How to Manage Anxiety Effectively

It’s normal to be a bit apprehensive and on edge in certain circumstances. Our bodies are wired to handle stressful and potentially dangerous situations by activating our fight-or-flight response. This response not only helps prepare us to act in situations of danger, but it can help in everyday life, too.

Feeling a little anxious before a major presentation, job interview, or when a project is due can help you to focus and push through fatigue and other distractions. This is a good thing.

However, like all things, when you get too much anxiety that can end up being a distraction, which can derail your focus. Anxiety can cause health problems with your immune system, cardiovascular health, and with your digestion too, to name a few. It’s important to effectively manage your anxiety so that it works for you rather than against you.

Tips for how to manage anxiety well

Like most things in life, getting a grip on anxiety requires using a mix of approaches to tackle the problem. Some effective ways to manage anxiety well include the following:

Understand how anxiety works. To manage anxiety, it’s helpful to understand how it works. When you feel anxious, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid, your heart rate quickens and blood flow is concentrated toward your brain and your muscles, which is where you need it to face whatever challenge is before you.

Your body responds physically to anxiety, and this may also include chest pain, indigestion, and fatigue. When anxiety gets intense, it may even leave you feeling nauseous and lightheaded.

Knowing these symptoms of anxiety will help you understand what your body is doing and the sensations you may be experiencing. Also, it puts you in a good position when you’re trying to calm yourself, as you can target specific symptoms to bring them back to baseline.

If you know how anxiety typically works, it can help you ascertain if your anxiety is run of the mill, or if it is serious enough to be considered an anxiety disorder. Most anxiety and its symptoms dissipate about thirty minutes after whatever triggered it.

However, if you find yourself feeling anxious a lot of the time, and if your anxiety prevents you from getting on with daily life, which may indicate an anxiety disorder that requires proper diagnosis and treatment.

Know what triggers your anxiety. You’re an individual, and the way you’re wired isn’t the same as other people. The things that make you anxious won’t be the same as what makes another person anxious.

Some people are perfectly happy to stand up in front of a crowd or jump into a pool, but that might not be your experience or reality. When you know what triggers your anxiety, you can walk into those situations with greater self-awareness and preparedness.

Take care of your body. There is an intimate connection between your body, mind, and emotions. Being hungry makes you feel lightheaded, and you can find yourself getting irritated with people easily or missing important social and emotional cues. Anxiety can also be affected by what you do with your body.

Exercise helps you to decrease the cortisol levels in your body, as these tend to build up when you’re stressed. Not only that, but exercise floods your body with feel-good hormones that elevate your mood, and it also helps you focus on a task that takes your mind off whatever may be generating your anxiety.

Good nutrition also helps by giving your body the nutrients it needs to be healthy and repair any damage. Certain foods and chemicals can trigger or worsen anxiety, including caffeine, sugary and highly processed foods, as well as nicotine.

Cutting these out or substituting fresh fruit, vegetables and an otherwise varied diet can help in reducing your levels of anxiety. Keep a journal and watch what you eat, noting whether you feel more or less anxious afterward.

In addition to that, getting good sleep can go a long way toward helping reduce anxiety. Your body and mind always do better on more and better-quality sleep. Sleep is like a giant reset button that allows your body to return to regular functioning. It strengthens your immune system and helps you be in better possession of your emotions and emotional reactions.

Counseling. Anxiety may be rooted in your genetics or past experiences, or it may stem from learned behaviors. You can become stuck in unhelpful patterns of thinking about your anxiety. Counseling has a place in managing anxiety because it helps you identify unhelpful patterns of thought and behavior, and teaches you simple but effective coping skills to handle your anxiety better.

Breathing, calming, and mindfulness exercises can all contribute to better health outcomes, and where necessary you may need to combine counseling with medication to bring your anxiety under control.

If your anxiety is damaging your health and preventing you from enjoying and living your life, you can implement the tips suggested and see a health professional for a healthier, more fulfilled life.