Table of contents:
- Exercise
- Sleeping and eating habits
- Deceleration
- Activity planning
- Pharmacological help
- Relaxation techniques
- Manual activities
- Sexuality
- Social activity
Rating: 5 (1 vote) 1 comment By José Luis Catalán. March 15, 2018
Once the anxiety problem is detected, it is necessary to fight so that it does not make a dent in our day to day life. It is important to be able to relax or, at least, keep a state away from anxiety attacks. To do this, in this PsicologíaOnline article, we will offer Techniques to reduce anxiety.
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- Sleeping and eating habits
- Deceleration
- Activity planning
- Pharmacological help
- Relaxation techniques
- Manual activities
- Sexuality
- Social activity
Exercise
Proper exercise helps us to tone muscles, avoiding both stiffness and excessive activation of the nervous system, promoting a healthy fatigue that promotes restful sleep and calms excess musings and rumination.
If our physical state is unfortunate (we have symptoms such as dizziness, vertigo, nausea) and we cannot tolerate intense exercise, we can choose to distribute it in small fragments throughout the day and start at a very gentle pace until we gain enough well-being to address efforts of greater substance.
It is preferable to practice a playful sport that we like or have enjoyed in the past, since incidentally it will provide us with greater satisfaction than cold and heavy gymnastics.
Sleeping and eating habits
The overexertion that comes with a disorderly life carries a weight of its own as a stressor in the overall result of excessive anxiety.
Not a few people have become accustomed to a chaotic diet and too tight or irregular sleep schedules, which as long as their strength allows it, seem at first glance to have no negative consequences (by the way, it is the same argument that leads to start smoking, because it seems, in the early years, that the habit does not present any harm or annoyance that veteran smokers complain about).
Regulating sleep, so that it is sufficient and that the body finds relief in being able to adapt to a systematic routine, can help reduce tension.
A varied and not very heavy diet favors the control of many gastric symptoms that are favored in a state of anxiety (diarrhea, constipation, gas, stomach discomfort, etc). Many people detect their degree of anguish by the sensations that it produces in their stomach, others by the sensations of dizziness in the morning: it is not convenient for them to be complicated with an inadequate diet.
A high degree of anxiety influences that the moment of falling asleep is more difficult because bursts of thoughts appear in the mind that keep us awake or we dedicate ourselves, at the moment that we would have to rest, to tire ourselves with heavy examinations of conscience and arduous preparations for the next day. The result is that we steal time from sleep because our state is too fragile to withstand these provocations.
It would be advisable that while we cannot regain the ability to fall asleep quickly, we help ourselves by choosing a different time for reflections and planning for the day we leave it for the next morning. In return we will relax thinking pleasant things or reading an article of those that induce us to fall asleep. If we are more than 15 'stirring between the sheets without being able to sleep, instead of making us bad blood, it is preferable to get up and continue reading the heavy article or watching a boring television program until we notice that our eyelids are heavy and then we return to the bed.
The anxious person can easily be tortured by the fact that if they find it hard to fall asleep they will have difficulty staying clear the next day and are tormented by the idea that waking time is approaching. It is better in this circumstance to consider that if one has to sleep a few hours it is better to accept it than because of insisting, protesting or complaining to sleep even less. Neither your condition the next day will be so regrettable, nor can you think - unless you become obsessed with the fact that the process repeats itself fatefully - that your own body will struggle to recover in the following days.
The same anticipation or fear that we may not sleep well can cause us to sleep poorly (in the same way that the fear of being assaulted by a razor in a dark alley causes us not to walk quietly through that place). We must remember to fall asleep is something passive, not something that we do with a lot of effort of will and that we provoke with the whip of the phrase "I have to sleep!", Therefore the method to get sleep to come, without being scared seeing the panorama of how we expect it, is to do nothing, not even think about it, simply living the day well (so that restlessness does not ask us for last-minute consolations), and end the night well with neutral activities (not too exciting not too unpleasant).
Deceleration
Faced with a stressful situation, a certain reduction in our aspirations is imposed. We cannot force the march so that more things fit in the same period of time, and we must select with relevance criteria, trying to delegate or postpone the rest.
Even if we manage to reduce the amount, we can be so accelerated that we go with the same haste and speed as when we were busy, leaving gaps of sudden inactivity like someone who devours the food on the plane at a glance and passes the rest of the food nervous waiting for the others to finish.
To slow down means to slow down all our movements by forcing a "walking speed", betting on delighting ourselves with the perfection and polish of what we are carrying out (for example, write with very good handwriting, select words, expand sentences by going into detail and considerations, review work, or make small creative improvements).
The sensations of emptiness must be filled with something that helps us not to get unhinged in the face of that unbearable fissure, paying careful attention to what surrounds us, observing well Shelock Holmes where I am, how is the person with whom I am, playing to create something fun, entertaining and relaxed to offer enjoyment to the time that passes and thus to pass becomes a living.
Activity planning
The wisdom and cunning when planning our activities is another tool very convenient to lower tensions, knowing interject appropriate breaks to relieve dela growth anxiety or changing the type of task to a softer or bearable, to regain good mood and face the harshness of the day with energies always left over instead of weak.
We must not forget that at the end of the day we have to satisfy different needs and not neglect them is a way of harmonizing ourselves, spending time with friends, our readings, music and personal pleasures, having moments of affective contact. Being the different I's that we are, we review and strengthen the skeleton and the fabric that supports us.
Pharmacological help
If the symptoms of anxiety or the consequences reported in psychosomatic disorders (those in which stress is a risk factor, trigger or aggravating factor) are too unpleasant or disabling, we can resort to pharmacological help.
Sedatives and anxiolytics can be of great help, especially if we give them a modest supportive role, putting our interest and firm intention to change bad habits, eliminate the causes that produce anxiety and learn to improve our emotional control.
It is insufficient and dangerous to consider tranquilizers as a drug that gives us relief to continue doing the same thing we were doing, but without unpleasant consequences (something like if someone asked the doctor for a medicine for stomach pain in order to continue binge eating. your craving).
Relaxation techniques
Relaxation, breathing and yoga exercises are as powerful as a drug, although somewhat more laborious. It can be a good investment to learn these techniques because they will not only be useful to face the present moment, but they will help us to take care of ourselves against the stresses that the future brings.
Manual activities
Manual activities are very convenient for people who have intellectual anxieties and concerns. Artistic and DIY hobbies make us come into contact with simple objects and soften us, causing us to sink our roots into reality. Enjoying nature has a similar beneficial effect.
People whose stress has a physical origin (unstoppable bustle, fluttering children, intense physical efforts, brutalizing mechanical operations, etc.) are rather interested in the opposite, leaving the body parked and making the spirit work with things that stimulate intelligence (not that stun, such as stretching on the sofa and watching television for hours), such as a learning activity (languages, computers, short course) or an associative activity (apa, neighborhood, NGO, etc.) or play.
Sexuality
If you have a partner, it is convenient to pay attention and use it, since we have it, trying to cultivate mutual attraction. The sex satisfactory (prevent them becoming demanding, compulsive or routine) have a very beneficial effect to scare accumulated tensions. It may be a good time to improve communication and the art of loving.
Social activity
Increasing social life, bonding, participating in conversations, informal get-togethers, and cultivating friendship are positive and commendable ideas in and of themselves and should not be put aside thinking that "withdrawal" and isolation will reassure us more (the idea of spa on a lost mountain).
Indeed, there is a form of relaxation that is to simplify (lie down, not see anyone, do nothing, get confused with things that do not complicate our lives) and there is another form of relaxation that comes from satisfaction and encouragement, from having bothered do something with a certain quality, having become interested in others and in the external world (the idea that the world around us is a spa).
It is particularly convenient to calm oneself through the bond with the affective, with the vitalizing contact with the people around us, from the neighbor to our partner or family.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Techniques to lower anxiety, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical Psychology.