Anxiety, no matter the form, is not considered an illness of the mind or of the body. Thus, these have no cure. Nonetheless, there are a few very effective ways of breaking the cycle of anxiety to gain anxiety relief. Here are a handful of tips that could help you break away from that cycle.
Understand Your Source of Anxiety
At first, it won’t be easy to identify the causes of your anxiety, but with some extensive self-examination, you’ll get to the bottom of it. The key is to first understand your condition, the circumstances in which it occurs, its effects on you, and how you respond to it.
Ask yourself:
Are you prone to become anxious at certain hours of the day?
Is your anxiety related to a particular person, place, or situation?
How irrational is your anxiety?
The following exercises can help you answer the above questions:
Anxiety Diary
An anxiety diary could serve to provide you with details regarding your anxiety problems. For a period of one or two weeks, create an hourly record of anything related to your anxiety. Write everything that seems important, leave nothing unwritten. This way, you will start to become aware of the process by which your anxiety problems work and this gives you ideas on how to better cope with it, if not eliminate anxiety problems entirely.
Problem Solving Approach
This forces you to analyze your anxiety problems, detail by detail.
Write down the problems first and the possible solutions. Keep these as detailed as possible. Don’t worry about your solutions being impracticable, the important thing is that you have a pool of solutions at hand. This approach is your way to eliminating unnecessary worries and finding the best solutions to your problems. On top of these, this tool also helps take your mind off your worries and into thinking about the solutions.
Reduce the physical symptoms
Relaxation techniques are helpful in symptom reduction. It takes a great deal of practice though before these techniques become effective. Your goal is to turn relaxation into a habit.
At the first sign of tension, which is usually the first sign of an impending attack, practice relaxation skills. Doing so may not only arrest an attack, but may also eventually help eliminate the symptoms of anxiety.
Controlled breathing is also a good tool for managing anxiety symptoms. This corrects over-breathing, which is often the cause of most anxiety symptoms.
Distraction, another useful technique for managing anxiety symptoms, is a good way of taking your mind off your symptoms or fears. This technique can be used prior to an attack, during an attack or after it has passed.
Change your thoughts that are related to anxiety
Although the abovementioned techniques are effective in helping anyone with anxiety problems, the real battle to be fought is in your mind. That’s where need to focus.
Know that anxiety is no more than a product of the mind. But understand as well that anxiety roots from negative thinking patterns. You can resolve your anxiety problems by correcting the way you think.
Break the circle of anxiety by identifying the negativities in your pattern of thinking. In time, you can start handling your thoughts more appropriately, thereby diminishing your anxiety problems.
Modify your behaviors that are related to anxiety
Your negative behaviors are fueled by the manner by which you think. Although most of the time, you will have to correct your thoughts in order to correct your behavior first to get anxiety relief, you can always try to manage your negative behaviors to help you in eliminating your negative thoughts.
The earlier you find the solutions, the faster you get anxiety relief. Work your way to freeing yourself from your anxiety problems by first identifying the negative thinking patterns that are fuelling your anxious behaviors.