What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?

Anxiety is a natural condition. It's the evolution of your fight/flight response – designed specifically to warn you that there is a danger present. Without anxiety, you would walk into dark alleys alone at night, get into fights with people 10 times your size, and drive 150 miles per hour in a residential area. Anxiety is designed to keep you safe.
Unfortunately, many people find that their fight/flight system has gone haywire, and is causing them to experience significant distress even when no immediate danger is present. This is what's known as an anxiety disorder – a psychological condition where you consistently find yourself anxious without any clear cause.

Introduction to Generalized Anxiety Disorder

There is more than one type of anxiety disorder. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs after traumatic events, and involves a very serious fear of the event happening again. This is one example of several types of anxiety disorders, each of which can affect your quality of life.
But when most people talk about anxiety disorders, they're usually talking about Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or GAD. As the name suggests, GAD is a psychological disorder characterized by chronic, persistent anxiety without a specific cause.
Those that suffer from GAD often find themselves worrying all the time, as though they can't turn off their mind from worried thinking. This may be seen in a variety of ways:

• Disaster Thinking – Those with GAD may convince themselves of worst case scenarios, worried that they're going to get mugged, catch a terminal disease, that their friends and family may be in danger, and so on.
• Unyielding Thoughts – Those with GAD may also simply be unable to turn off minor worries, focusing on them too strongly and possibly obsessing over them. For example, they may fear talking to their boss, and while their boss isn't going to do anything too harmful, they simply cannot stop thinking about the fact that they have to talk to their boss.

Generalized anxiety disorder may cause people to worry about problems that are big, small, real, and imaginary. It's not so much the worries themselves that are relevant. It's the way that GAD seems to make those worries persistent nearly every day.
Those living with generalized anxiety disorder often find themselves with a constant feeling of stress and tension. In fact, it's possible to have the symptoms of GAD even without worries. If you're constantly feeling stressed or tense, even when you do not feel worried over any specific issue, you may still be suffering from generalized anxiety disorder.
GAD makes dealing with real problems more challenging and creates problems when there are none. It can cause you to feel like you're losing control, and make it hard to imagine living without stress and anxiety. Generalized anxiety disorder can be a very serious problem.

What Causes Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

Like most psychological conditions, generalized anxiety disorder doesn’t have a clear cause for each individual. It's likely that several issues can create GAD:

• Biology/Genetics
• Experiences
• Upbringing

Most likely, some degree of each of these factors reinforces the others. Some people may be more genetically prone to GAD. Others may find that the way that their individual experiences may have created it. You can even develop GAD simply from being too busy to practice stress coping, or from failing to exercise. It's not possible to know each and every factor, because factors differ for each individual patient.
It does appear that those whose families have a history of generalized anxiety disorder appear to be more likely to experience GAD in the future. Yet it's also clear that GAD is not just biological, because many people are able to overcome their anxiety – something that would not be possible if their anxiety was caused by something out of their control.
According to researchers Wittchen and Hoyer, the incidence of GAD tends to increase with age, and women are two times more likely to be diagnosed with GAD. It should be noted, however, that men are also less likely to seek out a diagnosis. It also appears that life conditions may play a role in GAD development, although some issues (such as income level, education, and religious affiliation) do not appear to have an effect on GAD.
Check out the following chart to see the incidence of this condition across age groups and sexes:

How to Tell if You Have Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Only a psychologist can definitively tell you if you quality for a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis. In addition, it's possible to be suffering from significant anxiety that can benefit from treatment, even if you don’t technically qualify for a GAD diagnosis.
However, it may be possible to tell if you have GAD. Psychologists use a set of guidelines called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to diagnose GAD, and according to the DSM-IV-TR (the latest iteration of the DSM), to qualify for a diagnosis an individual must express all or most of the following criteria:

• Apprehensive Expectations: An excessive, overarching sense of worry and anxiety experienced most of a period of six months, with at least three of the following symptoms:
  • Restlessness/edginess.
  • Fatigue
  • Concentration problems.
  • Absentmindedness.
  • Irritability.
  • Muscle tension/cramps.
  • Restlessness/difficulty sleeping.
• Inability to Relax: Patients suffering from GAD struggle to stop their worrying, and often their worries become more intense and overwhelming over time.
• No Focus: Anxiousness seen by the individual doesn't appear to have a focus or a justifiable cause, nor does it cause symptoms like other anxiety disorders.
• Trouble Functioning: The patients stress and anxiety causes an obstacle in the patient's personal relationships, careers, or social functioning.
• No Source: All of the above disturbances are not caused by substance abuse or medical condition.

Psychologists use the DSM-IV-TR qualifications along with their personal experience to diagnose GAD. Not everyone experiencing persistent anxiety qualifies for a diagnosis, but all persistent anxiety can benefit from treatment when it disrupts your ability to experience an enjoyable life.

How Common is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

GAD has the ability you feel lonely and isolated from the world. Yet as many as 3 to 5% of the country suffers from GAD at any given time, and the number of people dealing with persistent anxiety that doesn’t qualify for a diagnosis is considerably higher. Anxiety is an incredibly common condition, and the second most frequent psychological disorder after depression.
It's possible to also suffer from GAD and another anxiety disorder.
Perhaps the greatest problem with GAD is that most people that have the disorder avoid seeking treatment until nearly a decade after it first began. For some, GAD is "manageable" enough that they think they can get through it on their own, but as the years go by they find they can't get the relief they need and end up seeking outside help.

Treating Generalized Anxiety Disorder

If you think you may have generalized anxiety disorder – or any type of anxiety disorder – you may want to see a psychologist or psychiatrist to get an accurate diagnosis. Remember, it's possible to deal with persistent anxiety without a diagnosis of GAD, and it can still be treated – it will just require a different approach than those that have generalized anxiety disorder.

Learn to Manage Anxiety with Desensitization

Many people have anxiety triggers. Whether you have panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, severe generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, or some type of phobia, there are likely things in your life that trigger intense anxiety. They may be:

• Thoughts and worries.
• Physical sensations/changes in your body.
• Sounds or sights.

Different types of anxiety have different types of triggers, but regardless of your specific trigger, there are issues that come up in your life that create severe anxiety.
You need to find a way for these triggers to stop affecting you. Counseling can be a big help, as cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective solution for changing thought patterns and behaviors, but it doesn’t always help you control your reaction to the trigger. For that, some counselors use desensitization.

What is Desensitization?

Desensitization is a process designed to reduce the exaggerated responses (triggers) that cause severe anxiety when you suffer from an anxiety disorder. Through various desensitization processes, your mind and body get used to the triggers so that they no longer create the same involuntary anxiety reaction.
It's best to perform desensitization techniques under the guide of someone with experience. It's not as simple as exposing yourself to the anxiety trigger over and over again. You need a plan, and some way to help calm yourself down when you experience that level of anxiety.
But you can try to perform desensitization in the comfort of your own home, and you may find that – in some cases – you can effectively reduce the severity of your anxiety triggers.

How to Get Started On Your Personal Desensitization Plan

Desensitization requires exposure to your fear, either in a progressive or a controlled manner. Your specific plan depends on the type of fear and the degree that it affects you. Since your fear can be real or imaginary, the best way to understand how to get started involves first figuring out what type of trigger you have. Let's look at two examples:

• Dizziness – Those that experience anxiety attacks may experience dizziness. That dizziness can trigger further anxiety, which in turn can make panic attacks worse. Even though the person may already have anxiety, the trigger for further anxiety is a real sensation – dizziness – that the person has to target.
• Snakes – For a phobia like snakes, you may think the fear is real – after all, snakes are real – but the fear is actually imaginary. Chances are you don't encounter snakes every day, and most snakes aren't dangerous, but if you fear snakes to the point where it affects your life (and if the idea of snakes causes fear, even if a snake isn't there) then the fear is imaginary.

Try to figure out what your triggers are. If the idea of them causes fear, chances are it is an imaginary fear. If you actually experience the issue first hand, then the fear may be real. In some ways, it could be a combination of both. Figuring this out is the first step.
There are four steps towards desensitizing yourself to your triggers and fears. They include:
Preparation
The first step is preparation. This involves both mental preparation and crafting a plan. First, you need to make sure you're ready for this and you need to make sure you can commit to it. It's actually possible to increase your fear if you expose yourself to the trigger and don't follow through with your desensitization plan.
You also need to make sure you know in advance what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. You don't want to let your fear stop you from doing everything you need to do desensitize yourself, which means you also need to have a plan/project in place based on your research into desensitization that will help you prepare for the road ahead.
Initial Exposure
Once you're ready, it's time to get started. There are two different techniques used for desensitization therapy, which we will describe below, but before you begin make sure you've written down on paper your view of how much the triggers bother you.
Most people have more than one trigger, and you'll want to solve one before you move on to another. Use a 1 to 10 scale, where 10 is "severe anxiety" and 1 is "no anxiety." Write down each and every trigger, and then put them in a hierarchy so that you can combat them one at a time, starting with your worst trigger. Always start with your worst, because your worst fear often contributes to other fears. Then do one of the following:

• Progressive – For imaginary triggers, start with a progressive desensitization plan. This is best for phobias. If you're afraid of spiders, for example, then sit and think about a scary spider or look at a paper with a photo of a spider. Keep looking at it, and while you do, try to calm yourself down. Don't look away – just imagine and/or look at a picture of a spider and get yourself used to the experience, so that eventually the picture of a spider doesn't scare you.
• Controlled – When you have a real trigger, use a controlled desensitization plan. Let's use the dizziness example again. Here, you'll spin yourself around in a chair until you feel dizzy. It may cause you some anxiety, and that's okay, but you need to experience being very dizzy. The goal of this strategy is to continue experiencing it until you get used to it and your mind and body don't experience as much fear when you feel dizziness.

Remember, only do one trigger at a time. Your end goal is to make sure that the trigger only causes a 1 or 2 on the anxiety scale before you move on to the next one.
Repeat Exposure
Every day (or whenever possible), continue exposing yourself to the fear. If you're using the progressive desensitization technique, wait until each individual cause of fear stops causing as much anxiety. Let's use the spiders as an example:

• Start with thinking about spiders. Once thinking about spiders doesn't affect you, move on.
• Move on to looking at a photo. Once the photo stops affecting you, move on.
• Move on to looking at different photos. Once they stop causing anxiety, move on.
• Move on to looking at YouTube videos of spiders. Once they stop causing anxiety, move on.
• Move on to looking at actual spiders. Once they stop causing anxiety, move on.
• Move on to touching or being close to a spider. Once it stops causing anxiety, you may be done.

Progressive desensitization involves ramping up towards what causes you the most fear. It's not always a great idea to skip right to the end, because the fear can be too pronounced. Gradual – especially for imagined fears, is much better.
For real fears, or those that benefit better from controlled desensitization, continue the same controlled technique (making yourself dizzy, in this case) until it simply stops causing you anxiety. Then move on to your next trigger. Those with panic attacks often have many different triggers based on physical sensations, so it will take a while to stop them all.
Maintenance
Anxiety and fears can come back if you don't keep at it. So the final step is maintenance. Once you've completely reduced your anxieties in these areas, schedule a time one a month or so to perform all of these again just once (touching a spider, making yourself dizzy, etc.) and see if they create any anxiety. If not, then great – you're still in the clear. If they do, write down how much anxiety they create on your scale and work with them again until it's back to a 1 or 2.

Performing Desensitization On Yourself

It's possible to desensitize yourself on your own, in the comfort of your own home. But generally it's advised that you do it in the presence of experts. Psychologists are trained to provide this type of therapeutic assistance to those that are struggling to control their anxiety, and often they can provide you with personalized calming strategies to help you while you're trying to desensitize yourself to the fears.
But some people do choose to perform these techniques on your own, and if you do decide to go that route, make sure you take the time to commit to it and follow the steps above.

How to Manage Anxiety

Every day that you struggle with anxiety is a day that you're managing it. Managing anxiety is simply the act of preventing anxiety from overwhelming you. No matter how difficult it may be to live with anxiety or how much you struggle with it every day, you are coping with it in small ways. You may not realize it – and certainly coping with it may not be enough – but anxiety management is simply the ability to learn to live with your anxiety and still function as best you can.
Yet anxiety can also be managed better. Ideally, you want to make sure that you can live with your anxiety every day, and that your anxiety doesn't hold you back from achieving your goals. That's why anxiety management tips are so valuable. These tips are specifically designed to teach you to how to manage your anxiety better, so that it doesn't hold you back from being the person you want to be.

What is the Difference Between Managing Anxiety and Curing Anxiety?

It's here where we see the clear difference between managing anxiety and curing anxiety. Managing anxiety is when you still have anxiety, but you've learned to control it. Curing anxiety is when you simply do not suffer from anxiety disorders anymore. You may still have anxiety when faced with an anxious situation, but you no longer suffer from anxiety attacks or live with unprompted anxiety every day.
Ideally, you want to cure your anxiety. Managing anxiety is great, but your mind and body are still struggling with it, and over time that stress can still cause you more problems, even if your anxiety is fully managed. But curing anxiety takes time, dedication, and smart treatment choices. Until you're ready to commit to an effective long term treatment that can ultimately help you prevent future anxiety, then managing anxiety is the next best thing.

The Truth About Anxiety Management

The most important thing to realize about anxiety management is that, even though there are many techniques to help you manage your anxiety, your own mental coping skill is still your strongest tool. Everyone – no matter how much anxiety you experience – has that coping skill inside them. It's like a muscle, and you can train it to help you overcome anxiety and reduce its effects on you.
But you can also make it weaker, and you can do that by using unhealthy anxiety management practices. For example:

• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Overusing medications
• Gambling
• Reckless behaviors

These are always unhealthy, but they're especially damaging when you're trying to manage anxiety. That's because they become crutches that essentially tell your brain that it doesn't need to practice its coping skills, because you have something else dulling the anxiety for you.
Your mind and body adapt when outside forces require it to do less work. It's the reason that steroid use in athletes is so dangerous. Take too many steroids, and your body will simply produce less, because it doesn't think it needs to do any work for them anymore.
It's the same with anxiety and stress. If you're often anxious, and you turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms, then your mind will simply expect that these coping mechanisms will do all the work, and you'll lose your ability to cope naturally even more. So while you should always refrain from heavy drinking, drugs, etc., it's especially important when you live with anxiety.

How to Manage Your Anxiety and Anxiety Symptoms

That doesn't mean there aren't strategies that you can use to manage your anxiety. They simply have to be strategies that aid your natural coping ability, not replace it. Below are some examples of natural anxiety management tools:

• Exercise – Everyone tells you to exercise for your physical health. But when you don't exercise, your ability to cope with stress takes a huge blow. Your anxiety will often become much worse when you don't exercise, because your muscles turn that pent up energy into physical stress, which in turn becomes mental stress. On the flipside, when you exercise, you not only reduce that extra energy – you also improve hormone balance, release neurotransmitters that improve mood, and improve breathing. Exercise is easily one of the most powerful, healthy anxiety management tools available.
• Sleep, Eating Healthy, etc. – Living a healthy lifestyle is also important. From sleep to nutrition to hydration, the healthier your body is the better it works, and the better it works the less you'll experience anxiety. These aren't anxiety cures – anxiety, of course, is more of a mental health disorder forged through years of experiences, and simply sleeping more isn't going to magically take it away – but they'll drastically reduce the symptoms, which should help you cope with anxiety much more easily.
• Yoga – Yoga is a type of exercise that has additional benefits to reducing anxiety. First, it's slower without being any less challenging, and those with anxiety need an opportunity to slow their lives down so that it feels more manageable. Yoga also teaches breathing techniques that can be very valuable for fighting anxiety.
• Memory Creation – Yes, another strategy that many people don't realize is effective involves simply creating memories. This can be very hard for those with severe anxiety, since it requires them to go out into the world, but the more you can force yourself to do and enjoy every day (they need to be happy memories, of course) the more positive thoughts you'll have when you're struggling with stress.
• Relaxation Strategies – Many relaxation strategies exist that help you cope with anxiety. Visualization is a great one. It involves imagining yourself and your five senses in a more relaxed place. These strategies give your mind an opportunity to be calmer, so that you have a chance to re-learn how to cope with stress naturally.
• Distractions – Distractions are also an important part of anxiety management. Your thoughts tend to be your enemy when you suffer from anxiety. So distractions allow you to stop focusing on those thoughts and give yourself a break to simply calm down. Talking on the phone with someone you like about positive things (negativity still breeds anxiety) can be more powerful than you realize, and a great way to re-gain that mental strength you used to have.
• Journaling – Writing thoughts down in a journal may seem like something you only did as a child, but it's actually a powerful coping tool. It benefits anxiety in two ways. First, of course, is that it gives you a chance to simply let out your thoughts – something that far too many people hold inside them. Second, however, is that it also puts your thoughts in a permanent place, and that tells your brain that it doesn't have to focus on remembering them as much as it did previously.

These are only examples of anxiety management strategies. You may also find your own strategies that work for you. For example, perhaps you find skipping stones at a park to be therapeutic, or maybe reading happy poetry gives you warmer feelings. Remember, anxiety management is simply about helping your mind learn to cope with stress better, so that the symptoms of anxiety aren't as severe. Anything that promotes relaxation may be helpful.

Panic Attack Management

Living with panic and anxiety attacks can be a bit harder. Unfortunately, without the right treatment, these attacks will still come, and they can be devastating even for those that are used to them. But there are still ways to manage your anxiety attacks as well.
The key is to reduce their severity. The weaker your anxiety attacks are, the less likely you'll fear them, and the less you fear them the less power they have. Here are some examples of how to manage panic attacks:

• Get Used to the Symptoms – Also known as exposure therapy, getting used to the symptoms will help you fear them less. You can do this by hyperventilating to simulate lightheadedness and poor breathing, or spinning in a chair to simulate getting dizzy. The more you're used to the triggers and symptoms of panic attacks the less they'll affect you.
• Actively Face the Fears – It's also very important that you never let panic attacks hold you back from places or events. It's easier said than done of course, but the truth is that the more you let panic attacks control you the more they will control you, because you start to expect them and fear them everywhere you go. So if you get panic attacks when going to the mall, for example, go to the mall anyway. As bad as the panic attack will be, it'll be worse if you let it control you.
• Panic Attack Plan – When you feel like you're about to have a panic attack, have an emergency plan in place. Call a friend that understands your condition and talk to them to provide you with a mental distraction and the feeling that someone knows where you are and that you're okay. Drink water and walk around so that you're moving and not sitting there thinking about the problem. If possible, go for a jog too. This type of plan won't necessarily stop the panic attack, but it should decrease its strength, and again – the weaker your panic attacks, the less you'll fear them.

These aren't perfect strategies, of course, but they will help. Panic attacks, like all forms of anxiety, can be cured with the right treatments, so make sure that you're seeking out these treatments so that you can rid yourself of anxiety forever.

Managing Anxiety Permanently

In some cases, you may find that anxiety management was actually all you needed to live with a high quality of life. Not everyone suffers from severe anxiety, and in some cases a bit of management may be enough to "essentially" cure your anxiety, at least enough that you can function happily with anxiety having little impact.
But still, most people need something more. So while you should use the above anxiety management tips and information, you should also remember that cures are out there, and you don't have to live with anxiety forever

Improve Your Internal Dialogue

Anxiety affects more than just the way you feel. It affects the way you think. It alters the way you see yourself, and it changes the way you view your thoughts and your experiences.
What anxiety does is damage your internal dialogue. In a way, it's like a form of self-sabotage. You go about your day putting yourself down and insulting your own inner character. Anxiety has a profound effect on inner dialogue, because anxiety naturally makes you less hopeful and less content and relaxed with the things around you.
Below, we'll take a look at the most common negative thought patterns that occur in those with anxiety, and how to stop them.

Top 5 Negative Thought Patterns

"They'll Think I'm a Weak Person."

Often one of the most negative internal dialogue patterns is about how other people will view your anxiety problem. People worry that if others knew of their anxiety, they'd judge them as weak or overly fearful.
The reality is that you're not a mind reader. You have no idea what someone's thinking or how, and often times what you infer from the look on someone else's face is completely inaccurate. In addition, how someone else views you should never be of your concern. Some people may actually like you more, knowing that you're dealing with something they've dealt with. Others may like you worse, because they're overly judgmental and not people you want to consort with anyway. Regardless, caring too much about what others think can only cause you grief, and is the enemy of curing anxiety.
The Solution: There are two parts to controlling this type of thinking. The first is to stop being shy about your anxiety. If you're suffering from a panic attack or feeling anxious, tell the person you're with and don't worry what they think. Doing so will take you out of your own head and actually reduce your anxiety. Secondly, if you're worried what someone else thinks, ask them. Talk to them about it. Those that matter will be supportive, and many will actually know where you're coming from.

"I Am Not Normal, and Will Never Be Normal Again."

Anxiety is the enemy of hope. Long term anxiety can make you feel as though the rest of your life is going to be filled with anxiety symptoms, and anxiety itself has a tendency to create a feeling of hopelessness. You're not different – you're completely normal – but you're suffering from this one, curable condition that at the moment hasn't gone away. It may not feel like there is help out there, but there is, and you're taking the first steps towards finding it right now.
The Solution: There is no such thing as normal. Think about the strange things many of your friends do. Maybe they don’t suffer from anxiety, but many of them are still "weird" if you really stop and think about who they are as people. "Normal" doesn't exist, and if it did, you would still be normal, because who you are isn't any different just because you deal with anxiety. Talk to your friends about their stresses and you'll find that you have a lot in common with more people than you think.

"Everything is Going Wrong"

Extreme negativity is a common component of powerful anxiety. It often occurs during and after an anxiety attack, and may affect those whose anxiety has become so powerful that they have started to suffer from depression as a result.
Anxiety creates a cycle. It makes you fear living your life the way you want to live it, and it confirms those fears when you go out and experience anxiety. This internal dialogue is all the fault of anxiety though – these are thoughts that anxiety creates, because that's what having an anxiety disorder does to you.
The Solution: Teach yourself to notice the positive things that happen every day in your life. No matter how stressful your life is, there are always positives. Did your favorite TV show get renewed? Did you have a nice barista and the coffee shop? Did you have a good breakfast? Every day you're confronted with both positives and negatives. Anxiety causes you to focus on the negatives, but training yourself to notice the positives is the first step towards reducing this negative thought pattern.

"Something Must Be Wrong With Me."

A huge problem occurs when your internal dialogue tells you that something is wrong with you. For some people this is related to anxiety – they become convinced that their anxiety says something about their brain or mind, or about who they are as a person. For others, it's about health – some people tell themselves that it can't be anxiety. They grow to be extremely fearful of their health, convincing themselves they have MS or Lyme Disease or something more serious. All of these make you feel worse about yourself, scared for the future, and inactive in the present.
The Solution: Go to the doctor. Check yourself out. See that nothing is wrong with you, and that you're in great health. Then, train yourself to take action – to see anxiety as a disease that you can cure. With exercise, behavioral changes, coping strategies, and smart decision making, anxiety is something that you can reduce every day, and by committing to a plan to get rid of it, you'll quickly notice how much less it affects you.

"What If…"

Finally, there is the "What If" way of thinking. "What if I die tomorrow?" "What if my boss fires me?" "What if I develop a very serious disease?" This type of thinking has several consequences. It both scares you about the future, causing you to focus too much on the present. Yet it keeps you inactive and nervous in the present, because the thoughts are often so overwhelming and so draining, it's hard to do anything else.
The Solution: Create plans and goals. Learn how to keep yourself active for today so that you're living without regrets, but also planning for the future so that you're never without hope or the potential for accomplishment. Keeping yourself mentally and physically busy will ensure that you never stop moving forward, and every day you live in a way that makes your life better. You can't control tomorrow. But wasting your day worrying about it accomplishes nothing.

Improving Your Internal Dialogue Takes Time and Effort

Remember, improving your internal dialogue is not something that can be done without effort. Your internal dialogue is what has been coming naturally to you, meaning that unless you start to notice the way your mind focuses on the negatives, you're bound to allow your thoughts to run wild.
But you can control it, and once you do, you'll be taking the first steps towards ridding yourself of anxiety.

Nutrition for Anxiety: An Anti Anxiety Diet?

Anxiety is not necessarily caused by what you eat. But that doesn't mean that millions of people aren't contributing to their anxiety every day by eating foods that create anxiety symptoms while avoiding foods that may fight anxiety.
The truth is that your diet does matter. What you eat affects how you feel, and how you feel is anxious. It stands to reason that changing your diet to one that is made for those living with anxiety can be a valuable part of treating your anxiety symptoms.

How to Create An Anti-Anxiety Diet

"Eating healthier" is a phrase that's thrown around a lot, but in the case of anxiety, healthy eating really does make a difference. Eating more vegetables and staying away from unhealthy burgers really will keep your anxiety in check.
It starts by avoiding foods that may contribute to your anxiety symptoms. If you really want to create a diet for anxiety, remove or moderate all of the following:

• Fried Foods – Fried foods are difficult to digest, have little nutritional content, and contribute to heart struggles. It's very difficult to reduce your anxiety if your body is poorly processing the food you consume.
• Alcohol – Set aside the fact that drinking alcohol can cause you to do crazy things that create more anxiety in your life, alcohol itself is terrible for your body. It dehydrates you, it throws off your hormone and nutritional balance, and it can cause physical symptoms from the toxins that trigger anxiety attacks.
• Coffee – Excess coffee is a known anxiety stimulant. In moderation (ie, once a day in the morning), it may not trigger anxiety in most people, but the more you drink the more you increase your risk. Coffee also creates a rapid heartbeat and some sensations that may create panic attacks.
• Dairy Products – Dairy products aren't inherently bad for you, but in excess they may heighten your adrenaline levels and contribute to a more anxious state. Moderation is the key here, and if you find after consuming dairy products you feel more anxious, cut back.
• Refined Sugars – Sugar in fruit isn't too bad. White sugar in desserts is. Sugar, like caffeine, stimulates your body in a way that can create a jitteriness that exacerbates anxiety symptoms.
• Acid Forming Foods – Foods like yogurt, pickles, eggs, sour cream, wine, and liver are all acid creating foods, and there are reasons to believe that these foods drop magnesium levels. Magnesium is a cause or contributor of anxiety in many of those suffering from anxiety symptoms, so cutting back on acid forming foods is important.

Avoiding these foods is unlikely to cure anxiety, but it will help, especially if you find that you over-consume some type of food on this list. Remember, most foods can still be eaten in moderation, but healthier eating is still a very important part of a healthy anxiety diet.

Foods to Eat That Weaken Your Anxiety

Most people know there are foods to avoid, but what about foods to eat? There are several foods that may reduce your anxiety symptoms. Remember, healthy eating leads to healthy hormonal functioning, which leads to an improved sense of well-being. So the better you eat, the better your anxiety will be. Good foods include:

• Fresh Fruit – Your body does need carbs and sugar, it just doesn't need refined sugars. Fresh fruit has sugar that can be converted to energy, and provides necessary nutrients as well. Blueberries and peaches may be especially advantageous.
• Vegetables – Of course, vegetables are arguably even more important, especially for those with anxiety. Vegetables are rich in fiber, and many of the vitamins that those with anxiety deplete regularly.
• Water – A tremendous percentage of the population is regularly dehydrated because they do not drink nearly enough water. Dehydration nearly always leads to anxiety, which is why it's crucial that you consume enough water regularly.
• Tryptophan Rich Foods – Foods rich in tryptophan are very effective at reducing anxiety. They have a natural relaxation component, and may increase your metabolism as an added bonus. Oats, soy, poultry, and sesame seeds all have a fair amount of tryptophan.
• Magnesium Rich Foods – As much as 25% of the country or more is magnesium deficient, and magnesium plays a role in over 300 different processes within the body. It's a crucial vitamin that few people get, so magnesium rich foods like black beans and tofu are very important.
• Omega-3 Fatty Acids – Research into Omega 3's is still being conducted, but there is some evidence that Omega-3 is important for depression and anxiety. Omega-3's can be found in fish, flax seed, and winter squash.

Eating these foods aren't going to cure your anxiety, but they should reduce your anxiety symptoms and make it easier for an effective anxiety treatment to work. Eating healthy does have an effect on your ability to handle anxiety, so altering your diet to include better foods for anxiety is important.

Creating a Diet to Improve Anxiety – And More

Unless you improve your diet, you're making it harder to reduce anxiety. Anxiety isn't directly linked to diet, but your diet is a contributing factor to both the experience and the severity. Since eating a healthier diet is also important for your health and your self-esteem, changing your diet when you suffer from anxiety makes a great deal of sense. Then you can pair your anxiety diet up with an effective treatment technique.

Natural & Herbal Anxiety Remedies

Prescription medications are rarely the first choice for those suffering from mental health issues. While most doctors are quick to prescribe these powerful medicines, far too many have severe side effects – including personality changes – that should make them a last resort for those seeking help with anxiety.
Luckily, there are many herbal remedies and supplements available for those living with anxiety. These natural remedies have fewer side effects and are made with all natural ingredients, and some of them are as powerful or more powerful than many prescription medications.
In this article, we'll take a look at a comprehensive selection of the herbs that may be effective at treating specific types of anxiety, as well as specific anxiety symptoms. There are herbs that are effective for anxiety itself, as well as several herbal remedies that are perfect for issues related to anxiety, such as:

• Heart Palpitations.
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Emotional Instability and More.

What Symptoms of Yours Are Anxiety?

Depending on your specific type of anxiety (GAD, OCD, PTSD, and more) there may be many different symptoms, including rare symptom.
Herbal and natural remedies are simply a great way to treat your anxiety and your anxiety symptoms. They're non-addictive, won't change your personality, and are generally free of side effects when taken as directed.

Before you even begin to examine natural anxiety treatments, remember that the only way to effectively fight anxiety is to understand your anxiety and your symptoms. Check out my free anxiety test now. I developed it specifically so that you can get a free snapshot of your anxiety, and treatment recommendations.

Natural Treatments to Reduce Anxiety Symptoms

• Catnip

Catnip is a unique herbal anxiety remedy. Part of the mint family, catnip is designed to treat many of the various symptoms of anxiety. It may be used to alleviate stomach cramps, spams, and irritations (which often occur in those with anxiety). It may also reduce some of the headaches caused by insomnia, improve appetite, and – perhaps most importantly – ease muscle tension and stress in those with severe anxiety.

• Chamomile

Chamomile is a natural sedative that is best for mild anxiety.
Chamomile is used to calm nervousness, both in the mind and in the stomach. It can reduce digestive discomforts and improve appetite in those with a great deal of stress.
It has also been linked to reducing headaches and improving liver and lung health. Most experts recommend that chamomile only be used as a temporary treatment, not a long term solution. Chamomile is also popular for anxiety in children.

• Fennel

Fennel isn't for anxiety specifically, but it is linked to treating some of the most common symptoms of anxiety, including digestion, coughing (many with anxiety have a nervous cough), and asthma (anxiety can exacerbate asthma symptoms). It may also act as an analgesic, diuretic, and antispasmodic – the latter being useful for some types of anxiety.

• Kava Kava

Kava (also known as Kava Kava) is possibly the most effective herbal supplement for moderate and severe anxiety. The Kava root has been extensively researched for its effects on stress, anxiety, and insomnia. Unlike other herbal anxiety supplements, kava is not only effective for anxiety symptoms – it's effective for anxious thoughts as well. However, kava has been linked to a few health scares, so it's advised to talk to your doctor before taking kava, especially if you drink alcohol, take any other medicines, or have any liver problems.

• Hops

Hops is useful for more than just beer. Hops has a long history of medicinal applications. It's used to fight insomnia, stress, and headaches. It's also beneficial for indigestion, general nervousness, and may help reduce fever.
Hops has also been used for lowering uric acid levels in the body, treating infections and skin disorders, and provide some relief from rheumatism, though these are often unrelated to anxiety.

• Motherwort

Motherwort's primary medicinal use is for treating menstrual discomfort. But it is also favored by pregnant women as a way to manage stress and pregnancy tension and anxiety. It's not recommended for those in the first two trimesters, but it is believed to be effective at stimulating circulation without an increase in pulse rate, lowering blood pressure, fighting heart palpitations, and inducing calmness without any associated fatigue.

• Passionflower

Passionflower is a lot like Kava, except without the side effects. Passionflower is considered best for mild to moderate anxiety, although it may still be valuable for severe anxiety. It works by reducing muscle tension and insomnia, calming the nerves to prevent agitation, mood swings, headaches, and hot flashes from anxiety. It's not recommended to take passionflower if you are using any MAOIs.

• Skullcap

Skullcap has sedative, tonic, and anti-inflammatory properties. Skullcap may be used to sooth overly twitching muscles, and may help manage both epilepsy and restless leg syndrome (RLS). Many people use the natural sedative properties of skullcap to fight insomnia, restlessness, rapid heartbeat, and even depression. It should be taken as directed, and should not be used by pregnant women.

• St. John's Wort

St. John's Wort is not designed for anxiety specifically, but it is very effective for fighting depression, which is often comorbid with anxiety symptoms. St. John's Wort is also an effective mood lifter. It has also been used for diarrhea, gastroenteritis, viral infections of the chest, lungs, and genitals, and many other valuable medicinal uses.

• Valerian Root

Valerian Root is an incredible effective sedative. It's used primarily as a sleep aid, but the sedative qualities of valerian are effective at soothing muscles and reducing mental and physical tension so that you can easily relax. It may also be used to relieve uterine cramps, persistent coughs, and bronchial spasms. It is not recommended for children under 12, pregnant women, or anyone taking other antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs.

General Guidelines for Using Herbal Supplements for Anxiety:

• Avoiding mixing herbs with prescription medications or alcohol without consulting a doctor.
• Never abuse herbal remedies (take more than recommended).
• Do not use herbal remedies for an extended period of time without talking to a doctor.
• Check to make sure you are not allergic to an herb before you use it.
• Always combine herbal supplements with healthy lifestyle choices.

How to Use Natural Remedies to Treat Anxiety

No medicine (natural or otherwise) should be the only treatment for anxiety.
The reason herbal medicines are so beneficial is because while you use herbal supplements you can also learn valuable anxiety-coping strategies. Prescription anxiety medications dull anxiety and the brain too much, and make it much harder to learn to cope with stress, while herbal and natural remedies keep your mind intact for learning to control anxiety symptoms.
In addition to herbal supplements, there are several breathing exercises, alternate coping strategies, diets, and physical exercises that are effective for anxiety. Some people also find relief by reducing their ingestion of stimulants (coffee, soda, etc.) and alcohol. Drinking more water may also be effective.
Finally, remember that non-medicinal strategies are also natural ways to treat anxiety. Desensitization and improving your internal dialogue are both effective anxiety control methods.

Fool-Proof Anxiety Relaxation Techniques

Learning effective anxiety relaxation techniques is an important part of coping with stress and anxiety. These techniques won't cure anxiety on their own – for that, you need a more extensive anxiety treatment – but they can reduce your anxiety during times of high stress, and the less anxiety you experience, the easier it is to cope with anxiety later.
There are several fool-proof techniques for fighting anxiety. Many people wonder whether these anxiety reduction techniques actually work, or if they're simply a placebo – where only those that believe they work will actually benefit from them. The reality is that relaxation exercises do work, but they take a type of commitment that not everyone is ready for.
Before we get to these relaxation techniques, here are several common questions that people have about these types of exercises for relaxation.

Are Relaxation Exercises and Meditation the Same Thing?

Meditation is most certainly a type of relaxation exercise, but it's not the only relaxation exercise. Many experts have taken key qualities from meditation and put them to use in other exercises, in order to provide further relaxation benefits.
For example, meditation uses mantras as a way of distracting the mind. Some relaxation exercises use mantras, while others use counting backwards or repeating a positive phrase. All of these operate under the same principle – to ease the mind from its stress.

What Are Mantras and Why Are They Used?

Mantras are sounds that a person makes during meditation. Many people know the most common sound, "Om," which is used in a lot of the media depictions of meditation.
The original purpose of mantras was to get the individual in touch with various spiritual deities. Many people have lost the spiritual component of these mantras, but continue to use mantras, affirmations, and counting exercise to get some of the same benefits. These benefits include:

• Mental Distraction – The key benefit beyond the spiritual component is the mental distraction. Mantras force your mind to think about something else – to think about the mantra – which reduces the amount of mental energy you can use on the issues that are upsetting you.
• Sensory Use – Mantras also stimulate the senses, which is also an effective way to distract from anxiety. Much like the mental distraction of making the mantra, noise stimulates the brain using auditory and possibly even tactile ways (if you feel it in your throat), which has a calming effect.
• Calming Activity – The sounds themselves may also be calming. Repeating positive phrases, for example, allows you to be listening to something positive rather than something negative. Mantras may also be relaxing noises.

Other activities, like counting backwards or repeating positive phrases, may add to this experience. Even without a spiritual component, making mantras and noises adds to the relaxation experience.

"I've Tried Relaxation Exercises, But I Just Can't Do It"

One of the reasons that more people don't use relaxation exercises is because they haven't seen results when they're tried them in the past.
The truth is that everyone can benefit from these relaxation techniques. It just takes the right preparation and attitude:

• Make sure you commit to it. Most relaxation techniques take several weeks to actually master. They're very hard to simply pick up and expect results, because in the beginning your mind is just focused on doing everything right. That focus can actually temporarily add to stress. But later, when you've had enough experience, it becomes second nature and the relaxation starts to take effect.
• Stay open minded with a positive attitude. All stress reduction techniques may look and feel a little silly at first, especially if you've never done them before, but in the end you'll find that they have the effect you've been looking for.
• Don't start if you don't believe. Make sure that you're willing to believe that it will work, otherwise you're starting from a bad spot. Relaxation is a mind trick. These techniques help to improve relaxation, but if you're doubting they'll work then they can't work.
• Give yourself at least 20 minutes each and every day, and make sure that you're as comfortable as possible – in a comfortable chair, with comfortable clothes, at a comfortable temperature.

What Are the Specific Benefits of Anxiety Relaxation Techniques?

Relaxation techniques are not a cure for your anxiety on their own, but they do provide many tools that are necessary for ridding yourself of anxiety forever. First, they give you a break from your symptoms – something that many people need when they deal with anxiety regularly. Second, they can be used to calm you before activities or events. Since anxiety can cause poor decision making, this can reduce future mistakes, and ultimately future stress.
Finally, relaxation techniques simply take away some of the issues that people with anxiety have to deal with every day. It reduces anxiety and stress, loosens muscles, reduces pain, and may improve your feelings of hope. It's something that can be completed at any time and provide you with that relief that you need.

What is This Relaxation Technique?

It's time to get into the relaxation technique. Remember, you need to commit to it for it to work, and you can't expect huge changes right away. It takes some time for these to become natural, and you need to do it every day so that it starts to become part of your lifestyle, not just something you're doing in a panic.
This relaxation technique is actually a combination of several techniques, taking the best of each to help create one effective strategy. It takes advantage of progressive relaxation, which involves calming each muscle group one at a time by concentrating on a feeling. It starts with the following steps:

• Close Your Eyes – Start by breathing calmly. Breathe in slow and deep with your eyes closed, using your entire diaphragm. You want to fill your stomach first and your chest second, and you want to breath slowly both in and out. At the peak of your breath (when you have filled up your lungs), hold for a few seconds before you exhale. Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through pursed lips, almost like you're whistling. It's a good idea to practice this type of breathing for a while to get used to it before moving onward. Once you feel your breathing is under control, move forward.
• Count Backwards – Slowly count backwards from five to one. You can do this in your mind, or you can do this out loud. Start over every time you reach one. Remember, slow, measured breathing is important. If you count slowly, you'll be able to breathe at a better pace. Repeat this until you feel your mind focus less on your stressful thoughts.
• Focus on Your Body – Try to concentrate on the way your body feels. Notice the areas of your body that are tense and relax them. You should feel yourself slumping in your chair. You should feel your muscles let go of your legs. Every muscle in your body should be let go, almost as if your entire body has gone limp and boneless and is now just a puddle of skin. If it helps, try to imagine yourself feeling heavy, warm, and tingly. You want yourself to feel heavy, as though your tense muscles are no longer holding you up. Remember to also relax your face and eyes. You may even want to relax your jaw. It's okay if it opens slightly.
• Turn Off Each Muscle – The best way to do the above step is to turn off each muscle one at a time. Start with your right foot. Relax it by imagining it feeling heavy and weak. Then move to your left foot. Then your right leg. Then your left leg. Keep moving your way up until you've reached your face. Then go through it one more round, and make sure that each and every muscle feels turned off.
• Start Visualizing – Your next step is to try to mentally transport yourself somewhere truly relaxing. Remember, your eyes should be closed throughout this whole process. Visualize yourself on a relaxing beach, or a pretty park. Try to imagine this place with all of your senses. Focus on the details. What does each flower smell like? What noises are you hearing? Envelop yourself in this location. Don't forget to continue your slow and measured breathing.
• Wipe Negative Thoughts Away – When you do have a negative thought or some type of stressor enter into your imagination, visualize it turning into some type of object, and then have some relaxing thing take it away. For example, a stressful boss could be lifted up and taken away by a dove until it's gone. Then go back to imagining all of the relaxing world around you.
• Start Positive Affirmations – Now that you're in a relaxing place, start giving yourself positive affirmations or suggestions. These are often the part that feels the most awkward to those new to the technique. But the goal is to make sure that you're thinking about and listening to positive things. It distracts your mind from the negative and provides you with something happy that you can focus on. Examples of these positive suggestions include:
  • I feel calm and serene.
  • I am having a good day.
  • I am a great person.
  • I have and will have a pleasant attitude.
  • I will cure my anxiety.
  • I love my body.
  • I love my life.
  • I believe in myself.

Continue this process until you can't focus on your negative thoughts anymore. Try to do it as long as possible, and any time stress or a negative thought enters, have it taken away and keep yourself transported into that new environment, breathing slowly.

What Happens If You Can't Relax?

Remember, this isn't something that provides immediate results. It works when you can learn to do it naturally, and when you first start, chances are you're thinking too hard about each step and expecting too much from it. Relaxation is not about trying too hard. It can take as long as a month of practice for this process to feel natural. That's why you need to commit and practice every day.

Do It Yourself Muscle Relaxation Techniques

A similar and beneficial way to relax your body is to tire each muscle so that it can no longer feel tense. Instead of relaxing your muscle with your mind, you tense each muscle as hard as you can for 10 seconds and then let your muscle rest. You start with your right foot, just like before, and you’re your way up, one muscle at a time, tensing each one as hard as you can for 10 seconds before releasing.
Because you tensed it so hard, your muscle becomes instantly tired, and feels that level of relaxation that your body needs. This type of relaxation tactic is great if you feel tense before sleeping.
You can also repeat it if you don't feel as relaxed as you want. After a few rounds, your entire body can sometimes feel like jelly.

Adding Aromatherapy

Earlier I mentioned that the best way to visualize is to also imagine yourself filling all of your senses, not just your sense of sight. This is because when all of your senses are enveloped in pleasant thoughts or sensations, your mind has problems focusing on the stressful thoughts and instead finds life more relaxing.
Often, because of where you may be, you'll find that you have to imagine the scent. But if you're at home in a comfortable place, take advantage of it by utilizing aromatherapy scents, so that you're not just imagining the smells anymore – you're surrounded with them.
Aromatherapy is an option that few understand. Studies have shown mixed results about whether or not aromatherapy is a practical solution for anxiety. Regardless of the truth, aromatherapy does help you fill your senses with a smell that is extremely pleasant, and that is always a powerful tool for fighting your anxiety symptoms during a relaxation exercise.
Some valuable aromatherapy scents for anxiety include:

• Basil
• Cinnamon
• Geranium
• Juniper
• Lavender
• Patchouli
• Rose
• Sandalwood

Although there are many other scents that are believed to have calming properties, and each person may have their own preference. Feel free and choose a scent that you find soothing, regardless of whether or not it is supposed to help with anxiety.
Once you've found the scent you like, surround yourself with it. You can do this at any point during the day – not just when you're performing your relaxation exercise – but it's especially valuable if you are combining it with other relaxation methods. If you pair it with other relaxation techniques before using it for any other reason, you'll eventually find that the smell itself becomes associated with that calming feeling, and you can use the smell almost anywhere.

The "Going Crazy" Technique

Generally, the above technique is one of the best relaxation tools available. But some people find that their anxiety is causing them too much energy to sit back and relax. They need to let out that energy, and they can do that with what I like to call the "Going Crazy" technique.
This is when you simply let everything out all at once. In a quiet place with no one around (since it can be sort of embarrassing if people see you), run around in a circle, flail your arms, scream and yell and do anything you want, no matter how crazy it is (as long as it's safe, of course). Throw a tantrum. Jump on your bed. Throw a pillow on the floor. Laugh hysterically. As the name implies, GO CRAZY. Whatever you want to do, do it. Let go of your sense of what's ridiculous for a while and let yourself go nuts until you've let it all out.
You should overkill it. Do it for a full 5 to 10 minutes (much longer than it sounds). When you feel like you've let it all out, keep letting it out. Don't stop until you've released so much of that pent up frustration, anxiety, and stress that you are left drained and satisfied.
Not everyone benefits from this type of technique, and you definitely want to make sure that you can do it in private. But those that feel like they simply need to let out their emotions may find this a better tool than simply relaxing.

Finally, Don't Forget Art

Creativity is also a great relaxation tool. It's an outlet for your emotions, while giving you something to focus all of your mental energy on. When you draw, paint, or write, you're turning your stresses into a tool – something that, in some ways, is a good thing, because it sparks inspiration for some type of art form.
Any artistic, creative activity that you enjoy doing can be immensely beneficial for reducing anxiety, and while it may not necessarily be considered a traditional relaxation strategy, it's one that definitely has its benefits.

Tips to Stop Panic Attacks and Anxiety Cold

Millions of people struggle with anxiety every day. Overcoming anxiety is something that takes serious commitment. Most people want to stop panic attacks and anxiety overnight, but your anxiety has been forged through years of experiences, biology, and your own personality. You can't simply turn that off on a whim.
But that doesn't mean there aren't tools that can control your anxiety considerably, and in some cases you may find that these techniques make your anxiety far more manageable. The following are three simple but important things to try to fight anxiety.

Never Accept Failure

It's important to remember that everyone can control anxiety. There are very few one size fits all approaches to combatting your anxiety symptoms. Commit to a method that you're willing to try, and if it doesn't work, move on to the next one.
By choosing a symptoms-based treatment that looks at the specific anxiety problem you experience and recommends a follow up treatment, you'll increase your chances of success. My anxiety test is the best place to start.

Quick Methods of Fighting Anxiety

Remember, very few people can cure anxiety in a day. Curing anxiety is a process, and one that you shouldn't expect to reach for a long time, even with the best anxiety treatment. But there are strategies you can try that may speed up the process or reduce your anxiety considerable. They include:

1. Start Running

Priority number one is that you start running or jogging regularly. As long as you're healthy enough for physical activity, regular, daily jogging should be your number one treatment choice.
It may sound silly, but the reality is that your physical energy contributes to anxiety in a host of ways:

• Unused energy can become anxiety and actually create anxious thoughts.
• Unused muscles may become tense and cause more anxiety symptoms.
• Those that don't exercise are more prone to hormonal fluctuations and poor nutrition.

There is a high correlation between those that don't exercise and those that experience anxiety. In addition, beyond the health components of jogging and exercise, there are additional benefits as well. These include:

• Endorphins – During exercise the body releases neurotransmitters that are designed to make exercise easier and less painful, like endorphins. Endorphins also play a significant role in relaxation. By exercising, your mind and body will have a much easier time relaxing.
• Cortisol – Cortisol is a hormone released during times of stress, and it's responsible for many of the symptoms associated with anxiety. Running burns away excess cortisol, causing fewer anxiety symptoms and less long term damage from cortisol release.
• Overall Health – Running also improves every component of overall health. It teaches your heart and lungs to breathe more efficiently. It regulates hormones and improves muscle strength. It keeps your body a type of health that prevents excess stress.

Some studies have shown that regular jogging may be as powerful or more powerful than some of the world's most well-known anxiety medications, all without any side effects. It's something you should already be doing regularly for your own health, and is an absolute must if you suffer from anxiety.

2. Retrain Breathing

Another issue that often contributes to both anxiety and panic attacks is poor breathing. Many people with anxiety suffer from hyperventilation problems. Anxiety and stress cause the body to breathe a little bit faster. They also cause you to focus too much on your breathing, and try to bring it more air than you need.
Hyperventilation is when you breathe out too much carbon dioxide because of these poor breathing habits, and breathe in too much oxygen. Hyperventilation is also interesting because it makes you feel like you're not getting enough oxygen, causing you to breathe in more deeply. Unfortunately, this only makes the anxiety and panic attack symptoms worse.
That's why you should go through a breathing re-training. You can do this through deep breathing exercises, like those learned during yoga. The goal is to slow down your breathing considerably. One method includes:

• Breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds.
• Hold for 2 seconds.
• Breathe out through your mouth for 7 seconds.

There are other types of breathing exercises you can try as well if you'd prefer something more interesting. Performing these exercises for 15 to 30 minutes every day can re-train your body to breathe in a way that prevents hyperventilation, and thus reduces some of the symptoms of anxiety.

3. Check Your Diet

Diet can affect your anxiety levels, although not as much as many people believe. Cutting out oils, trans fats, alcohol and heavy amounts of caffeine are all important. All of these make anxiety symptoms much worse, and the healthier you eat the more likely you'll experience fewer anxiety symptoms. The healthier you are, the better for all of your mental health needs.
But your diet rarely causes anxiety on its own, unless you're low on some very important vitamins and minerals. Check your diet to see if you could be lacking in any of the following vitamins:

• Magnesium
• Vitamin B12
• Vitamin B1
• Vitamin D

A deficiency in all of these vitamins may cause anxiety symptoms. Magnesium, for example, is lacking in mover 25% of the diets in the United States right now. Adding magnesium supplements or foods can be extremely advantageous.
You should also make sure that you're drinking enough water. Dehydration can cause significant anxiety and lead to worse anxiety symptoms.
While most people's diets don't cause anxiety, they can easily contribute to it. Make sure that you're eating foods that are rich in the vitamins and minerals you need, and your anxiety may become far more manageable.

Strategies to Try to Cure Anxiety

It's impossible to say whether or not these strategies will provide you with any instant relief. Some people may find that their anxiety becomes so manageable after trying these important techniques that they don't need any additional anxiety treatment. Others find that even though they feel better, they still need help.
As long as you're ready to commit to an anxiety treatment instead of trying one for a few days and moving on to the next, then there are long term strategies that are nearly guaranteed to help you reduce your anxiety.

If you're living with anxiety, there's a good chance that you're making mistakes – mistakes that are making your anxiety worse. No one wants to live with anxiety, but many of those suffering from anxiety conditions find that they're constantly behaving in ways that are destructive to their ability to cope with their anxiety symptoms.
You may be strengthening your anxiety disorder without even knowing it. Part of curing your anxiety forever is about ensuring that you're able to avoid common anxiety mistakes and maximize your ability to cope. Only if you avoid these destructive anxiety habits will you be able to start getting relief from your anxiety symptoms.

Bad Habit 1: Sleep Deprivation

Easily the most common bad habit that contributes to anxiety is sleep deprivation. Far too many people suffering from anxiety avoid sleep, allowing their stresses to keep them awake. Sleep is one of the most important tools for coping with stress, so when you allow yourself to be kept awake, you make it much more likely for stress to affect you later.
In some cases anxiety and stress may be keeping you awake against your will. Going to bed earlier can help, as can the following sleep strategies:

• Create a Boring Routine – Your mind finds boring routines comfortable. A long, boring routine free of technology before you go to sleep can help calm your stresses and make it easier to sleep soundly.
• Keep a Journal By You – When you have thoughts that keep you awake, writing out those thoughts can also help. Once they're on paper, your mind will realize that it's okay not to obsess over them, and sleep will be easier.
• Exercise During the Day – When your body is truly tired, and your energy levels have been depleted, even stress has a hard time keeping you awake. Exercising during the day can make sleeping much easier.

Most of all, never avoid sleep on purpose. You absolutely need sleep in order to cope with the anxieties and stresses of the day.

Bad Habit 2: Use of Stimulant Drugs (Legal and Otherwise)

Another bad habit is the use of stimulants – drugs that excite the mind and body. This includes things like caffeine, tobacco, and illegal hard drugs. Indeed, all drugs have the potential to increase anxiety (alcohol, a depressant, can make anxiety much worse), because drugs put a considerable amount of stress on your body.
Stimulants can be especially troubling. It's unclear if they truly cause anxiety on their own, but they do have the potential to make anxiety symptoms worse, and in some cases they can cause anxiety when taken in excess or when you suffer from withdrawal. Remember, there is caffeine in chocolate and tea as well, and a great deal of caffeine in many sodas. If you're taking in these stimulants often, your anxiety is bound to get worse.

Bad Habit 3: Succumbing to Inactivity

Exercise is an incredibly important component of treating anxiety, and a lack of exercise is possibly one of the main reasons that anxiety numbers have increased over the past several decades. More and more people are living a sedentary lifestyle, and with all of that excess and misplaced energy comes an increase in overall stress and tension.
What makes this harder is that anxiety can cause you to feel like you want to be inactive. But you have to find a way to overcome this, because without exercise you are going to suffer from more anxiety and your coping ability will drastically suffer.

Bad Habit 4: Letting Yourself Be the Victim

Another destructive habit is more of a mindset than a habit, but it does display itself in a variety of ways. It occurs when you allow yourself to be the victim of anxiety, rather than someone that is ready to overcome it, and willing to do whatever it takes to live anxiety free.
The most common behavior that results from this victimization is moping. It occurs when you let anxiety win and spend most of your time feeling sorry for yourself instead of trying to fight it. You need to get outside and not let anxiety overcome you:

• Spend time with friends.
• Schedule fun activities.
• Find ways to laugh.

You need to commit to anxiety treatments and lifestyle changes, and never let anxiety control the way that you live your life. Letting yourself be the victim is a mistake, because anxiety can be cured provided you show a willingness to take action.

Bad Habit 5: Negative Mindset

Finally, those that live with anxiety also have a tendency to develop an increasingly negative mindset – one that colors their view of the world. This is a problem. Recovery from anxiety is related to your ability to seek out happiness and see hope around you. It's not a "new age" principle – you do need to be able to recover some of the positive outlook that anxiety took from you, and when you let your negative mindset overcome you, this becomes much more difficult.
Regaining that positivity is often easier said than done, of course. Much of it starts as a commitment from you. You need to be willing to overlook the negatives and focus on the positives, and do so in a way that genuinely helps you feel positive about the world around you.
An interesting trick is to spend an entire month or longer faking positivity. In a way, you pretend to be a positive person almost like you're mocking positive people, except you do it in every component of your life, every day, for a significant period of time. What this does is it confuses your thought processes. Your mind gets stressed wondering why you're acting against your nature, and rather than force you to act negative again, it simply makes you a more positive person in order to compensate.
Still, you will need to also commit to make sure that you're ready to take on a positive lifestyle. It's something that you cannot simply do overnight, and something that anxiety specifically tries to prevent.

Don't Feed Your Anxiety

Avoiding anxiety mistakes isn't going to magically cure your anxiety. But the reality is that curing your anxiety becomes much more difficult if you continue these destructive habits. The best therapies in the world will not be as effective if you avoid sleep, refrain from exercise, and show little commitment to curing your anxiety. Only by avoiding these habits can you expect to make a big change in your life.

How to Stop Anxiety With Visualization

If you suffer from anxiety and you need a way to find relief, you need two things. First, you need a long term plan that will help you prevent anxiety from coming back. Second, you need something that can cure your anxiety in the moment, because the more anxiety you suffer from now the more you hurt your current quality of life.
For the latter, there are several relaxation strategies you can attempt, and one of the most popular is known as visualization.

What is Visualization?

Many people have heard of visualization. Those that haven't tried it often find it a bit silly at first. Visualization is the act of imagining yourself in a peaceful and safe environment – a place that makes you relaxed and happy. By transferring yourself there mentally, you're able to calm your mind and body and sufficiently distract yourself with something that relaxes you.
What you may not know, however, is that there are three keys to making this work – three keys that most people forget. These include:

• Practice – Visualization is not relaxing right away, because it's not natural. When you first start out, you're trying to think of what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to feel, and those thoughts generally prevent visualization from working. For visualization to take effect, you need to do it every day for a long enough time that it becomes second nature. Only if you give it that level of dedication will it be successful.
• All Senses – When you visualize, you need to imagine more than just the way a place looks. You also need to imagine your other senses being filled as well. For example, what does the place smell like? What does the place sound like? The more you can fill all of your senses, the more effective your visualization technique will be.
• Actions – Those that have practiced visualization know that you will experience stressful thoughts on occasion. In visualization, you'll need a way to transform those stressful thoughts into something that you can get rid of, and then genuinely imagine it being taken away. More on that later.

Those are the three most forgotten aspects of visualization, and why the relaxation strategy has been treated somewhat poorly by the mainstream media. It's not as simple as imagining yourself somewhere else and instantly feeling better. There are several components towards making it work successfully, and it's extremely important to commit to it every day for a significant amount of time before you'll start to notice results.

How to Perform Visualization

Step 1: Choosing Your Safe Place

The first thing you need to do is start your visualization relaxation strategy is to decide where your most relaxing place is. It should be a place that has no association with stress – someplace clean, visually attractive, and relaxing to the senses.
For many people, this is a beach that they've encountered in the past. But it could be anywhere – your favorite park, your cleanest room, a spot you noticed on a vacation. It doesn't have to be a real place either. You can make a place up based on what you think would provide you with the greatest degree of relaxation. For example, perhaps you find the idea of a safe jungle relaxing, so you imagine yourself there.
Consider this step for a long time, because it's important to stick with this place once you find it. Changing to a new location each time makes it harder to find it relaxing. Remember to think about how these places may affect your other senses. What sounds, smells, etc., will you experience if you're there. These will be important later.

Step 2: Find a Real Relaxing Place

Now that you've figured out where your relaxing place is, find a comfortable location to perform the technique. It should be as quiet as possible, and you should be sitting somewhere comfortable to make sure you're not experiencing any aches and pains during the technique. A comfortable chair would be great, and if appropriate, you may even want to loosen your clothes a bit or undo your belt if you find that you're dressed in something too constricting. You need to be in a physically relaxing place for this to work.
Eventually, the fact that you're in a relaxing place will actually increase the success of the visualization technique. You'll start to associate the technique with the relaxing location, which will ultimately have a greater effect on its viability.

Step 3: Start Your Immersion

Close your eyes and start imagining yourself there. Where are you? What's around you? What do you see? Why is it so relaxing? What do you hear? What do you smell? What gentle things can you touch?
At first, thinking about all of these things is going to make it harder to relax, which is why this isn't something that will work instantly. But there are so many things to consider. Try to immerse yourself in the location. Think of every detail.

Step 4: Relax Your Body

Make a bit of a conscious effort to feel a bit more relaxed. Don't expect to be anxiety free, of course. But if your muscles are tensed up, see if you can relax them. If you're having stressful thoughts, imagine what it would feel like if those thoughts went away.
Even if you don't feel relaxed, try to imagine what it feels like to be relaxed. Think about how your muscles feel, and how your heart will feel, and how your mind will feel. These are all important, because eventually instead of thinking about how you're supposed to feel, you'll start to learn to actually feel that way.

Step 5: Taking Away the Stresses

Now, the reality with visualization is that you're not necessarily going to forget your stresses altogether. Sometimes they'll nag you in the back of your mind. Sometimes they'll actually enter your "relaxing space."
Here, your strategy is to do something that is going to be a little ridiculous at first, but will make sense the more you practice. You're going to give yourself a bit of a magic power – the ability to mentally transform your stress into some type of object.
You can choose the object, but let's use the beach as an example, and your magic power is to turn the thing making you stressed into a rock. When you feel yourself thinking about what's making you stressed, you have the power to turn that stress into a rock. Once you do, you can imagine a dove flying down to your location and picking the rock up in its beak and flying it out into the sunset, further and further away until it's gone.
As it's "flying" try to imagine what it would be like if that was actually possible. The further the rock goes, the more relaxed you would feel. Imagine what that would feel like – how your body would react. The further it goes in the distance the more relaxed you are.
Maybe your stress comes back, but in this case, maybe it's a bit smaller. The smaller it is, the easier time the dove has carrying it, and the faster it goes away.
You can imagine anything, provided it continues to contribute to that feeling of relaxation. You can imagine yourself throwing the object into the distance, or imagine the river washing ashore, picking it up and letting it float away. You can also imagine something other than a rock – anything you imagine should be innocuous, and somehow it needs to be taken away from your imagination.
Again, this isn't going to work at first. At first, it may actually be funny – or contribute to stress because you keep expecting it to do more than it does. That's okay. The key is to remember that it does work much more effectively the longer you keep at it, and eventually you'll stop imagining what it will be like if something could take your stress away – you'll simply imagine it getting picked up, and feel yourself less stressed as you do it.

Step 6: Practice

Finally, keep at it indefinitely. It's important to promise to yourself that you'll continue to do this for at least one or two months minimum, because the activity has to be second nature for it to work. If you're still constantly thinking about what you're supposed to do and what it's supposed to feel like, it won't work, so only by doing it daily for a long period of time will you get used to what you're supposed to do, and see the benefits of the result.

Benefits of Visualization on Anxiety

Visualization is not an anxiety cure. What it is, is a relaxation strategy that makes it much easier for you to cope with your anxiety symptoms during periods of high stress. In a way, it's simply a method of giving you a "break" from your stress so that it doesn't control your life. You'll still have some anxiety, but the more you engage in visualization, the less that anxiety will get worse and the easier a time you'll have enjoying your day to day activities.

Eliminate Stimulants to Fight Anxiety

There is no single anxiety treatment. What you need is a combination of effective anxiety treatments and lifestyle changes that promote a more relaxed life. With that in mind, many of those suffering from anxiety need to immediately do one important thing: cut stimulants from their diet.
Most people don't realize how often they allow stimulants to create anxiety. It's not necessarily that stimulants cause anxiety themselves (though they can in large quantities) – it's that they can exacerbate anxiety symptoms, making it harder for you to control the way anxiety affects you.

What Are Stimulants?

Stimulants are chemicals that excite your central and/or peripheral nervous system. "Excite," in this case, means to release more chemicals or send more/faster messages through your nervous and body. Most people think of stimulants in terms of illegal drugs, like cocaine. But the truth is that there are many stimulants that have become a common part of the everyday diet:

• Caffeine
• Ginseng
• Nicotine
• Theobromine

Even alcohol in small doses is considered a stimulant, although in higher doses it is considered more of a depressant. Each of these excites the mind and body, and can create energy that is transformed into anxiety.

How Do Stimulants Create Anxiety?

There is a great deal of debate about whether or not stimulants create anxiety themselves, or whether they just make symptoms worse. Most likely, as long as they're used in very small doses, they just make anxiety symptoms worse but don't cause anxiety on their own.
However, that doesn't mean that they aren't harmful for anxiety. Stimulants can cause issues for those trying to recover from anxiety, including:

• Fear of Symptoms – Anxiety can create itself. If you fear your anxiety, your fear becomes anxiety that ultimately makes your anxiety disorder become more difficult to cure. So if stimulants are making your anxiety symptoms worse to the point where they cause you to be more upset about your anxiety, it may create a worse disorder.
• Triggering Attacks – While stimulants may not necessarily create anxiety themselves, those that have panic attacks or anxiety attacks may find that when they take stimulants they're more likely to get these attacks. That's because stimulants can speed up your heart and create unusual physical sensations which may trigger an attack.
• Unused Energy – Unused energy is a problem for many of those with anxiety, which is why exercise is such an important part of any anxiety reduction strategy. Stimulants create more energy, so if you're already inactive, your anxiety may become worse.

The more of any given stimulant you take, the worse your anxiety may get. That's why it's so important to eliminate stimulants from your diet.

Coffee and Anxiety

One of the most common stimulants is caffeine, and caffeine is often found in coffee. It should be noted, however, that caffeine may be found in a variety of other products as well, including:

• Chocolate
• Tea
• Soda

Chocolate also has theobromine, which is another stimulant. But coffee is by far the most well known drink and the most popular.
One cup of coffee in the morning is unlikely to cause too much anxiety – although different people react differently, so it may contribute to more anxiety symptoms. But the more coffee you drink, the more likely you'll feel the effects of coffee on your health. Coffee also creates other issues that may make your anxiety worse, including:

• Lack of Sleep – Coffee can, for some people, make sleeping more difficult. Sleep is one of the most effective ways to fight anxiety, so drinking coffee in excess or too late at night may be preventing you from using one of your natural coping mechanisms.
• Withdrawal – Daily caffeine intake can cause dependency, which may also lead to withdrawal symptoms when you're unable to get to your coffee on time. For those with anxiety, withdrawal may be harder to deal with than it is for others.
• Additional Drink Problems – Coffee is rarely taken black. Refined sugars, chocolate, and other additives may also have their own anxiety producing qualities.

Again, coffee is not the enemy. But that doesn’t mean that how you drink coffee, when you drink coffee, etc., don't all effect how you feel and how you manage your anxiety. Every time you take another drink, you're increasing the probability that you'll suffer from some type of anxiety symptoms as a result.

Eliminating Stimulants to Eliminate Anxiety

Stimulant elimination is an important part of any anxiety reduction strategy, because all stimulants – illegal drugs, legal drugs, foods, etc. – can all create problems that increase your anxiety symptoms. Before you decide to use any stimulant, especially in excess, make sure you realize that it may hamper your ability to cure your anxiety forever.

10 Ways to Stop Anxiety Quickly

Living with anxiety is never easy. Millions upon millions of people just like you struggle with anxiety daily, looking for ways to find any type of relief. Anxiety control is a long term process – not something that can be completed overnight. But there are ways to fight your anxiety that can be integrated into your life.
If you're suffering from anxiety right now, or you suffer from anxiety often enough that you need immediate relief, try the following anxiety reduction strategies.

Tips to Stop Anxiety Now

Living with anxiety can be incredibly difficult. It's important that you don’t allow yourself to live with the symptoms forever. You need to make smart decisions and commit to a long term treatment, in addition to the following ten strategies. If you haven't done so yet, take my free 7 minute anxiety test.

1. Control Your Breathing

Severe anxiety symptoms are often linked to poor breathing habits. Many men and women with anxiety suffer from poor breathing habits that contribute to anxiety and many of the most upsetting symptoms.
Controlling you breathing is the solution – and it's not what you think. Even if you feel you can't take a deep breath, you actually need to slow down and reduce your breathing, not speed it up or try to take deeper breaths. Take more controlled, slower, shallower breaths, using the following technique:

• Breathe in slowly and gently through your nose for about 5 to 7 seconds.
• Hold for about three or four seconds.
• Breathe out slowly and gently through pursed lips like you're whistling for about 7 to 9 seconds.

Repeat this exercise ten to twenty times. This method of breathing will ensure that you're not hyperventilating (a common problem of those with anxiety) and will help to regain the Co2 balance in your body that creates many of the worst anxiety symptoms.

2. Talk to Someone Friendly

Effective anxiety reduction is often about distraction, since your mind can be your worst enemy when you have severe anxiety symptoms. A very effective technique is to talk to someone you like and trust, especially on the phone. Don't be shy about your anxiety – tell them you feel anxious and explain what you're feeling.
Talking to nice people keeps your mind off of your symptoms, and the supportive nature of friends and family gives you that added boost of confidence. If you're suffering from a panic attack, it also helps you feel more confident that if something was wrong, you'd have someone that can watch over you.

3. Try Some Aerobic Activity

During periods of anxiety your body is filled with adrenaline. Putting that adrenaline towards aerobic activity can be a great way to improve your anxiety. That's because exercise has numerous advantages for controlling your anxiety symptoms:

• Exercise burns away stress hormones that create anxiety symptoms.
• Exercise tires your muscles, reducing excess energy and tension.
• Exercise releases endorphins which improve overall mood.
• Exercise forces healthier breathing.
• Exercise is a healthy distraction.

Aerobic activity, like light jogging or even fast walking, can be extremely effective at reducing the severity of your anxiety symptoms, as well as your anxiety itself.

4. Find What Relaxes You

There are already things in your life that relax you. Don't avoid them and try to fight it out. Instead, do the activities as fast as possible. For example, if you find that a warm bath is relaxing, don't wait to take the bath. Jump in the bath, light some candles, add a few nice scents, and jump inside. Whether it's a bath, a shower, skipping stones at a park, getting a massage – if it works, do it right away, rather than let yourself become overwhelmed by your anxiety.

5. Consider Kava

Kava (also known as Kava Kava) is an anti-anxiety herb that many believe is one of the most effective, natural ways to control anxiety. You'll want to talk to a doctor before taking kava as it can interact with other medications and alcohol, but kava has nutrients known as kavalactones that are very effective at regulating the way you experience anxiety, and promoting greater levels of relaxation without any addiction risk.

6. Learn How to Trick Your Anxious Thinking

Anxiety doesn't come out of the blue. When you have anxiety attacks, it's often because your mind has a tendency to spiral into negative thoughts – often without your control. Sometimes you can control this anxiety by keeping these thoughts at bay, and learning to dismiss triggers that cause you anxiety.
For many, this is easier said than done. But there are many different strategies you can try that may be effective. These include:

• A Question Checklist – When you feel severe anxiety, have a checklist on hand of questions to ask yourself about that anxiety experience. The longer the checklist, the more you'll find that your thoughts become more realistic. Questions that you can use include:
  • Is there a reason to believe something is wrong?
  • What evidence is there that something is wrong?
  • Is there a chance I'm blowing this out of proportion?
• Affirmations – Affirmations are not for everyone, but those that do use them find them to be very beneficial. Affirmations are things that you say to yourself to make yourself feel better. These include:
  • I’m okay. This is just anxiety and I will get over it.
  • I have a great life and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
  • My anxiety won't control me.
• Getting Used to Physical Symptoms – Many of the thoughts that affect anxiety are not thoughts per se, but reactions to physical experiences. This is especially true if you experience panic attacks, where a physical sensation can trigger severe anxiety and panic. By getting used to the symptoms when you're not experiencing anxiety, your mind stops associating them with your panic attacks. Examples include:
  • Dizziness – If feeling dizzy causes a panic attack, spin around in a chair and let yourself feel more dizzy.
  • Rapid Heartbeat – If a rapid heartbeat causes panic attacks, run in place as fast as you can until your heartbeat speeds up.
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The latter is known as "exposure therapy" and there are countless ways to create exercises that will habituate you to your panic attack triggers.

7. Listen to Good Mood Music

Every little thing matters. That's why even if it sounds like it won't make a tremendous difference, listening to your favorite music can have a powerful effect on your anxiety. They key is to not just choose songs you like, however. The key is also to make sure you're listening to music that represents the way you want to feel. Happy or relaxing music, not just any music.
The reality is that music does affect emotions. So while many people find it soothing to listen to angry music when you're angry or sad music when you're sad, the truth is that this type of music will only help you get in touch with those negative emotions. They won't help you feel better. When you're trying to stop anxiety now, you should listen to music that will help you feel the way you want to feel.

8. Let it All Out

Anxiety is interesting, because it tends to get worse when you try to fight it. It's not clear why that occurs, but most likely the stress that your body goes through in order to control the stress of anxiety only makes it worse, as does the effort it takes to try to not feel your natural feelings.
So rather than have any desire to stop your anxiety, an interesting coping strategy is to go overboard embracing it. I like to call it the "going crazy" technique. When you're feeling anxious, find a place that you can be alone and go nuts. Yell at mirrors. Scream. Punch pillows. In a way, make fun of the things you wish you can do. Have a bit of fun with it, but also let out all of your emotions. Throw stuffed animals. Flail your arms and jump around. Let yourself feel like you're letting out all of your emotions, and then some, to the point where you feel a bit silly, and then keep going with it.
This lets you embrace the anxiety and not try to fight it, while also giving you an opportunity to hold it back. It's best to make sure no one is around, and don't break anything important to you, but as long as what you're doing is safe it can help you feel quite relaxed.

9. Make Love

"When I get that feeling, I want… sexual healing."
It's not a myth. Sexual intercourse can be incredibly calming. It is a distracting physical activity that releases endorphins and helps you feel more relaxed and less tense. If you have someone special in your life that understands that you're suffering from anxiety and is willing to share in some lovemaking in order to help you experience some relief from that anxiety, the two of you should come to some type of understanding that allows you to release some sexual energy, and possibly improve your relationship in the process.

10. Living in Today

Finally, simply learning to live for today can impact your anxiety. One of the most important things that psychologists and counselors teach those with anxiety is: "Okay, you're anxious. So what?"
Those with anxiety often start to focus too much on how they feel and their worries about the future. Each day becomes trying to live with anxiety instead of trying to live in general. Learning to embrace the idea that you have anxiety and trying to live a great and exciting life anyway is important.
And what's interesting is that if you can learn to finally have that mindset – to let yourself experience the fear and try to live the life anyway – you will find that your anxiety tends to dissipate with it. It's not a cure, but it's close.

Stopping Anxiety Forever

There isn't a rapid cure for anxiety. The fastest ways to cure anxiety are simply there to manage it, and while you can stop anxiety fast, there isn't a magic cure to cure it forever in an instant.
But there are strategies that can greatly improve your long term outlook, and there are ways to cure your anxiety forever. They take a commitment, but they're highly effective at relieving your anxiety permanently.