10 Anxiety Self Help and Coping Tips
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Living with anxiety isn’t fun, nor is it easy. The reality of living in a permanently anxious state can be overwhelming and extremely difficult, making day-to-day activities extremely troublesome.
Regrettably, anxiety is a prevalent issue, with over 37% of women and nearly 30% of men reporting high levels of anxiety in 2022/23. Globally, it’s estimated that over 300 million people are living with some form of anxiety, with over 40 million residing in the US.
Shockingly, only 43% of those with anxiety in the US are receiving treatment, underscoring the urgent need for effective management strategies.
And these figures themselves are anxiety-inducing in themselves, and with figures seemingly only rising year on year, is there anything that can be done to deal with the overwhelming epidemic of this type of mental health condition?
Before we dive into how people living with anxiety can help themselves manage their symptoms and get on with their day, let’s look at some of the different types of anxiety people are experiencing.
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder: excessive worrying about daily events
- Panic Disorder: this is having panic attacks and being scared of potential future panic attacks
- Social Anxiety Disorder: a fear of social situations or embarrassment in social environments
- Agoraphobia: fear of situations
- Phobias: specific phobias that induce anxiety
Now that we know a little bit more about how people experience anxiety let’s look at some tips you can use to improve your quality of life.
Table of Contents
10 Anxiety Self Help and Coping Tips
Get Help
If you find that your anxiety is becoming unmanageable on your own, remember that seeking help is a proactive step towards overcoming your challenges. Whether you confide in a trusted individual or seek professional help, sharing your struggles can be the first step towards regaining control of your life.
There is no shame in telling people you are anxious, and whether you confide in a friend or family member or you look into mental health resources for anxiety, it’s worth sharing with others that this is impacting your life.
It might be that your doctor wants to prescribe medication to help you deal with your anxiety so you can reduce the impact on your life. Or you might prefer to undergo counseling. Experts like Evolve Counseling Services can help you work through your anxiety and give you practical tools to assist you in getting your life back on track and removing your anxiety from being in control.
Research
Researching the type of anxiety you are feeling and learning as much about it as you can is a great way to help you start to mitigate the impact it has on your life. You can do online research using reputable medical sources to uncover more about anxiety in general or specific types of anxiety. Or you can talk to mental health professionals to understand more about your anxiety, about yourself, and how the two coexist so you can carve a path forward that does not involve becoming trapped by your anxiety.
Know Your Triggers
Self-awareness is a powerful tool for managing anxiety. While some may be acutely aware of their triggers, others may not immediately recognize what sets off their anxiety. Keeping a journal of your anxiety episodes and identifying the circumstances can help you gain a deeper understanding of your triggers.
Make a journal of all the times you experience anxiety or it becomes heightened. Identify where you are, what is happening, who is around you, the situations, etc, and write down as much detail as possible. From here, you can pinpoint exactly what is going on and the cause of your triggers.
From here, you can see if you can pair it with anything that might have induced this, maybe a bad experience or something that happened in your childhood. There might not be a cause for you feeling this way, but tracking your anxiety and keeping detailed records of your triggers can help you not find any correlation and, most of all, help you get the right type of help.
Avoid Alcohol and Recreational Drugs
Alcohol and recreational drugs might feel like they provide relief when you are struggling with anxiety. That drink or two before you go out can help to settle your nerves and give you a boost to enjoy yourself, but in the long run, they won’t be helping. They can actually increase your anxiety and cause other issues in your life, such as developing an addiction or causing you health concerns in other ways.
If you feel you are using recreational drugs or alcohol as a crutch to manage your anxiety, get out some hope to help you quit and start to explore more sober options for managing anxiety and facilitating sobriety.
Mindfulness
Anxiety often leads to a whirlwind of thoughts that can be overwhelming. Mindfulness, a practice that guides your attention back to the present moment, can help you regain control over these intrusive thoughts and the panic they can induce, making it a valuable tool in managing anxiety.
It can take some time to perfect mindfulness, and it takes practice and perseverance. However, it’s definitely something worth mastering to assist you in managing your anxiety.
Relaxation Techniques
The last thing you’ll likely be able to do when you’re experiencing heightened levels of anxiety is to calm down and relax, but it can actually be the best thing for you.
Knowing how to release stress and tension when you are anxious can help calm your mind and make you feel a little bit better.
You can practice things like abdominal breathing, which is the practice of deep breathing and concentrating on your stomach rising and falling. You place your hand on your stomach, inhale slowly through your nose, feeling your stomach rise, then exhale slowly through your mouth and feel it deflate. Or you might find progressive muscle relaxation works better for you with singles. You tense a muscle group, feel the tension, and notice how it feels when you do it, then release it and again take note of how it feels.
Breathing Techniques
Different breathing techniques can be beneficial to assist you in warding off panic attacks. Even if you are not prone to panic attacks, focusing on breathing can help calm your mind and take your focus off what is causing the anxiety.
The key is to learn to breathe properly through your diaphragm. As mentioned above, this is when our stomach rises. While abdominal breathing might be great for some, it won’t work for everyone, and others might find different breathing techniques work for them instead. But try out some different ones and see how you feel about them.
Adjust Your Diet
Your diet can be a great way to help you regulate your body and give it what it needs to perform daily essential functions. For example, magnesium can help muscles to relax, and if you are deficient in magnesium, it can exacerbate your anxiety. The same is true of a lack of vitamin B and calcium, too.
You should include leafy greens, wholegrain cereals, and vegetables, along with low-fat dairy products, in your diet to deliver the nutrients your body needs to help you deal with your anxiety.
It is a good idea to avoid stimulants that can make you feel worse. These are your caffeine products, energy drinks, coffee, etc. Anything with high levels of stimulants should be avoided, as should heavy use of salt and overly processed foods, i.e., junk food with little or no nutritional value.
Exercise
Exercise can be a great tool in your fight against anxiety taking over your life. Anxiety affects the body with adrenaline and other stress chemicals, and this is a direct result of the anxiety triggering your fight-or-flight response.
Exercise, however, releases dopamine, a mood booster that can help you feel better and more relaxed. This combats the adrenaline you might be feeling from anxiety. Ideally, you want to exercise at least 150 minutes per week, but ideally, up to four times per week to get the maximum benefit.
Build Confidence
This might be building your self-esteem so you feel more confident in situations that generally cause you anxiety, i.e., social settings. Or it might be that you build confidence around your triggers so that the anxiety doesn’t get a chance to take hold. The more confident you feel, the less likely you are to experience heightened levels of anxiety around your triggers. So, taking the point from above about identifying and tracking your triggers and responses, use this to find techniques to help you build confidence how you need it so you can help yourself in those circumstances that usually make you feel overly anxious.
Anxiety can and will take over your life if you are not being proactive in dealing with it. This can impact your ability to get out and do things you want to or enjoy. These tips can help you to make progress in reducing the anxiety you experience to give you an improved quality of life.
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