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Steps You Can Take to Reduce Your Anxiety

By Sleep Health Energy Team · · Updated

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Since anxiety is such a complicated and intimidating problem to tackle, it requires a collection of quick coping strategies, short-term solutions, and ongoing treatments to prevent it from taking over your life.

So many people suffer from anxiety in their everyday lives and feel lost as to how they can overcome it. If you are in this type of situation, keep reading. You will find a few instant remedies, some therapeutic approaches, and possible lifestyle changes that could significantly improve your mental health and overall well-being.

Quick Solutions

When you are in the middle of an acute anxiety attack, you can feel completely disconnected from yourself with no way to regain control over your emotions. Anxiety can make it hard to think clearly. The body's fight-or-flight response evolved to protect people from danger.

However, this doesn’t mean that every time you feel anxious, it is justified. Here are a few methods you can use to immediately cope with the symptoms of anxiety as they happen.

Breathing Techniques

During an anxiety attack, you are likely to feel out of breath. Fast, shallow breathing is part of the stress response, and feeling short of breath can make panic feel even worse.

It helps to regain control over your breathing with slow, steady breaths. This can reassure your mind and body that you are safe, even if it doesn’t feel like it. This is the first step towards calming yourself while enduring acute anxiety.

Reconnecting to Your Environment

Giving your mind something simple to distract it from fear will allow your body a chance to bring your heart rate and breathing back to stable levels. Anxiety attacks can be viewed as vicious cycles of fear since the mind feeds off the body’s panic and vice versa until the stress becomes unbearably overwhelming.

By paying attention to your surroundings, you give your mind something outside of the anxiety to focus on. Count the number of blue objects around you or listen out for five different noises you can hear nearby. It might seem silly at first, but soon you will feel calmer and better able to think clearly.

Identifying Your Feelings

Many people find it hard to name their emotions accurately. Naming them is useful during an anxiety attack since it clarifies the situation and makes it less frightening. If someone you trust is nearby, use words to express your emotions.

You can also say them aloud to yourself or write them down. Putting a feeling into words can make it feel more manageable.

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Therapeutic Solutions

While it is exceptionally useful to bank a collection of tools that help you deal with anxiety in the moment, these tools don’t necessarily reduce your anxiety levels overall. If you want to lead a calmer, happier life, there are therapeutic options designed to help people work towards overcoming their anxiety over time. Here are just a few examples.

CBT

CBT is the acronym for cognitive-behavior therapy. It is a well-studied talking therapy, and the National Institute of Mental Health calls CBT the “gold standard” psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder. A specialist will talk to you about how the way you think directly influences both your actions and your emotions.

If you don’t feel that you have any control over the anxiety emotion, your therapist will help you discover ways to manage it through your thoughts and actions.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is another option some people use alongside other care. It uses guided relaxation and focused attention, and some people find it helps them feel calmer.

The research on hypnotherapy for anxiety is much smaller than for CBT, so it is best used as an add-on rather than a replacement for proven treatment.

For example, you can search for hypnotherapy in London and find treatment options where you need them. You can attend hypnotherapy appointments in conjunction with other therapies or alongside anxiety medication. If you’re unsure, it is best to speak to your doctor about the best choice for you.

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy is a more specific form of therapy that aims to help people overcome their fears by gradually increasing their exposure to the object of their anxiety. For example, someone who is afraid of heights might make use of exposure therapy to slowly increase the height they can comfortably reach without fear of an anxiety attack.

It is usually done with a trained therapist and is an effective treatment for specific phobias and several other anxiety disorders.

Lifestyle Changes

Quick solutions are ideal for coping in the middle of an anxiety attack, just as therapy is perfect for gaining better control over your mind. However, it is also important to make positive changes to your everyday lifestyle to support the other strategies.

The following might seem like extremely simple suggestions, but they are in fact effective ways to reduce anxiety through habit improvements.

More Movement

Modern technological conveniences have led to a greater number of the population leading sedentary lifestyles. Even when at work, plenty of people are sitting all day. Long stretches of sitting are not good for the body or the mind.

However frustrating it might be to acknowledge, physical exercise works wonders for mental health. Federal guidelines note that physical activity can reduce anxiety right away.

Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, such as 30 minutes on most days.

Better Sleep

People who sleep too much or sleep too little will have a hard time overcoming their anxiety. Healthy sleeping habits are crucial to good mental health. Irregular or short sleep can make stress and worry harder to manage.

Experts recommend that adults sleep 7 to 9 hours a night. Get into the habit of unwinding and avoiding stimulation too close to bedtime. This will help promote healthier sleep and a better routine.

Improved Diet

Your mind requires good nutrition in order to function at its fullest capacity. A poor diet affects your whole body, including your brain. Drinking less alcohol and eating fewer high-sugar, high-saturated-fat foods is a good step in the right direction.

Caffeine can be particularly detrimental to people with anxiety since it can make the heart race and mimic the physical sensations of anxiety.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is not just a buzzword. It is a practice you can incorporate into your lifestyle that serves to let you live in the moment. You can use mindfulness to train yourself to manage your reactions and experience your thoughts with greater clarity.

Support Network

Even if you think of yourself as highly independent or introverted, it is necessary to have meaningful human contact for the sake of your mental well-being. Talking to people you trust and creating a network to support you when you need it will keep you protected during times when anxiety has taken over.

Even collaborative care can help you take the necessary steps to get efficient support for mental conditions.

Anxiety is a complex and challenging mental health condition that impacts people with different levels of intensity and frequency. It is not the same for everyone, and this means each form of solution or coping strategy is worth trying out before deciding if it works for you.

Talking to a mental health professional is the best way to get a diagnosis and a treatment plan that fits your needs. This article is general information, not medical advice.

If you are in crisis or thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988 in the U.S.

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