How Can You Succeed At Overcoming Anxiety?
What Is The Best Way To Overcome Anxiety?
Is Overcoming Anxiety Possible Or Not?
Your main objective is overcoming anxiety when you are dealing with an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders can cause disruptions in your everyday life, especially in your everyday activities and relationships. Therefore, overcoming anxiety and dealing with your anxiety disorder as quickly and efficiently as possible is best in order to return to the life you had before developing the anxiety disorder. There are several methods that could aid you in overcoming anxiety. One method is self-help methods. For some people, self-help methods will be enough in overcoming anxiety. However, it is important to note that self-help methods will only reduce your anxiety levels, not deal with the underlying cause of your anxiety. Some effective self-help techniques to overcoming anxiety include the following techniques:
Dealing with your worry and anxiety in more productive ways – This involves challenging irrational worrisome thoughts, learning how to postpone worrying about things, and learning to accept uncertainty in your life.
Making any necessary anxiety-reducing lifestyle changes – This includes eliminating caffeine, beginning an exercise program, improving your diet, and drawing on the support of your family and friends.
Learning and practicing relaxation techniques – This includes deep breathing and meditation. As you increase your ability to relax, your nervous system will become less reactive and you will not be as vulnerable to stress and anxiety.
Learning how to self-soothe is another effective way to overcoming anxiety. Many people dealing with anxiety disorders do not know how to calm and soothe themselves. Learning how to do this is easy and can make a great difference in your ability to overcome anxiety. The best methods for self-soothing incorporate one or more of your physical senses, the senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.
Sight – Look at a beautiful view, take a walk in a beautiful neighborhood, admire art at an art museum, or look at an interesting picture book.
Sound – Listen to soothing music, enjoy nature, such as birds singing or ocean waves crashing on the beach.
Smell – Light scented candles, smell flowers outdoors, breathe in clean, fresh air, or spray on your favorite perfume.
Touch – Pet your cat or dog, take a warm bubble bath, wrap yourself in a soft blanket, feel the cool breeze, or get a massage.
Taste – Cook a delicious meal, eat a favorite treat slowly so you can savor each delectable bite, or enjoy a hot cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa.
For some people overcoming anxiety, self-help methods are not enough. Anxiety is still preventing them from living the life they used to live. At this point, it is time to seek professional help to overcome your anxiety. You should see a mental health professional to ensure that you have generalized anxiety disorder, as traumatic events or new anxiety symptoms could lead to a problem other than generalized anxiety disorder. In addition, depression, substance abuse, and other anxiety disorders can also accompany the presence of generalized anxiety disorder. Truly overcoming anxiety involves treating all symptoms that you have, not just some of them.
The best combination for overcoming anxiety involves utilizing both self-help measures and therapy. Therapy not only can help you to overcome anxiety, but is also side-effect free. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a type of therapy that is particularly effective at overcoming anxiety caused by generalized anxiety disorder. Cognitive-behavioral therapy involves examining distortions in the ways that we look at the world and at ourselves. Cognitive-behavioral therapy will help you to identify automatic negative thoughts that contribute to your anxiety in an attempt to overcome that anxiety. There are five main components to cognitive-behavioral therapy:
Education – by learning more about your anxiety and distinguishing helpful and unhelpful worry, you will learn to have a more accepting and proactive response to it.
Monitoring – by monitoring your anxiety, you learn what triggers it, the specific things you worry about, and the severity and length of a particular episode.
Physical control strategies – by employing deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation, you help decrease the „fight or flight“ response that maintains your state of anxiety and fear.
Cognitive control strategies – by learning to realistically evaluate and alter the thinking patterns that contribute to generalized anxiety disorder, you will lessen your fears and begin overcoming anxiety.
Behavioral strategies – by facing your fears head on without trying to escape them, you will begin to feel more in control and less anxious when facing them.
For extreme cases of generalized anxiety disorder, medication may be used for a temporary time period. The three main kinds of medication used for generalized anxiety disorder include the following medications:
Buspirone – It is generally considered to be the safest drug available for overcoming anxiety. However, it will only take the edge off, not eliminate anxiety.
Benzodiazepines – These drugs act very quickly (usually within 30-60 minutes), but can be psychologically and physically addictive if taken for more than a few weeks.
Antidepressants – These drugs may take up to six weeks to be effective and can affect quality of sleep, as well as provide nausea to some patients.
By seeking professional help and having a medical evaluation, you can determine whether you have an anxiety disorder and the best course of treatment available for overcoming anxiety.