Tips on naturally reducing anxiety
Anxiety is often a by-product of living in a naturally chaotic world. However not all anxiety is bad. Having a certain level of anxiety can be positive. A healthy amount of anxiety helps you calculate risks, makes you aware of danger, motivates you to stay organised, and perform your best. Yet when anxiety becomes excessive and a daily struggle it can greatly impact your quality of life and even become a health hazard.
I personally have had my own fair share of experiences with anxiety and think being able to mange anxiety is an important skill to have in todays hectic world. No one wants to be an anxious mess and anxiety can be a major obstacle to living your best life and accomplishing your dreams.
So here are some of my tips on managing and reducing anxiety.
Get some sleep
Feeling anxious and not sleeping well can be a vicious cycle. A recent study conducted at UC Berkeley (Nature human behaviour) suggests that a sleepless night can raise anxiety by up to 30 percent. The study found out that anxiety plummeted after a full nights of sleep.
If you have trouble sleeping at night practices such as not using your phone, laptop or tablet before sleeping, going to bed at the same time each night, writing down your worries before going to bed, and avoiding large meals before bedtime are some great ides to help you get a good night’s sleep.
Eat a healthy diet
We all know that eating well doesn’t solely effect us on a physical but also on a mental level. High sugar diets, chemicals in processed foods, preservatives and dehydration can have an impact on your mood and wellbeing. If your anxiety worsens after eating certain foods that’s definitely a wake up call to change your eating habits. Eliminate processed foods and sugar as much as possible and eat a healthy diet rich in fruits, veggies, complex carbs and lean proteins. Additionally drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated is essential to feeling great and reducing anxiety.
Stay Active
Regular exercise is important for your physical as well as for your mental health. Moving regularly can help you ease anxiety and make you feel more calm and balanced. Exercise effects the levels of several neurotransmitters that affect anxiety such as serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and endorphins. Personally going for a long run is my go to exercise when I feel anxious and it works wonders every time but any type of exercise will be beneficial in reducing your anxiety.
Write down your worries
Writing down your worries when you feel anxious may sound simplistic but it really works. There is something extremely therapeutic about expressing your thoughts and putting it all down on paper. It feels as though writing down things which cause us anxiety makes it easier to let them go or put them aside. I understand that sometimes it’s hard to know what the exact cause of anxiety is, but simply by starting to write down everything that’s on your mind/ current stream of thoughts can potentially help you get to the core of what is going on within you and what is causing you to feel anxious.
Laugh
It’s no joke that laughter helps reduce stress and anxiety. Laughter increases your intake of oxygen and it’s circulation throughout the body leading to a decrease in cortisol, the stress hormone. So lets get laughing and giggling, perhaps by watching something funny, searching for some funny memes or meeting up with some friends and cracking some jokes.
I hope you feel inspired to try some of these tips. Anxiety is something that all of us experience, some of us more than others. I believe that we should be more open when it comes to our experience with anxiety because talking about it in my opinion can help us cope better and connect with others who are having similar experiences and struggles.
