Anxiety can come in little waves or massive attacks. No matter how it strikes, it is often disrupting to your lifestyle and can manifest itself physically in the form of an accelerated heart rate, nervous sweating and ticks and headaches. It can also heighten your internal tension and make you more likely to lash out socially or in situations you might otherwise keep your cool. Anxiety also has long-term consequences, such as a risk of increased blood pressure, but there are things you can do to stop anxiety when it starts.
Work Out Your Anxiety
When you get anxious or experience an anxiety attack, one of the best things to do is use that nervous energy to work itself out through exercise. Biking, running or lifting weights are all great activities that can help reduce your anxiety and stress while improving your mood and pumping endorphins into your blood stream.
Eliminate Caffeine
Caffeine is a stimulant that can exacerbate anxiety in people, making it harder for them to control themselves when anxious feelings strike. Stay away from coffee, caffeinated soda beverages, chocolate, tea and medications containing the stimulant. This will make you better able to regulate your anxiety.
Take Time to Relax
Anxiety is fed by worrying, stress and sitting idly while the condition worsens and clouds more and more of your periphery. Taking time to relax and establish anxiety-free time can help you eliminate some of your feelings of anxiety. Consider renting a comedy movie, going to a comedy club or having a game night with friends. Laughter and happiness help to release endorphins and eliminate stress hormones in your body that can aggravate feelings of anxiety.
Focus and Eliminate Feelings
Reader's Digest recommends a three-step approach to working anxiety out of your system consciously. This process entails relaxing, detaching and focusing to replace feelings of anxiousness with feelings of control and happiness. Start by relaxing your muscles from the toes up, then actively detach yourself from your thoughts--picture a balloon filling up with all your worries and floating away. Separate yourself from your feelings so that you achieve a sense of calm, then focus on the feelings you want to have and what kind of inner calm you want to achieve. This practice will help reduce anxiety and restore calm and comfort--at least temporarily--while exercising your mind in ways that can help it better control anxiety.
Avoid Anxiety-Inducing Conversations
In the workplace and in life, some conversations likely to cause anxiety are unavoidable. But many can be avoided, such as those involving politics or other external concerns. If certain subjects get you anxious and stressed out, avoid them. If a conversation begins that riles you up, leave the conversation or try to divert the direction of the discussion, if you can help it. By only absorbing the anxiety you can't avoid, you can drastically reduce your feelings of anxiousness experienced throughout the day.
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