Have you ever had an overwhelming experience where you start asking yourself several questions that starts with “what if…?” And all those what if aren’t even valid. You start worrying about it, feeling stressed, the sense of uneasiness and trying to avoid things feeding your brain with the information that everything is scary. And if your answer is yes, then chances are you have anxiety.
Anxiety in short is a disorder of worrying. People experience it in a different way making it tough to explain but at its core anxiety is the way our body react to stressful situation. Around 40 million adults in the United States age 18 or older are affected by anxiety. Anxiety can obstruct us from our fullest potential and thus it’s important to talk about it, seek help and ask ourselves why are we feeling so much of pressure?
Everybody feels anxiety sometimes. I do too and from my own personal experience I can tell you it varies in degree. Sometimes it motivates me to take action and the same stress can be of positive use, while sometimes it’s a continuous and unpleasant sense of worry that can build up into a frightening unusual attack, also known as panic attack. Every time I read the paper or the news about violence, gun violence, gang related activities I tend to feel extremely uneasy so much so to a point making it hard for me to perform my day-to-day activities. However, I pick myself back up and focus on positive thinking, take a long deep breath which helps me keep calm.
If you are reading this post and feeling anxious, I would want you to know that we are living in a stressful time and there is no one that can hope to make through in their life without ever feeling a bit of anxiety. As I have said earlier, anxiety comes in different forms, it doesn’t really have to be signs like walking around shaking, heart beating quickly, sweaty palms etc. The proper knowledge and right tools can help us prevent anxiety and I would like to share with you some of the ways that you can help yourself
- Breathing
Knowing how to breathe is the single most important key to overcome anxiety and its attacks. Have you ever observed people that meditate on regular basis? The breathing technique while meditating is simple as it requires you to breathe slowly and deep and the breathing comes from the lower part of your lungs. Apply that technique next times when you think you are having an anxiety attack because usually when you are having a panic attack the breathing becomes fast and what we want is the calmness while we breathe as it helps your heart rate to slow down and your body to feel more relaxed.
- Positive thinking
I read somewhere that overthinking is the mother of all the disease and anxiety is a disease. It’s a mental illness. I said this before, but I would like to reiterate it again; we live in a wonderful world with a stressful time as a cherry on the top. Thus, its very important for us to gain control on our thoughts. Now ask yourself that if there has ever been a time where you felt you are worthless, like “my life is not going anywhere”? now you need to take charge and block these thoughts and replace that with “I can do this.” A can-do attitude combined with positive thinking can help you combat the anxiety attacks.
- Meditation
This is a technique proven to be very effective. I Come from a country where yoga and meditation are a part of our daily lives. Wake up early in the morning, go out in an open space and let yourself relax through yoga and meditation. When your body is completely relaxed you are able to bring the body and mind together in a healing way. People who meditate not just enjoy a good physical health but also a greater spiritual insight. This is a great way to find balance and calmness for people suffering from anxiety
- Setting Goals
Have you ever heard the saying, “Rome was not built in a day?” I want to share with you a valuable learning that I acquired over time from my own life experience. I have realized that setting goals can help you fight your problem. I take time and allocate myself enough time to work on something. One small step at a time. Let me give you an example, let’s say you want to go from point A to Point E without having a panic attack. Now a good small step may be going from point A to Point B and slowly working yourself all the way up to point E. As you conquer these small goals you will be able to come with some greater ideas and before you could even know it, you’ll be feeling happier and more peaceful.
- Medication
The last one and this one is for people suffering from extreme case of anxiety. Different people have different tendencies to react to anxiety. And there is nothing wrong to get a little help to make the task easier with the help of doctor prescribed medicine to lessen the panic attack.
I hope this article was helpful and to everyone reading this, you are not alone and you’ll get through this problem as long as you believe in yourself and develop a healthy habit.
