How to Get Rid of Anxiety by Making Lifestyle Changes?

anxiety relief techniques

Do you fight with stress issues all the time? What exactly gives you anxiety attacks? Is it work, personal life, or the balance of both? Having anxiety disorders is a common problem, so do not consider yourself the sole victim of it. If you are looking for solutions on how to get rid of anxiety, there are many to find on the internet. However, you need to decide which measure will suit the best to beat anxiety disorders.

To know how to get rid of anxiety, you need to learn about the possible signs of anxiety first. There are various kinds of anxiety disorders, which you might be facing every day but do not know it yet. Anxiety has almost become a ‘part and parcel’ of life. You can call anxiety as a spinoff of existing in a frenzied world.

If you think a little deeper, you will realize that anxiety is not always bad. Sometimes having anxiety attacks can enhance your sense of awareness against a potential danger, and aids in calculating risk rates. Before you jump on to how to get rid of anxiety, understand your state of mind first. Is the anxiety attack motivating you in a subtle way to stay organized, or is it messing you up?

Anxiety attacks can lead to both a chaotic, as well as a methodical situation. It is on you to choose which state you want to dwell in. If you feel like your anxiety attacks are becoming a mundane struggle, take action before it escalates. Try out some simple anxiety relief techniques at home and feel the difference within yourself.

What is an anxiety disorder?

In order to comprehend the extent of health effects associated with anxiety, you need to learn a little biology here. Have you ever heard of fight or flight response? Which hormonal secretion is responsible for this response? It is the adrenaline hormone that triggers the fight or flight response in times of emergency. For this reason, you can also call adrenaline as an emergency hormone.

When you are going for a job interview, your first date or an exam, you will a lot of pressure. These are the times of emergency, where your stress levels hit the peak. Adrenal glands trigger the secretion of adrenaline hormone in times of emergency to prepare you for fight or flight response. During anxiety attacks, you learn to either fight the emergency or flee from it to return to your normal self.

Do not always rely on how to get rid of anxiety, as it is not always wicked thing. Sometimes you need anxiety to understand the urgency of work, and make you focus more effectively. What triggers your anxiety levels is your fears and concerns when they start mingling with your regular life and relationships. This condition marks the transition from your standard anxiety issues to a typical anxiety disorder.

Anxiety vs. anxiety disorder

The basic difference between regular anxiety and an anxiety disorder is that the latter is a group of anxiety-associated problems. Anxiety disorder is not just one disorder, which is why its symptoms differ from individual to individual.

You may be suffering from severe anxiety attacks, but may not show that in front of everyone. At other times, you might get all fidgety and panicky while socializing at an event. Both types are examples of anxiety disorders, but with very different symptoms and outcomes. Other examples can be-

  • You might be struggling with a constant panic of driving or invasive overpowering thoughts.
  • Sometimes you may dwell in an endless phase of apprehension, taking too much stress for anything and everything.
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Therefore, anxiety disorders can illicitly intensify your sense of fear and nervousness if not controlled at the right time. If you are suffering from an anxiety disorder, it can completely let the situation go out of your hands.

How is anxiety related to stress?

Prior to looking for solutions on how to get rid of anxiety, understand the root of anxiety and its phases.  If you study the bell-shaped stress curve, you will see there are four major divisions in the curve.

What does each region of the curve signify?

  • The initial part of the curve from where stress kicks off is the ‘underload area’. It signifies that you have too little stress. In this region, you are either inactive or laid back.
  • Second region of the curve signifies the region of ‘optimum stress’. In the part, you experience fatigue.
  • The third region of the curve is the ‘overload area’, which signifies that you have too much stress. In this condition, you feel a lot of exhaustion.
  • Finally comes the ‘burn out’ region from where the curve descends to the x-axis. This is the region where you experience anxiety, panic attacks, and anger, finally breaking down your performance.

How to diagnose anxiety disorder?

Anxiety disorders have the potential to disorient your normal lifestyle completely, if you are not aware of it. It is a type of mental disorder that is quite common, but do not consider yourself mad. Madness and suffering from anxiety attacks are widely different from each other. So do not mix them up just because it is a mental illness.

Can you do anxiety treatment at home? If you want to know about how to get rid of anxiety, understand the thin threads that give rise to it. Once you know the source of your anxiety, you can easily get rid of it with proper treatment and counseling. You can evaluate the level of your anxiety at home as well, by throwing some basic questions at yourself like-

  • Do you find yourself constantly worrying or get all panicky about every trivial issue?
  • Are your anxiety attacks interfering with your personal relationships and professional life?
  • Do sudden fears plague you, although knowing that the concern is irrational? During such times, do you feel helpless in shaking those fears off?
  • Are you afraid of facts like- if you do not perform a particular thing in a particular way, it will bring bad outcomes?
  • Do you keep avoiding certain mundane situations, thinking that they will trigger your anxiety levels?
  • Have you ever felt your heart suddenly pounding at certain thoughts, and you cannot control it?
  • Do you always feel like something catastrophic and dangerous is happening around you at all times?

Signs of anxiety disorder

  • Irrational and excessive fright of something uncertain
  • Constant apprehension and trepidation
  • Always anticipating that something worse is going to happen
  • Over alertness for slightest signs of endangerment
  • Facing trouble in focusing and concentration
  • Constant sense of irritability
  • Feeling fidgety and skittish all the time
  • Experiencing a blank mind even when it is not so

However, the above symptoms of anxiety can aggravate given your situation. Anxiety attacks can take the shape of something that goes beyond psychological feelings. Apart from mental sensing, anxiety can stimulate your fight or flight response altering vital biological functions like-

  • Severe pounding in your heart
  • Excessive sweating
  • Stomach disorders
  • Trouble in contraction and relaxation of muscles
  • Constant headaches
  • Feeling nauseous and dizziness
  • Disturbed sleeping cycles leading to insomnia
  • Recurrent diarrhoea and urination
  • Sudden trembling and twitching of muscles
  • Breathing issues

Physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety attacks together give rise to a type of mental illness, which is anxiety disorder.

Depression and anxiety

You may have come across depression at some point in your life. Do you think it same as an anxiety attack? Well, they do not have the same cause but surprisingly bear the same effects on your mental and physical self. The type of biological vulnerability that anxiety and depression cause, they certainly go in parity. Remember that you suffer from anxiety attacks during times of depression; things are going to turn ugly for you.

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Categories of anxiety disorders

There are different kinds of anxiety disorders with different symptoms. Read in detail and explore which one you are suffering from, before looking for how to get rid of anxiety. Some of the common anxiety disorders are as follows:

  1. GAD or generalized anxiety disorder- In this type, you have a constant fear that something ominous will happen from the actions you are taking. GAD keeps you tensed and anxious at all times, raising your sense of alertness without any reason. In this condition, you often come across physical problems like fatigue, stomach upset, agitation and insomnia.
  2. OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder- In this state, you develop unnecessary urges and actions to keep everything organized without any control over yourself. You often experience irrepressible compulsion, such as dusting your desk repeatedly.
  3. Phobias- You may suffer from groundless fears at times about a particular object, place or person. Do not run away from your phobias. Face them bravely as ignoring phobias will simply aggravate them.
  4. PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder- It is an extreme sort of anxiety disorder that occurs when you have faced the repercussions of any horrific event. Symptoms include nightmares, insomnia, hypervigilance, and social withdrawal.

How to get rid of anxiety?

You can perform anxiety treatment at home with very simple techniques, and easily take control of yourself. Learn the pro tips of how to get rid of anxiety at home.

Keep yourself active as much as possible

Exercising and performing physical activity every day surely wards off some stress, and improves both emotional and physical health. If you are taking any medication to relieve anxiety, mix it up with some physical activity like running or jogging. Do not think of this technique as a temporary relief. You will experience hours of steadiness and calmness after exercising regularly and gradually reduce your anxiety levels.

Quit smoking

Do you often take a puff to reduce your anxiety attacks, while at work or home? It is quite natural nowadays to smoke a cigarette during times of stress. Smoking may give you temporary relief from a stressful situation, but can damage your anxiety disorder slowly over time.

Researchers say that once you start smoking in stressed conditions, you are most likely to develop a anxiety disorder in the future. Chemicals like nicotine in cigarettes have the potential to alter neuronal signals, increasing proneness to anxiety disorders.

Quit consuming alcohol

Effects of alcohol consumption at times of acute stress can bounce back from relieving to exacerbating in a blink. Why do you think that even after alcohol being a natural narcotic, it can aggravate stress? When you are having a small peg of whiskey on your couch to fend off anxiety, it may give you temporary relief.

However, what happens when the effects of alcohol gradually dissuades? You go back to your previous anxious self and this time, the anxiety level is twice the last time. Therefore, do not create dependency on alcohol at times of stress as it may backfire on you anytime.

Aromatherapy for anxiety

Does it feel calming when you take a hot bath after a long tiring day? Now think of the bath along with a little soothing fragrance. The effects are magical and extremely refreshing, which can dissolve your stress in a click.

Aromatherapy is an effective way to reduce your stress levels and promote overall wellbeing. It enhances your mood, relaxes your body, controls blood pressure and heart rate, and improves your sleep. Try out essential oils of lavender, ylang ylang, bergamot, grapefruit, and clary sage while bathing and acknowledge the results.

Meditation and yoga for anxiety

One of the most effective anxiety relief techniques to try at home is meditation. The power of meditation and yoga is immense with respect to dealing with anxiety disorders. Meditation keeps your mind aloof from all the commotions around you, and yoga ensures your mind and body wellbeing.

If you can perform half an hour each of yoga and meditation every day like an antidepressant, you can easily fight stress. Eat well and stay fit to combat any mental or physical challenges.