9 Tips for How to Beat Anxiety

Anxiety can interfere with your work, relationships, and goals. For many, the symptoms of anxiety, such as rapid heart rate, palpitations, panic attacks, trembling, dizziness, shortness of breath, and physical ailments, cause them to avoid situations that can make them anxious.

Learning how to beat anxiety includes skills you can use for years to come.

Practical Tips to Beat Anxiety

Depending on your anxiety level, you may want to take your time adopting the following tips for how to beat anxiety. Sometimes, making huge changes at once is overwhelming, and you procrastinate or don’t do any of the work. Choose one or two anxiety tips and practice these for a few weeks. When you feel comfortable, add one or two more tips to practice.

If a tip does not work with your situation, drop it and adopt another one, but try to give each one enough time to see a difference. A counselor may recommend more self-care tasks along with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tasks.

Learn your stressors

Do you know what stresses you out? Do you know your triggers? Perhaps it is a combination of stressors that has left you with chronic anxiety. Analyze what seems to trigger your anxiety symptoms and ask yourself if you need to avoid the trigger, confront it, delegate it, drop it, or find a way to manage it. A counselor can suggest ways to handle a trigger and manage anxiety.

Sometimes, avoiding a trigger is a coping mechanism known as avoidance, but it may not help you in the long run if what you really need to do is confront or handle the trigger. Ask your counselor to help you identify your goals about a particular trigger and the best ways to reach those goals.

Create a short bedtime routine

Start your anxiety management plan at night with a short bedtime routine. Often, we associate bedtime routines with children, and as adults, we may resist the notion of going to bed as soon as the kids fall asleep. But sleep deprivation worsens anxiety. Creating a short bedtime routine is a great way to master how to beat anxiety.

Make your bedtime routine short so you are more likely to follow through. For example, after dinner or after the children go to bed, bathe and change into pajamas, make a cup of herbal tea or hot cocoa (decaffeinated drinks), and settle into bed with a book or peaceful music. Avoid screens before bed, as they can interrupt the sleep cycle.

Exercise consistently

Exercise consistently to combat stress by increasing the release of endorphins, those feel-good hormones that give us that “runner’s high” and make us want to work out again the next day. After a good exercise session, you might feel accomplished, confident, and happier.

These emotions expand outward and affect every area of your life. If you felt frustrated about a situation before your exercise session, you will probably feel that you can manage the situation better after your workout. Exercising also helps us to solve problems and imagine solutions.

Always gain clearance from a physician before starting any new fitness regimen. It might help not to think of your exercise sessions to lose weight or look good in your clothes (as many of us do). Instead, focus on the progress of your training.

Can you lift heavier weights after three weeks? Can you run farther after a month? Are you decreasing your waistline? Pay close attention to how you feel after a workout. Have you lowered your stress levels after exercising consistently? Are you noticing a decrease in panic attacks?

Challenge negative thoughts

Negative and intrusive thoughts affect emotions and our reactions. We behave in line with those thoughts and emotions unless we choose to react differently. Anxiety is often tied to these negative thoughts. Think about what worries you the most. If it is something that hasn’t happened yet, then challenge that thought. You are not a fortune teller. You cannot determine the future. You can figure out what to do even if you need to seek advice from others.

Speak to a counselor if you struggle with identifying and reframing negative thoughts. We think thousands of thoughts in a single day and may be unaware of the ones creating chronic stress. Ask for help and learn how to manage your emotions and change your actions.

Journal your day

Journaling should probably be at the top of the list for how to beat anxiety. Journaling is the practice of recording and analyzing your day, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It provides you the space to uncover why you reacted to a situation the way you did. You can identify triggers and brainstorm ways to manage these stressors.

Your journal is for your eyes only. However, some people feel comfortable sharing their journal entries with their counselor if they have trouble verbalizing their thoughts and emotions. Journals serve as a voice when you feel you have none. Some people imagine their journal is another person, such as a good friend. Others write their journal entries as if talking to God.

Record your blessings

Just like a journal to record your innermost thoughts and goals, a gratitude journal helps you focus on the good things in your life, the blessings God provides. Anxiety rushes in when we focus on problems and fears, mostly dwelling on the past or the future. By journaling your blessings, you recognize what God has blessed you with in the present.

You can journal online on a digital platform or choose the pen-and-paper method. Many people find a pen and a nice notebook to make journaling a self-care task and something they look forward to doing daily. Add this type of gratitude journaling to the end of your day, possibly during your bedtime routine.

Indulge in a hobby

As we work to quiet our anxious minds, we may find that things feel as chaotic as ever. Chronic anxiety can also damage our physical bodies. When was the last time you indulged in a hobby? What activity brings you immense joy? We need to treat these activities with as much importance as we treat appointments or work.

List activities that you enjoy. Next, schedule these activities into your calendar. For example, if you love to paint, find out when a paint-and-sip event will be in your local area. Schedule the event in your planner and hold yourself to it. When you go, focus only on the painting and the people. Afterward, journal how you felt about showing up for yourself. Now, do it again.

Make self-care part of the daily routine

We treat self-care tasks as luxuries when, in reality, these are activities we desperately need to feel whole and balanced. It is not good to work all the time, and eventually, constant worry and stress will wear down our physical and mental health.

List activities that you can practice for self-care and make it a point to practice one in the morning and one in the evening. This might look like reading a book during your morning break time and taking a brisk walk after work. Or you could wake up an hour earlier to watch a favorite sitcom with your coffee before the day starts and use a massage chair pad after dinner. Choose activities that make you happy and relaxed. Focus on the activity in the present.

Normalize counseling for anxiety

Normalizing how to beat anxiety should include effective methods such as counseling. In psychotherapy, you will find several techniques counselors use to overcome anxiety. When you recruit the help of a counselor, they will take an assessment and recommend therapies to help you reach your goals. Maybe you want to beat anxiety so you can go back to school to earn your degree, or perhaps you need to manage your anxiety symptoms for a job promotion.

Whatever your goals, a Christian counselor in Texas can help you work toward those with evidence-based psychology techniques. Contact our office today at Texas Christian Counseling to schedule a session.