One in thirteen people worldwide lives with at least some level of anxiety. Many short-term treatments for the condition exist, and they’re excellent for people who need temporary relief.
However, if you’re suffering from chronic anxiety, it’s essential to find and incorporate treatment strategies in your life to help you keep your condition in check daily.
Your strategy can be a combination of approaches or a change of lifestyle to cut out or resolve a trigger. You’ll develop this with your mental health professional or by yourself with time.
If you’re not sure where to start, below, you’ll find methods that work for most people.
Find and Manage Your Triggers
Triggers are a complex subject, but in simple terms, they represent stimuli that activate your disorder. Identifying your triggers is key to creating a lifestyle conducive to mental health.
You can seek them by yourself or with a therapist. At times, they’re quite distinct, and sometimes they’re hidden beneath the surface and need some digging. You can talk it through with friends or a professional to find the exact things that make you feel bad.
Once you detect your triggers, do your best to limit your exposure to them as much as possible. If it’s impossible to get away, there are coping techniques that can help you.
Here are some common triggers:
- A stressful work environment
- Driving or traveling in a vehicle
- Side effects of medication
- Withdrawal, either from drugs or medication
- Trauma
- Exposure to phobias
- Chronic pain and illness
- Other mental health illnesses, especially depression
- Caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco
As you can see, triggers come in all shapes and sizes, some easier to control than others. Remember that even reducing your exposure helps and don’t despair if it’s impossible to cut it out completely.
Go to Therapy
Anxiety is tricky because it makes people feel overwhelmed and incapable of differentiating between real and exaggerated issues. So, talking to a professional familiar with your condition can help you sort out your thoughts and see your situation in a different light.
The most popular form of therapy for anxiety patients is CBT. It helps people develop different ways of seeing and reacting to stressful situations. With a CBT therapist, you’ll learn how to change negative thoughts and behaviors before they send you down a spiral.
If CBT doesn’t work for you, other types of talk therapy also do wonders for those struggling with an anxiety disorder.
Meditate Daily or Routinely
It may sound like a cliche, but mindful meditation helps you train your brain to dismiss anxious thoughts.
However, meditation doesn’t mean you wake up at 6 am and spend an hour cross-legged on the floor unless you like doing that. The point is to practice observing your thought patterns so you’d become more in control of your state of mind.
You can do it anywhere – in bed, on the train with an app, wherever. If sitting and listening to your thoughts doesn’t work for you; yoga is an excellent alternative.
Whatever you choose, find something you like, and that fits in your lifestyle. That way, you’ll reap the most significant benefits from it.
Consider Medication
If you have an anxiety diagnosis, your psychiatrist may suggest medication. There are several possible directions to this approach, depending on yourself and your symptoms. Either way, never do it without a doctor’s orders.
Anti-Anxiety Medication
Professionals apply many different medication types to treat anxiety disorders. The most prominent are traditional anti-anxiety drugs for short-term use and relief and antidepressants as a long-term solution.
However, these medications come with side-effects and safety concerns, and they’re not a cure. They can 100% be an excellent solution while you work to handle your issues, but don’t put all your trust in them.
Natural Medication
Many professionals nowadays tend to prescribe anything natural over prescription drugs. One option that’s recently entered the market is CBD oil for managing anxiety.
While it, again, isn’t a long-term solution for the issue, it can help you manage your symptoms.
Moreover, many people get sedatives as a supplement to their therapy. CBD has similar effects without causing addiction and requiring increased dosages as time passes.
The Bottom Line
For those suffering from anxiety, it’s critical to find a safe method for managing symptoms. Only by doing this, it becomes possible to live life without hindrances.
So, if you’re starting your search for an approach that works for you, try these from above. The tips we shared help more often than not, are safe, and can help you feel like yourself again.