While the stress response is a normal and healthy reaction in your body to an impending threat, anxiety is a more serious condition. When the threat is continual thoughts and worries, your brain treats it just as a real and physical danger.
The stress response is designed to be temporary so when it becomes on-going as a result of anxious thinking, your health can be at risk. Luckily, there are several techniques you can employ to reduce anxiety in your life.
Going Beyond Anxiety Medications
Rather than using medications, which may have unpleasant or serious side effects, many people have begun looking for new ways of reducing overall anxiety without a prescription. These natural alternatives may be habitual modifications, activities, or dietary refinement.
1. Probiotics
Because of the direct link between your gut and brain, anxiety can be treated through your stomach. Digestive disorders are linked to an imbalanced gut bacterial community and anxiety. By correcting this delicate balance, you can promote a healthier gut and better mental health.
The best probiotic supplements and food sources are the best way to ensure your intestinal communities stay strong.
Poor diet and certain medications can decrease the beneficial flora and allow pathogenic strains to take over your gut. When this happens, you increase your risk for serious physical and mental health disease. Probiotics reinforce the colonies in your gut to keep harmful bacteria at bay.
Adding probiotics to your diet is easy. Quality, clinically proven probiotic supplements are available from any health store and the best probiotics foods can be found in every supermarket. Some of them include:
- Yogurt
- Kimchi
- Kefir
- Miso
- Sauerkraut
- Tempeh
- Pickled and fermented items
The popularity of probiotics has increased over the last 10 years as research continues to show how beneficial they are to your health.
The gut-brain axis allows your gut bacteria to relay messages to your brain, therefore impacting your mental health. Research has shown that the relationship is two-sided and anxiety can lead to digestive troubles just as easily as an unhappy gut can trigger anxiety in the brain. Discovery of this relationship means that you no longer have to rely on potentially harmful drugs to treat anxiety disorders. Giving your gut bacteria some much needed backup will do the job naturally.
2. Exercise
Staying active not only physically benefits your body, but it can support your mental health too. Exercise releases endorphins, which are the feel-good hormones, thereby promoting an overall sense of happiness and calm in your body. It has been shown that regular exercise promotes good physical and mental health, and individuals tend to experience more positivity and less anxiety, or depression.
In addition to this, exercise creates the same sensations in your body as a panic attack. As part of a regular routine, accelerated breathing and heart rate will be associated with exercise and not a threat.
When your physical response to stress is interpreted as exercise, your mind will have more control over the situation. By making a more positive association with the changes in your body, you are less likely to succumb to a panic attack.
3. Meditation
Buddhist monks have practiced meditation for centuries to successfully calm the mind and body. The art of meditation allows you to train and focus your brain on the present time.
Since anxiety is caused by worries of the past and unpredictable future, focusing on the present keeps anxious thoughts at bay. Numerous studies have since confirmed the benefits of meditation on mental health, causing it to be one of the most recommended approaches for treatment.
Meditation can be done anywhere so long as you are alone and in a quiet space. You can set aside a certain time of day to meditate so that it becomes a part of your routine.
Initially, focusing your mind can be a challenge, as anxious thoughts will naturally pop up. Simply acknowledge them and then let them float away. In the initial stages, it is helpful to recite a mantra or focus on a mental image as a way to draw your mind back to a central point.
4. Lifestyle Changes
Insomnia is often associated with anxiety as continual thinking prevents your brain from resting. The less sleep you get, the more agitated you are, which allows stress to take over your life.
To help anxiety, you need to practice a regular sleeping schedule, and getting into a routine can help with this. Before bed, turn down all lights, turn off all electronics, drink a warm soothing tea, and take a hot bath. This sets the stage for a peaceful night’s sleep and allows your body time to wind down, so that your mind can too do the same.
In addition to more sleep, you also need to cut out stimulants that can exacerbate anxiety. Alcohol and smoking have both been linked to anxiety disorders. Cutting down or quitting will be a great way to reduce anxiety in your life.
Even though alcohol and smoking are both thought to calm you, the impact they have on the nervous system actually triggers stress and anxiety. Sadly, this impact increases the longer you drink or smoke, so cutting down upon diagnosis of an anxiety disorder will improve your treatment outcome.
5. Journaling
Another effective way to deal with anxiety is to write your thoughts down. Rather than having the thoughts or worries continuously looping through your brain, put them to paper. Studies have shown that once written, your brain is able to let the thoughts go, and you worry less.
Your brain naturally wants to solve the problem and by putting thoughts on paper, you can re-focus from remembering to solving. Anxiety involves worry; when you are no longer worrying, your mind can be clear and stress-free.
Conclusion
Millions of people across the world suffer from an anxiety disorder. The continual cycle of worrying thoughts causes problems beyond your brain. Untreated anxiety can lead to respiratory problems, gastrointestinal damage, and cardiovascular diseases.
Medications are typically used to treat anxiety disorders, but many fear the unpleasant side effects of prescribed drugs. Thankfully, there are more natural options and supplemental support available to help you ease the symptoms and help you get control over your anxiety.
Article Submitted By Community Writer