How to Deal With Anxiety

Updated on October 19, 2021

There are many different types and forms of anxiety such as panic attacks, social anxiety, various phobias, anxiety attacks, health anxiety, generalized anxiety and more. Once you are negatively affected by anxiety, you should never feel afraid to seek help. 

We will now look at a couple of ways that can help you to deal with anxiety:

1. Breathing deeply

Whenever you get anxious, your body goes into a fight or flight mode. This is basically your body’s natural response to dangerous situations in order to protect you. At these times, the body will actually secrete adrenaline and your heart rate will increase. These will help you to either fight by making you stronger or leave quickly (flight) by making you faster. These bodily secretions help you to survive whenever you’re under attack. However, these are of no use if you need to make a speech or just go to the grocery. So, one way to help anxiety in these type of normal situations is to breathe deeply and help your body to settle. One great way to help achieve this is to imagine yourself blowing a balloon. You should imagine that the balloon is your favorite color and every time you blow into it, use deep long breaths and pay attention to how your chest and stomach rises and deflates. Do this slowly at least three times and it should help to reduce your anxiety. 

2. Pay attention to your thoughts and question them

The mind can be quite tricky and make you think untrue thoughts when you become anxious. So, for example, if you have a friend that didn’t return your call, then you may think that they don’t want to talk to you again or if your boss sends you a sudden email, you may jump to the conclusion that you’re being reprimanded etc. So, before you even allow those type of thoughts to take hold, you should ask yourself if the thought is actually true or if it is just an opinion. If your answer is that it is an opinion, then you’ll know that you’re getting anxious for no reason. 

3. Test

Most people who get anxious frequently, often make negative predictions before anything actually happens. So, for example, if you’re talking yourself out of going to a party because you predict that no one will chat with you, then this is simply a negative prediction. You should approach this by actually testing your prediction instead of assuming it is correct. 

4. Escape the avoidance trap

One of the things that anxiety will do is make you want to avoid many different situations or things in order to avoid getting anxiety. However, this is a bad idea since you’ll be basically avoiding so many life situations and things that are not healthy and won’t let you overcome your fear. Also, the more you avoid, the worse your anxiety and avoidance will get. You need to actually face your fears in order to get over them and reduce your anxiety. When you face your fears, you will actually adjust and your anxiety will eventually reduce and even go away. Now, facing your fears is certainly quite difficult, so you should just try to do so in small steps and work your way up. 

5. Acceptance

Even though no one likes to feel anxiety, it is a perfectly normal emotion. Everyone gets anxious at some time or the other and it is important to accept that. It is just another emotion like sadness or anger. So, you should understand that anxiety is like any other emotion and it will pass. However, if you have severe anxiety and you experience it every day, then you should not simply accept its presence in your life. Instead, you should get the needed help and support that you need so that you properly manage your anxiety.

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The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.