Coping With Anxiety Disorders

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July 11th, 2009 anxman Leave a comment Go to comments

Anxiety is a response to a situation that an individual feels threatened or frightened by. As a result the bodies inbuilt survival instinct gets triggered in preparation to stand and fight or to run away. This is known as the fight or flight response. Anxiety can be overcome by learning how to control this instinctive response so that you are not overwhelmed by it. This fight-or-flight response that causes your anxiety is being activated by situations that are not dangerous when you should be in control. Your body is literally preparing to face a life or death situation which is totally out of proportion to what is really going on.

You are not ill if you suffer from anxiety. You are simply responding inappropriately to stimuli in your environment or even your imagination. This is something that you can unlearn. If you understand your anxiety and what causes it, then it will become a lot easier for you to cope with it. Anxiety is likely to have a connection with something specific such as a situation, person or place.

Try to identify what is causing your anxiety by starting a journal. Make a note in your journal every day to record your anxiety levels and what you were doing at the time. Rate each entry on a scale from 1 to 10 to indicate your level of anxiety. Did you avoid any situations because your feared they will have made you anxious? If that was the case then make a note of the things that you avoided. You should try and remember what you were thinking about in the moments that led to your anxiety and record these in your journal. By doing so this will help you to identify whether your anxiety was caused by your negative thoughts. Once you have been updating your anxiety journal for a while there should be enough information within it to give you some clues to what is causing your anxiety. So make sure you read through your journal from time to time.

You don’t have to continue to live with your anxiety. There are so many things you can do to remove causes of stress from your life. Why not take up a relaxing hobby? Having something to focus your attention on is a great way to forget about the stressful things in your life. You might like to read a book or to take up art or photography. Why not try yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong or meditation? These are all great ways to relieve stress. Don’t ignore the effect that your diet has on your anxiety. So try and make the effort to eat a healthy and balanced diet. Make sure that you are getting sufficient sleep. Treat yourself every now and then to a massage or a reflexology treatment. Caffeine is a stimulant and can make you more prone to anxiety so try to cut down on tea and coffee. If relaxation is difficult for you then why not buy yourself a relaxing hypnosis MP3 download.

If it all gets too much and you find yourself becoming preoccupied by your anxiety, then you need to try and distract yourself from your anxious thoughts. In order to distract yourself you should shift your attention to what is happening around you instead of what is going on inside your head. Try looking around you and noticing the details in the things that you see and pay attention to the noises and smells. As you become absorbed in the outer world you start to pay less attention to your inner world and you will forget about your anxiety.

For further help on dealing with anxiety you could consider one of the anxiety self help guides that are available online.