If you’ve ever experienced the symptoms of anxiety, you’ll know that the first month or so can be upsetting and scary in equal measure. After this initial phase, it’s a case of getting support and learning to manage the condition.
If you’re looking at ways to tackle your anxiety, then below are a few suggestions in how to cope and improve your symptoms.
Graded exposure
Graded exposure is a technique that is commonly used to treat anxiety by therapists, and the concept is very simple. This practice gradually introduces you to fears, so you become accustomed to them over time, without overwhelming yourself. For example, if you’ve been experiencing anxiety about walking into town, your approach would be something like:
- Walk to the top of your street and back
- Take a lift into town and walk around with a friend
- Walk as far as you can get into town, and spend as much time there as possible
- Prepare a system where someone can give you a lift home if needed
- Keep trying to walk into town
Talk
Anxiety is bad enough as it is without sitting in secret silence. Talking with loved ones can help you talk about your fears and symptoms, and help to get them off your chest. It can also be a good way of planning your therapy strategy and how to move forward.
Exercise
Taking up exercise in order to help with anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean taking up a gym-membership or working out five days a week. Instead, taking up bursts of exercise such as running or swimming that produce endorphins will help to counteract the symptoms of an anxiety condition.
Meditation
With an anxiety condition, the mind tends to wander away to unhelpful and frightening places. Meditation uses mindfulness to train the brain to return to a place of peace and concentration. It can be challenging at first, but ultimately worth it.
Interests
Anxiety can truly knock your confidence, and so it can be intimidating to re-visit old hobbies you previously loved. Re-discovering hobbies and sport you enjoyed as a kid can help you to find your confidence again, and importantly, keep your mind occupied.
Stay healthy
Consuming foods and products that will leave you feeling drained or bloated will be incredibly unhelpful if you’re doing all you can to feel your best during a difficult time. Eating well and kicking bad habits will help you to stay mindful, and keep you feeling as balanced as possible. If you’d prefer to not rely on taking drags off a cigarette during an anxious period, then replacing the habit with vaping could help stem your addiction. Brands such as Ultimate Juice have starter kits and e-liquid cartridges for those who want to adopt a healthier habit, but not lose the security of puffing on an e-cigarette.
As you may have found from experience, anxiety is not something that is cured overnight. Instead, a combination of methods will need to be used to alleviate symptoms and repair the mind.
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