Coping with Anxiety Attacks

By Dorothy Watson

Coping with anxiety can be a serious life issue. Anxiety isn’t a feeling that anyone enjoys. The constant feeling of worry and fear can take a serious toll on your mental and physical well-being. Thankfully, though, there are ways to reduce anxiety in your life. If you’re feeling anxious thanks to the pandemic, or any other circumstances in your life, Defying Mental Illness offers some strategies to help you. These will help you reduce the anxiety in your life, and help you avoid anxiety attacks.

Identifying Anxiety

When you’re trying to pinpoint your anxiety, it’s important to be observant of a few things. First, you have to identify when you’re starting to feel the symptoms of anxiety. Constant worry and fear are often felt, but there are physical symptoms, as well. Things like fast heart rate, excessive sweating, heavy breathing, and even sudden exhaustion may occur. Make sure you’re paying attention to the signs of anxiety, and identify what makes you feel anxious.

Tips for Reducing Anxiety

When you start to feel the symptoms of anxiety growing worse, there are a few things you can do to reduce them. Check out these tips for reducing anxiety in your life and preventing anxiety attacks from occurring.

Unplug and Spend More Time in Nature

Anxiety occurs frequently when we’re exposed to too many things at once. When you can’t handle the exposure, your body and your mind start to develop a fear response, which are the symptoms of anxiety setting in. One of the best ways to reduce anxiety is unplugging from the internet and spending more time in a natural environment. Silence your smartphone and spend some time outdoors when you begin to feel anxious. This is often effective for coping with anxiety.

Create a Positive Space at Home

Sometimes, anxiety is derived from social situations. When other people are fighting, like friends and family, the symptoms of anxiety may begin to appear. To escape from them, make a space in your home that’s positive. This can be done in a number of ways. Decluttering and cleaning are a great way to start. Adding houseplants and fresh air to a room can also greatly reduce anxiety.

Practice Mindfulness in coping with anxiety

Another instance in which anxiety occurs is when the mind wanders. If your mind wanders too often, you can actually become more anxious over time. To prevent your mind from wandering, start practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is the act of focusing on the moment that you’re in. As you master mindfulness, you’ll find that your mind wanders less and that you’re calmer more often than not.

Invest Your Time in Something You Enjoy

Reducing anxiety can sometimes be as simple as spending your time the way that you want to. Often, focusing on a hobby or an enjoyable activity can help you reduce the stress and anxiety in your life. It gives you something to focus on and allows you to spend your time in a way that you find valuable.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

While all of the tips above are great at reducing anxiety, there is no shame in asking for help. Sometimes, coping with anxiety can be too much for a single person to handle. Finding professional help, as well as a support system, can help you when things get to be too much. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, we all need it from time to time.

Author Bio

Dorothy Watson is extremely passionate about mental health. She believes one important way to ensure our emotional wellness is not only to adopt practices, but ABANDON habits that are detrimental to us.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect all or some of our beliefs and policy.  Any links on this page do not necessarily mean they have been endorsed by Defying Mental Illness.

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