How To Deal With Anxiety

How to deal with anxiety? If you struggle with anxiety, you may have been desperately seeking the most effective way to deal with your anxiety.

And when I work with people to help them end their anxiety, I am always keen to teach them the habits and methods that lead to the best results in quashing anxiety symptoms.

In our sessions we switch off the thoughts and emotions of anxiety and, using the strategies that they have learnt, people can successfully turn the dial down on anything they experience between sessions, and further into the future.

So here are 7 ways that will help you deal with anxiety effectively.

How To Deal With Anxiety

The methods below are some of the very same anxiety busting strategies that I share day in and day out with clients so they can deal with anxiety.

With people like Alice who overcame her severe anxiety (see what she said here) and with people like Heidi who no longer battles with her anxiety symptoms (see what she said here).

Make sure you do these regularly and consistently so they become an ingrained part of your lifestyle:

1) Learn how to relax

Set aside 10 minutes a day to do nothing but relax. Turn off the TV and your phone. Sit somewhere quiet and close your eyes. Let every muscle relax and enjoy feeling more and more comfortable. Somewhere along the line you learnt to feel anxious and now is the time to undo that and learn to feel more relaxed – the more you relax, the more you can and will relax.

To help you switch off your mind and calm your thoughts I’ve created a free relaxation audio for you to download.

How to deal with anxiety successfully

2) Cut down on the caffeine

Caffeine is a stimulant. Too much and you’ll feel on edge, anxious and jittery. Cut back or switch every other cup to decaffeinated.

3) Turn your mobile off at night

Even better, turn it off a couple of hours before you go to bed. I’m regularly amazed at how many people use their phone as their clock so in the middle of the night have a look at the time and ‘oh look’ a text or e-mail…and so starts the thinking and stressing and planning how to respond and bang goes sleep time. You really don’t need to check your messages in the early hours. They will wait until the next day.

4) Stop watching the news for a week

Or at least cut it right down to a minimum. The news is full of vivid bad news. To your anxious brain that just adds to the stress, worry and sense of dread. If you are already anxious, you don’t need to be pouring petrol on the flames. You’ll notice how much calmer you feel when you stop adding more fuel to the worry fire.

5) Remember the Exceptions

Ever worried about something that didn’t actually happen? Anxiety will always find ‘something’ to cling to and then come up with plenty of worst case scenarios and catastrophic what ifs. It can feel all consuming and almost inevitable.

So start to actively remember some of those times you worried and nothing bad happened. Maybe you felt really anxious and had all those thoughts yet everything turned out fine. Remind yourself that no matter what, you’ll be ok.

6) Learn Perspective

Everyday has its good moments and its challenges and large parts where not a lot at all happens. Rather than just focus on anxiety, worry and stress, start to pay attention to times when you felt better or laughed or had what you considered to be a good moment.

An easy way to do this is to every morning when you wake up, think of three things you are looking forward to that day. Start noticing the good stuff and look forward to it happening. Then every night think back on three things that went well that day. Start looking at your day through a different lense.

7)  Be Active

Anxiety gets you ready to take action – to fight something or run away from it. Yet because all those anxieties are psychological rather than physical threats there is no action to take. And so the physcial symptoms escalate and circulate and you hone in on them more and more.

Give your body a physical outlet by taking some action. Go for a 15 minute walk every day. Give your body an outlet for all that worry and stress by getting outside and getting some mental space. You’ll feel much better for it.

Take Action To Deal With Anxiety

Put these seven steps into place daily and give your mind and body space to process life and take time off from anxiety.

By consistently doing these things you will soon find yourself feeling back in control and empowered to live your life how you want to live it – free, calm and in control.

To your success,

Dan Regan

Specialist Anxiety Hypnotherapist