5 Tips for Managing Anxiety and Stress
Sometimes individuals struggling with anxiety, panic attacks, and other stress-related issues, blame themselves for not being able to effectively handle their emotions. However, there could be a host of underlying factors contributing to their feelings of excess anxiety. By making a few small changes in their daily habits, individuals dealing with excess stress can help provide the proper support for a healthy body and healthy emotions. In this post, we will outline 5 tips to help anxious individuals improve both their physical and mental well-being.
1. Provide Proper Nutritional Support
The caffeine found in energy drinks, coffee, and even chocolate, often contribute to feelings of jitteriness. For those individuals already struggling with excess anxiety, these types of food and drink products only contribute to their level of anxiousness. The elimination of high levels of caffeine from the diet, by switching either to tea or decaffeinated coffee, helps bring anxiety down to more management levels. Birth control pills (for females) and/or a high level of sugar in the diet can also deplete a person's B vitamins. B vitamins play a significant role in regulating the nervous system, one of the main systems that can help or hinder a person's ability to manage stress. By reducing the amount of sugar in one's diet and eating foods rich in B vitamins, a stressed individual can help support their nervous system. Women who choose to take birth control pills should consider adding a good-quality B-Complex vitamin to their daily diet.
2. Incorporate Natural Stress Reducers
People dealing with excessive stress often develop tight muscles without even realizing it. If financially possible, taking time for a professional massage every week or two is a great way to release excess stress within the body. For those with budgetary constraints, a hot bath just before bedtime can help relax muscles, which in turn provides the added benefit of helping a person fall asleep faster. Consistent exercise is also a natural stress reducer. During exercise, the body releases natural "feel good" endorphins, which helps uplift a person's spirits.
3. Plan Your Day
If a person is juggling many responsibilities throughout their day without a plan, over time the continual chaos can lead to feelings of being out of control. By taking a few minutes in the morning, or the night before to plan one's day, a person with a full schedule can list the most important things they need to accomplish and bypass the less important tasks. Most smart phones have a daily calendar, allowing one to manage tasks every day, or weeks or months in advance. Others may prefer simply to write down all the tasks they need to accomplish on a piece of paper. By preparing a daily plan, stressed individuals can begin to feel they have some control over their day, and they also get a feeling of accomplishment as they cross off the tasks they finished throughout their day.
4. Find Some Relaxation Time
People dealing with anxiety and stress oftentimes tend to push themselves even harder, piling on more and more responsibilities, and expecting themselves to cope with every additional burden they place upon themselves. In reality, while every person has certain responsibilities they must deal with every day, humans are meant to have downtimes in their life. The idea is to find something pleasurable and then allow yourself to actually enjoy it. Some individuals like to have their downtime early in the morning while sipping on a cup of decaffeinated coffee before their family wakes up. Others may want to listen to their favorite music or read a few chapters from an interesting book before bedtime.
5. Positive Self-Talk
Last but not least, it is possible to heal the negative self-talk that anxious individuals experience at times. When a person is in an anxious situation, it is actually their negative self-talk that further escalates their physical symptoms. It is absolutely possible to learn how to change negative self-talk and become completely confident in one's ability to face a formerly fearful situation. Counselors are specially trained to help individuals break negative self-talk patterns and replace them with the positive inner dialogue that an anxious person needs to hear. Don't hesitate to reach out to a trained professional to help you find your way to health and wholeness. Click here to learn more about anxiety and how treatment for anxiety can help.