to dealing with anxiety, the worst thing that you can do is think. If you want to make getting from day to day easier, and life more manageable, make a conscious effort not to think. If you’re worrying about something, practice blocking it out by concentrating on something else. If you can feel yourself panicking, block the problem out by watching a movie or by chatting to a friend.
In terms of the ‘distract, don’t think’ method, it is most effective when suffering from disabling anxiety. Disabling anxiety is when all you can think about is something that’s worrying you. You most probably can’t eat, sleep or concentrate at work. To make this type of anxiety easier to deal with, it’s best to distract yourself. It might be hard at first, but with practice, you can perfect this coping method.
Use meditation to calm your mind
One of the best and easiest ways to deal with anxiety is learning how to calm your mind with meditation. Many of us wrongly presume that meditating is a skill that’s hard to perfect, but that’s not true. All meditation is, is slowing your breathing and focusing on something other than the thing that’s worrying you.
To use meditation to calm your mind, and reduce how anxious you’re feeling, the most important thing is to focus on your breathing. In through the nose, hold it, and out through the mouth. It’s this simple breathing method that can help to make anxiety and all the stress that comes with it, more manageable.
Of course, as well as using breathing to calm your mind, meditational exercise, like yoga, can also be a great tool. When practiced once or twice a day, yoga can help to alleviate symptoms making anxiety easier to live with. It’s just a case of learning all the most relaxing poses, and how to use them to relax your mind. You can find out more about meditational yoga for relaxation purposes by watching YouTube tutorials online. Or by researching all the best methods of relaxing yoga on sites like MBG.
Often, we overlook our mental health and only seek help when we’ve let ourselves get into a bad state. However, this shouldn’t be the case. As soon as we realize that there’s a problem, we should start finding all the best ways to manage it. Of all the mental health conditions, anxiety is one of the worst, as it can make every single part of daily life a struggle.
However, the good news is that to manage your anxiety you don’t have to use drugs. Instead, try using one of the methods above. It may not work overnight, but with time, the results will make the effort worthwhile. Start off by using one method, test it out, and see whether it works for you. If it does, that’s great. If it doesn’t, try another management method. It may take a little trial and error, but one of the methods mentioned above should work for you.
