How to Relieve Anxiety: Key Tips for Handling Anxiety

Having anxiety can make it seem like you’re on the periphery or the outside of things. Other people who don’t seem anxious appear to be stress-free, confident, and happy. However, despite appearances, anxiety affects all kinds of people. Even the person that appears most confident may be dealing with anxiety. Around a fifth (19%) of American adults are affected by anxiety disorders annually, making it a common occurrence.

Anxiety, especially when it is severe, can have debilitating effects on a person’s life, affecting their emotional and mental well-being, as well as their relationships. The good news is that there are many ways to address anxiety and relieve it, and there are effective treatment options that are available.

The place of anxiety in our lives

Anxiety affects all of us in some shape or form. This complex response to our environment has benefits in promoting our well-being. When you feel anxious, it’s usually because there is some threat that you’re detecting. Anxiety is often connected with the future and the anticipation of threats that are still to come. You can be anxious about something in the present, but anxiety also has a future element, which often manifests as worry.

We don’t all experience anxiety in the same way. The circumstances that might make one person nervous are the very situations in which another person thrives. Some people love a crowd, and they do their best work in that setting, while others freeze up and struggle to function where crowds are involved. Social and environmental factors such as gender, childhood trauma, and negative life events all play a part in how one’s anxiety works.

Some of the triggers for anxiety are financial concerns, health issues, caffeine, work stress, bereavement, medication, social events, trauma, abuse, unemployment, divorce, and social pressures. Feeling anxious is a natural human response to perceived danger or stressful experiences. Anxiety gets to a concerning level when it persists over a long period, begins overwhelming you, or stops you from functioning well day-to-day.

Signs that anxiety is affecting you

Anxiety affects how a person behaves, as well as how they feel mentally, physically, and emotionally. It can cause symptoms such as headaches, loss of appetite, sweating, increased or irregular heartbeat, feeling hot, breathlessness, lightheadedness, or dizziness.

Likewise, you could have difficulty concentrating, obsessive thoughts, tension, an inability to sleep, an inability to enjoy leisure time, worrying about trying new things, or intentional avoidance of places or situations.

If you find yourself experiencing one or more of these symptoms, you could be struggling with anxiety.

The effects of anxiety on your life and relationships

Anxiety can affect you in a variety of ways, including negatively impacting your immune system. Anxiety activates your body’s stress response. When your body remains in this stressed state for prolonged periods with high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, that weakens the immune system. A weakened immune system makes you more susceptible to getting sick.

Another effect of anxiety is that it disrupts your sleep by making it harder to fall and stay asleep. Without good rest, you have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and other conditions. Cardiovascular disease is a risk because of how anxiety causes blood pressure and heart rate to rise, stressing the cardiovascular system. Additionally, behaviors like smoking and overeating associated with anxiety further increase this risk.

Anxiety also affects how a person interacts with others, whether in personal relationships or work and social situations. For instance, anxiety can make it hard for one to communicate effectively with others, which could result in embarrassment, discomfort, and feeling self-conscious. These can damage one’s confidence and worsen social anxiety. A possible result of this is increased social withdrawal and avoiding opportunities.

In interpersonal relationships, anxiety can lead to several issues, including trust issues. An overly anxious person may have doubts and suspicions about their loved ones. They may struggle to establish and maintain intimacy with them. Anxiety can cause a person to distance themselves from others, avoiding emotional closeness from fear of abandonment.

Likewise, anxiety can cause conflict in several ways. By interfering with effective communication, anxiety can lead to disagreements and misunderstandings with loved ones. Anxiety can also make one more defensive and easily offended which could spur on conflict. Additionally, anxiety can drive someone to avoid conflict altogether, which often only increases pent-up frustrations.

Tips for relieving anxiety

Anxiety can get in the way of you doing the things that you want or need to do. There are effective ways of managing and relieving anxiety, and these include:

Self-care

Anxiety can be relieved by taking good care of your body. Exercise, for instance, not only takes your mind off your anxious thoughts, but movement helps to alleviate your mood and reduces cortisol levels. Getting quality sleep also helps, as does eating a healthy diet. Journaling your anxious thoughts when you’re unable to sleep helps you get a better handle on them.

Instead of reaching out for sugary snacks or comfort foods when you feel anxious, eating healthy food helps you to regulate your blood sugar and gives you the energy you need to meet the day’s demands. Caffeine, smoking, or using recreational drugs may soothe anxious feelings in the short term, but they affect your mood and can have damaging effects long term.

Another helpful part of your self-care routine is spending time in nature, as that helps us to feel calmer and less stressed. Whether you’re walking in the woods, doing some gardening, or taking time to look out your window and see God’s creation, immersing yourself in nature can make a significant impact on your mental health.

Challenge your thoughts

Anxiety causes you to believe things that aren’t true, especially when you ruminate. Instead, write down your thoughts and challenge them. Are they, to paraphrase Paul (Philippians 4:8-9), true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy? Are you being realistic? How likely is it that what you’re worrying about will come to pass?

Breathe

When you’re feeling anxious, it affects you physiologically. Focusing on your breathing and quieting your heart and mind can help you bring anxious thoughts and feelings under control. Techniques such as box breathing, the 4-7-8 breathing technique, and mindfulness and relaxation exercises can relieve anxious thoughts and bring them under control.

Journal

Recording what you’re thinking and feeling has a way of making it more manageable. Once it’s on paper, you can look at it, interrogate it, and try to make sense of it. Once you’re done processing, you can move on with your day. Journaling also helps you to track what’s happening in your life and how it affects you, allowing you to know what triggers your anxiety. This helps with preparing for anxiety.

Get support

Anxiety is often driven by life events and circumstances. Whether it’s money issues, relationship stress, work problems, or health concerns, these things all seem much bigger when you’re dealing with them by yourself. Anxiety can isolate you and make you feel all alone in your struggle. Talking and connecting with other people can help you deal with your anxiety and its various sources.

Talking with trusted loved ones can relieve your anxiety because naming what’s on your mind and heart goes a long way in taking away its power over you. Volunteering and meeting people that way or spending time with loved ones allows you to connect with other people. Having robust and supportive networks makes a difference in your mental health.

If your feelings and anxious thoughts aren’t going away, and they instead persist or become so intense that they prevent you from performing your daily tasks effectively, you can seek support by going to your doctor or healthcare provider. You may be diagnosed with anxiety or an anxiety disorder, and you can find help to cope by speaking with a counselor.

Support through counseling

A counselor can talk with you to understand your story, and they’ll be able to work with you to create a treatment plan to help you address anxiety. That plan may include talk therapy as well as medications to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. You can cope with anxiety and live a life unhindered by anxious thoughts and feelings.

If you would like to meet with one of the skilled therapists from our office, reach out to us today and we will make an appointment. Start your healing journey today.