Tips to Stop Panic Attacks and Anxiety
Millions of people struggle with anxiety every day. Overcoming anxiety is something that takes serious commitment. Most people want to stop panic attacks and anxiety overnight, but your anxiety has been forged through years of experiences, biology, and your own personality. You can't simply turn that off on a whim. But that doesn't mean there aren't tools that can control your anxiety considerably, and in some cases you may find that these techniques make your anxiety far more manageable.
The following are three simple but important things to try to fight anxiety. Stop Managing Anxiety and CURE It There is no quick fix for anxiety. It's become part of your personality. But if you're ready to cure it forever, there are techniques that have proven to be effective. Start the test here. Never Accept Failure It's important to remember that everyone can control anxiety.
There are very few one size fits all approaches to combating your anxiety symptoms. Commit to a method that you're willing to try, and if it doesn't work, move on to the next one. By choosing a symptoms-based treatment that looks at the specific anxiety problem you experience and recommends a follow up treatment, you'll increase your chances of success. My anxiety test is the best place to start.
Quick Methods of Fighting Anxiety Remember, very few people can cure anxiety in a day. Curing anxiety is a process, and one that you shouldn't expect to reach for a long time, even with the best anxiety treatment. But there are strategies you can try that may speed up the process or reduce your anxiety considerable.
They include:
1. Start Running Priority number one is that you start running or jogging regularly. As long as you're healthy enough for physical activity, regular, daily jogging should be your number one treatment choice. It may sound silly, but the reality is that your physical energy contributes to anxiety in a host of ways:
- Unused energy can become anxiety and actually create anxious thoughts.
- Unused muscles may become tense and cause more anxiety symptoms.
- Those that don't exercise are more prone to hormonal fluctuations and poor nutrition.
- Endorphins – During exercise the body releases neurotransmitters that are designed to make exercise easier and less painful, like endorphins. Endorphins also play a significant role in relaxation. By exercising, your mind and body will have a much easier time relaxing.
- Cortisol – Cortisol is a hormone released during times of stress, and it's responsible for many of the symptoms associated with anxiety. Running burns away excess cortisol, causing fewer anxiety symptoms and less long term damage from cortisol release.
- Overall Health – Running also improves every component of overall health. It teaches your heart and lungs to breathe more efficiently. It regulates hormones and improves muscle strength. It keeps your body a type of health that prevents excess stress.
Anxiety and stress cause the body to breathe a little bit faster. They also cause you to focus too much on your breathing, and try to bring it more air than you need. Hyperventilation is when you breathe out too much carbon dioxide because of these poor breathing habits, and breathe in too much oxygen. Hyperventilation is also interesting because it makes you feel like you're not getting enough oxygen, causing you to breathe in more deeply. Unfortunately, this only makes the anxiety and panic attack symptoms worse. That's why you should go through a breathing re-training. You can do this through deep breathing exercises, like those learned during yoga. The goal is to slow down your breathing considerably.
One method includes:
- Breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds.
- Hold for 2 seconds.
- Breathe out through your mouth for 7 seconds.
All of these make anxiety symptoms much worse, and the healthier you eat the more likely you'll experience fewer anxiety symptoms. The healthier you are, the better for all of your mental health needs. But your diet rarely causes anxiety on its own, unless you're low on some very important vitamins and minerals. Check your diet to see if you could be lacking in any of the following vitamins:
- Magnesium
- Vitamin B12
- Vitamin B1
- Vitamin D
How I Calmed My Anxiety in One Evening It sounds too good to be true, but anxiety really is something that can be reduced very quickly. While you cannot CURE your anxiety in one day, you can CALM it to a degree that it stops affecting you as much. With the right tools and tricks, you can successfully calm your anxiety in as little as one evening, and potentially leverage those improvements towards fighting your anxiety permanently once and for all. How to Cure Anxiety Anxiety disorders are all different, but with the right approach you can successfully prevent your anxiety from affecting you.
Find out how with my free 7 minute anxiety test. Take the test here. Attacking Anxiety Based on Symptoms Symptom relief is the key to attacking anxiety. By placing individual symptoms into buckets or groups, you can control anxiety separately in a way that will allow you to permanently prevent anxiety from controlling your life. Take my anxiety test now to learn more. But let's say you have to reduce your anxiety in one evening. Is it possible? The answer is absolutely yes. In fact, there are many strategies that help control anxiety that can take place in as little as a single day.
Step 1: Exercise Before you do anything else, go for a jog. Jogging is quite literally as effective as anxiety medications, with none of the side effects. Studies have compared jogging (and most intense exercise) to medications and found that jogging reports results that are just as strong, with none of the side effect risk. You've always thought that jogging was important to your physical health, but by taking up jogging you can immediately see results for your mental health. Jogging releases endorphins (neurotransmitters that improve mood), relaxes muscles, burns away the stress hormone cortisol, improves sleep, and provides mental distractions. Some people find that jogging alone literally cures them of their anxiety disorder. Make sure the first thing you do is jog.
Step 2: Breathing Training If you're suffering from anxiety this very moment, see how you're breathing. Often you'll either feel like you're not getting a deep breath or you'll be breathing too quickly. These create hyperventilation, and hyperventilation is one of the main causes of most physical anxiety symptoms. So start breathing better. There is a method of relaxation known as deep breathing that can be effective, but it can take a while to practice. For now (since we only have one evening), simply slow down your breathing to 15 seconds minimum, and do your best to fight any urge to take a deep breath or cough. This will help you regain the carbon dioxide you lost when you hyperventilated, and improve blood flow to your brain.
Step 3: Sensory Stimulation Generally, technology actually creates more anxiety. Staring at bright moving lights, watching stressful things on TV, playing around with your iPhone - all of these have been known to increase anxiety. But technology isn't always a bad thing. Anxiety can actually decrease as a result of sensory stimulation. The more you surround yourself with mental distractions, the less your mind is able to focus on anxiety. When you have anxiety, your mind is your own worst enemy.
The best type of sensory stimulation is one that involves doing healthy activities with your friends, like hiking. But assuming you're in your own home and your friends are not available, turning on humorous and non-stressful TV shows, listening to happy and/or relaxing music, and working on a puzzle or talking on the phone with someone you love are all effective ways to make it much harder to think about your anxiety. Anxiety is self-sustaining. It causes thoughts that increase anxiety. Overwhelming your senses is a powerful way to decrease the amount of thinking and internalizing you do. Make sure that every piece of technology you choose though is always focused on happiness and relaxation. No dramas, no horror shows, no loud and angry rock music, no reality TV shows.
It doesn't matter if these things relax you - they stimulate anxiety at a subconscious level, and are thus not effective ways to promote relaxation.
Step 4: Journaling It may sound like something only children do, but writing out your thoughts is incredibly therapeutic. In fact, all thoughts - even those that aren't inherently stressful - can cause anxiety. Your mind has a tendency to feel stress when it's trying to remember things, and when it focuses on negative things. So keep a notebook by you and start writing out the thoughts that come into your head, no matter what they are. This activity will put those thoughts on paper so that your mind doesn't feel it needs to focus on them anymore, and this will reduce your anxiety.
Step 5: Accepting Anxiety You also need to be okay with your anxiety symptoms and not try to fight them. Ironically, the act of trying to fight anxiety creates anxiety, because you essentially are pushing yourself and stressing yourself to rid yourself of that same stress. Fighting anxiety isn't possible. Anxiety is an incredibly curable condition, and nearly everyone that seeks treatment can eventually find relief. But fighting it simply doesn't work. Be okay with your anxiety, and know that it's not something that will affect you forever so that you can face it head on and not be ashamed of it or mad at yourself.
Other Methods of Overnight Anxiety Control If you integrate just these five things into your life right now, your anxiety will decrease overnight. But let's assume you have more time. You can also do all of the following:
- Drink Water - Dehydration is extremely common in today's society, and studies have shown that it makes anxiety symptoms worse. Even if you don't feel thirsty, drink more water and you may find that your anxiety decreases right away.
- Take Magnesium - Magnesium is a mineral that studies have shown often provides anxiety relief. In addition, as many as 50% of the country is magnesium deficient due to modern food processing practices. Talk to your doctor about taking magnesium for your anxiety.
- Herbal Supplements - Like magnesium, many herbal supplements have been shown to help with anxiety. Talk to your doctor about taking kava, which is considered one of the most effective herbal supplements out there and non-addictive.
7 Simple Tips to Ease Anxiety Anxiety isn't something that disappears right away.
It's something that requires gradual changes – changes that take time to work effectively. But anxiety is something you need to treat. Every day you live with anxiety is a day that you spend without as much happiness and contentment as you deserve. Addressing anxiety requires long term changes, and a comprehensive treatment plan is preferable. But there are simple ways to at least ease anxiety until ultimately you're ready to commit to something better. In this article, we'll list seven simple and easy ways to ease anxiety so at least you can find some relief from your anxiety symptoms.
Don't Just Relieve Anxiety – CURE It Yes, you can reduce anxiety in small doses. But anxiety needs a complete cure. I've developed one that works based off your anxiety symptoms. Take my free anxiety test and see tailored results specifically designed to cure your anxiety forever.
Click here to begin. Easing vs. Curing Anxiety It's important to note the difference between easing anxiety and curing anxiety. Easing anxiety is when you use tools and strategies to simply reduce the amount of anxiety you experience every day. Curing anxiety is when you not only reduce your overall anxiety – you prevent it from coming back. Curing anxiety requires an understanding of what types of anxiety you're experiencing, your symptoms, and so on. That's why you need to take my free anxiety test now to get started. But perhaps you're not ready to commit to a permanent treatment. There are still ways you can manage your anxiety every day. The following are the most common and simplest anxiety reduction strategies to implement into your daily routine.
- Exercise Regularly – Time and time again, the value of exercise on mental health is forgotten. Every single person with anxiety needs to exercise more. Movement and activity promote blood flow, improve neurotransmitter production and regulation, calm anxiety symptoms and much more. It can be as powerful as any medication, and while it's not a permanent cure on its own, you'll experience considerable relief if you exercise every day.
- Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are many relaxation strategies that are also effective at reducing stress. Most people are aware of these strategies but find them unfulfilling and stop using them. But the reality is that relaxation strategies do not work right away. They only work when you have completed them enough that they become boring and second nature. In the beginning, when you just start out, you're thinking too much about everything you need to do, and your anxiety will stay the same. Only after you've practiced them a lot will you get the relief you need. Examples of these strategies include:
- Visualization
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation
- Meditation
- Sleep – If you're someone that skips sleep, then you're someone that increases their anxiety symptoms. Sleep is designed specifically to help control stress – both physical and mental – so if you're not sleeping, get to bed earlier. Sleep is absolutely necessary for those with anxiety, and something you should never skip on purpose.
- Systematic Desensitization – You can also work on desensitizing yourself to your fears and worries. For example, if you have a fear of being embarrassed, go out in public dressed as something ridiculous and make weird noises. Feel embarrassed on purpose. Eventually you'll get used to the feeling of embarrassment and it won't be as stressful. You can do this for all sorts of fears and anxieties. You can even do this for many of the symptoms and triggers of panic attacks.
- Turn Things Fun – Life isn't something that should be taken too seriously. So any opportunity you have to turn something more fun you should take. For example, if your work causes you anxiety, try to find ways to make work fun, like inventing little games for yourself that you can do without impacting your work ability. Be responsible, of course, but also don't let places or people that cause you stress be something that you fear. Instead, let it be something you try to change.
- Find Healthy Distractions – Distractions are a great tool for controlling anxiety. Healthy distractions – like listening to upbeat music, watching funny shows on TV, playing baseball with friends – are all great ways to avoid anxiety. Anxiety tends to control your thoughts. Spend less time sitting back and thinking and spend more time making it hard on yourself to worry, because you're too busy doing other things.
- Create Art – Art is also a powerful tool for reducing anxiety. Art allows you to express yourself in ways that are therapeutic, while also giving you an activity to do that serves as a great distraction from your mind. Also, once you complete an art piece, you'll get the joy of accomplishment. While it may seem silly, accomplishment can be a powerful anxiety reduction tool.
The Biochemistry of Anxiety Anxiety may be a difficult disorder to live with, but it's also a fascinating one. Anxiety can be caused by life experiences, and it can be caused by the chemicals in your brain, and it can be caused by both, and no matter what causes it, it can be treated the same way. Even within your own biochemistry, there are different neurotransmitters that can cause and be affected by anxiety. In this article, we'll give an introduction to the biochemistry of anxiety, and what that means for treatment.
Curing Anxiety Without Medicine Anxiety is an incredibly treatable disorder, provided you're ready and willing to make the necessary changes to your day to day life. Find out more about how you can treat anxiety without medications with my free 7 minute anxiety test. Start the test here. Anxiety Affects Biochemistry and Vice Versa When we talk about the biochemistry of anxiety, it can give the impression that your anxiety isn't under your control. That could not be further from the truth.
Your life experience and your emotions can actually change your neurotransmitter levels, just as your neurotransmitter levels can affect your anxiety. Make sure you take my anxiety test to get a better idea of what this means. In fact, studies have shown that even if you were born with low neurotransmitter levels, there is a great deal of evidence that effective coping strategies can increase those neurotransmitters even though the levels were created biologically. It's the same reason that those whose life experience caused anxiety can be treated with medications that affect neurotransmitter levels.
The two combine and contribute to each other, so even exploring the biochemistry of anxiety shouldn't cause you to feel as though your anxiety is beyond your control. The Basics of Anxiety Biochemistry The biochemistry of anxiety is complex and vast. Studies have shown that nearly every type of neurotransmitter and hormone can play some role in anxiety, as can anything that reduces blood flow to the brain (like dehydration). Anxiety, in many ways, is simply your body's reaction to brain stress.
When something causes any changes to your brain, experiencing anxiety is often the result. But to give you a basic example of how anxiety works, let's look at some of the body's chemicals and how they seem to contribute to anxiety disorders:
- Serotonin - Serotonin is the most well-known anxiety related neurotransmitter. Low levels of serotonin are linked to both anxiety and depression. Like most neurotransmitters, low or unbalanced serotonin levels can occur genetically/naturally, and can also be created by your emotions. Studies have shown that therapy and mental health techniques increase natural serotonin levels. Some medications specifically improve serotonin flow and find a profound reduction in anxiety.
- Thyroid Hormone - Hyperthyroid, which is an overproduction of thyroid hormone, has been linked to the development of severe anxiety and panic attacks. Thyroid hormone may be the only hormone that isn't affected by mental health, but rather a condition known as hyperthyroidism. Generally those that treat hypothyroidism find an improvement in their anxiety almost instantly.
- GABA - GABA has shown a strong association with the development of mood disorders, indicating that GABA appears to have an effect on emotions. In fact, one of the primary types of anxiety medications - benzodiazepines - bind with GABA receptors and produce the anxiolytic effect. Higher levels of GABA appear to have mood boosting qualities, and low levels of GABA may have excitatory properties that put you on edge.
- Epinephrine/Norepinephrine - Norepinephrine is responsible for many of the symptoms of anxiety. They are the adrenaline and energy that is pumped through your body when you're stressed or anxious, and cause changes like rapid heartbeat, sweating, etc. In some cases these hormones can start becoming overactive, often as a result of regular stress.
- Endorphins - Endorphins themselves do not appear to be related to the creation of anxiety, but how that anxiety is addressed. Endorphins are mood and relaxation stabilizers. They're often the cause of "addictions" to various coping mechanisms - for example, endorphins appear to be released when people eat food they like, so eating food may become someone's coping tool. Exercise is an example of a healthy way to release endorphins.
- Dopamine - The role of dopamine in anxiety is only recently getting explored. But studies have shown that those with social anxiety seem to have problems with dopamine receptors. There is evidence that improving dopamine levels will reduce social anxiety, and possibly other anxiety disorders.
This is just a basic introduction to the biochemistry of anxiety. But the reality is that nearly every hormone and every neurotransmitter can potentially cause anxiety, simply because anxiety is often a warning sign that your brain gives you that something is wrong. What To Do About Anxiety and Body Chemicals There are a few hormones/neurotransmitters that would require some type of medical attention. Thyroid hormone is the best example, as this hormone needs to be regulated in order to prevent anxiety. But the vast majority of neurotransmitters can be improved through basic mental health treatments.
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