Occasional anxiety is crucial to your survival, especially when you have a decision to make or when the life of a loved one is in danger. However, frequently experiencing nervousness, extreme fear, restlessness, and a rapid heart rate can leave a devastating impact on your physical and mental health and interfere with crucial areas in your life, such as school, work, relationships, and so on.
Anxiety becomes a burden in your life, making you ask questions like, “how to get rid of anxiety forever?” or “how to get rid of anxiety fast?” But these questions are never easily answered.
If you feel like you’re the only one feeling this way, know that you are not alone. Anxiety affects 40 million adults in the U.S. every year. Despite being highly treatable, only 36.9% of people with anxiety get treated.
This brings out the silver lining of the dark cloud. Anxiety disorders are treatable, which means that you can learn ways to ensure that your anxiety is no longer a dominant force of psychological hardship in your life. In this article, you’ll learn how to calm your anxiety.
Does Anxiety Ever Go Away?
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to getting rid of anxiety. Different solutions work for different people, depending on their psychological resources. Anxiety stems from many different reasons, including traumatic experiences like surviving a terrorist attack, abuse, violence, genetic traits, medical health conditions like heart diseases, stress, medications, and other mental health disorders.
Whether it “goes away” depends on many things, and not all of them are within your control, like your genetics. Fortunately, you can learn to control and reduce its impact on your everyday life. There are self-help ways that can be effective in tackling anxiety, as well as ways that require external help.
Self-Help Ways to Cope With Anxiety
How to get rid of anxiety naturally? The answer is self-help techniques. Self-help ways are effective coping skills for anxiety. You can practice them at your convenience and ease. They help you regain your focus and relax, allowing you to reduce anxiety’s impact on your life. The following are a few self-help techniques you can try:
Mindful meditation
Meditation is easy, affordable, and requires no additional equipment. It can result in a profound level of relaxation and a calm mind. During mindfulness, you focus your attention, clearing the stream of chaotic ideas that may be producing tension in your mind.
Meditation can provide you with a sense of peace, harmony, and balance, which can enhance both your mental well-being and your general health. And the advantages don't stop after your meditation session is over; it can help you stay calmer throughout the day and manage symptoms of some medical illnesses and mental disorders, such as anxiety.
Journaling
Your diary is your safe space. It's a place to confess your fear and stress without fearing the judgment of others. Moreover, it allows you to express your suppressed thoughts and emotions. Simply writing down what troubles you can help you clear your mind.
Journaling can help you prioritize your problems, track the symptoms or triggers, and initiate self-talk. With time, you can identify what’s stressing you or causing anxiety. Once you’ve identified them, you can practice other self-help ways to cope with anxiety.
Exercising
Exercise is vital for maintaining mental health and reducing stress. It is particularly effective in reducing tiredness, improving alertness and attention, and improving general cognitive performance. Exercise is especially useful if stress has sapped your energy or attention. When stress affects the brain, the entire body feels the effects. Likewise, if your body feels better, so will your mind.
Exercise and other forms of physical activity, like walking, jogging, or dancing, releases endorphins – chemicals in the brain that work like natural painkillers. They also enhance sleep quality, which decreases stress.
Exercise can promote mental health by assisting the brain in dealing with stress more effectively. According to one study, people who engaged in regular, intense exercise were 25% less likely to develop depression or anxiety during the next five years.
Anti-Anxiety Medication
There are several medications available for treating anxiety disorders. Medication is most effective when paired with psychotherapy that targets the underlying psychological causes of anxiety instead of just the symptoms. It may be useful if you have severe anxiety that compromises your ability to function.
Anti-anxiety drugs assist in alleviating anxiety symptoms, such as panic attacks or intense fear and concern. Benzodiazepines are the most frequently used anti-anxiety medication. They operate by slowing down the nervous system, allowing you to rest both physically and emotionally. However, they might cause undesired side effects, such as tiredness, poor coordination, dizziness, and so on.
Antidepressants are also used today to treat anxiety. In comparison to benzodiazepines, the risk of addiction and misuse is lower. Antidepressants might take roughly 4 to 6 weeks to start reducing anxiety symptoms. Their use is restricted to chronic anxiety disorders that necessitate continuous therapy.
Psychotherapy for Anxiety
Therapy seeks to tackle the very depths of your anxiety while helping you cope with it effectively. A therapist can teach you strategies to minimize the impact of anxiety and identify the stressors that cause it. The following are some therapeutic approaches that can help you deal with anxiety:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
The primary idea of CBT is that our thoughts, rather than external events, are what influences how we feel. In other words, it’s your perspective of the circumstance that decides how you feel, not the issue itself.
As the name suggests, this includes two major components: cognitive therapy investigates the role of negative ideas, or cognitions in anxiety, whereas behavior therapy studies how you act and respond in anxious circumstances.
CBT works by recognizing and treating the interactions between your thoughts and behaviors that cause anxiety. The therapist will assist you in identifying how harmful thinking patterns impact your feelings and behaviors. They will intervene by modifying negative thought patterns, teaching relaxation exercises, and changing habits that aggravate the condition.
Systematic desensitization therapy
Systematic desensitization therapy aims to modify how you react to items, people, or events that cause you fear or anxiety. You will discover coping strategies that will help you remain relaxed and peaceful.
There are three major steps in systematic desensitization therapy.
- First, you'll learn how to relax.
- Second, you'll create a list of your worries and score them according to their intensity.
- Third, you'll gradually expose yourself to your fear to get more comfortable coping with it.
The severity of your illness will determine the number of sessions required to address your concerns. Before beginning treatment, you and your therapist will settle on a specific therapy goal to work on.
Online therapy for anxiety
Accessing help online may save you time and money by avoiding the expense and difficulty of meeting in person. Being in a familiar, comfortable setting might make it easier to discuss your problems honestly. Online counseling can be equally beneficial as a traditional, in-person treatment for many who suffer from anxiety.
Online therapy breaks the geographic barrier, allowing you to seek help from therapists irrespective of their location. Furthermore, online therapy sessions are more convenient because they are easy to schedule. Online therapy also allows you to connect with your therapist over text messages.
Conclusion
Anxiety can make it difficult to function efficiently in your day-to-day life. It may also co-occur with other mental health disorders like depression, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
It’s only wise to seek help and rectify the situation before it affects other important aspects of your life. Online therapy can be a viable treatment option to cope with mental health issues and lead a happy life.
DoMental makes every effort to support you on your road to mental well-being. Our licensed therapists are the best in the business, and our therapy is affordable, accessible, flexible, and, most importantly – tailored to your needs.
