Let's Talk About Anxiety and Beating It

Most of us experience anxiety at some point or another in our lives. In fact, it is very common to experience it routinely, and a lot of people do struggle with that. If you are concerned about your anxiety levels, or you are feeling as though you would like to be done with it once and for all, there are many things you can do to help. It’s important to bear in mind that you should never feel it is out of your control. No matter how bad it is, there are effective ways to manage and control anxiety.

Let’s take a look at how to do this.

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​Noting It & Naming It
One of the most important things you can do here is to make sure you note anxiety when it arises, and that you name it for what it is. This is essentially a kind of mindfulness which you can bring to your anxiety in order to spot it when it arises as clearly as possible. Doing so is powerful, and it actually works to remove much of anxiety’s power, especially if you normally feel that you are in the grip of it. Note it, name it, and watch what happens to it.

​Pay attention to your body, especially to your breath. Breathe in for three seconds, hold for four, and breathe out for seven seconds. Repeat five times, more if necessary. Also, understand that anxiety is normal and most humans will experience anxiety more than once during their lifetime. ​

Changing What You Put In Your Body
Be aware of what you put in your body. If you are struggling to overcome your anxiety, it might time to look at your nutrition. Believe it or not, nutrition has a lot to do with our mental health. What you eat and otherwise consume is all going to affect how you feel, and how capable you feel in dealing with anxiety, or decisions in general. So make sure you avoid, or minimize your intake of foods known to worsen anxiety, such as caffeine and fried foods.

Some natural supplements found to help are Ashwagandha, GABA, and 5HTP, just to name a few. Additionally, some have found that using a tincture such as this one from caduceusscience.com or something similar has also helped some  with anxiety.

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Staying Grounded
If you sometimes suffer from anxiety attacks or panic attacks, you are going to need to have some methods in place for how to deal with those when they arise. The breathing exercise we mentioned earlier is one of them. Another simple and effective method is to try and stay grounded by calling out five things that you can see, five things that you can touch, and five things that you can hear. Whether or not you can really hear five things is not important - the act of looking out for those stimuli keeps you grounded and stops you going over the edge. Additional information can be found at verywellmind.com.

Sleep & Exercise
Finally, sleeping and exercising more are basic and essential to your mental health, especially when anxiety is at a high. The better you sleep and the more you move around, the more of a chance you have of keeping your anxiety under wraps. Vitamin D is essential for your mental health and spending time outdoors is an effective, simple, and free way to do it. 

Remember, when in doubt take a breath and know that anxiety is normal.

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by Iconic Chica Mag Contributors