Where are just some of the many alternative options to taking anti anxiety drugs, and they don’t cost a thing. One of the homeopathic techniques that people use to fight anxiety is laughter therapy. With so many bad things on the news, stresses on the job and all, you really need at least a good hour of laughter. A really good way to do this is to pick an evening sit com or two to watch on a regular basis. It will have to be something you can get into, otherwise it won’t be funny. You can also spend regular time watching funny movies.

You can find laughter in many places, on video, in the media, or even in print. A daily dose of laughter can relieve a lot of stress. Another way to relieve anxiety is to just deal with what you have control over, like your job, or your home or how you relate to people, and stop worrying about things that you have no control over. Sure there are many things all over the world to worry about, but you can’t do anything about it, so stop worrying about it. One way you can do this is too take both thumbs and touch the other fingers one at a time, going back and forth faster and faster. It is important to make sure you are touching each one, with gentle taps on each one. The next thing you know you will have forgotten about the worry.

These next techniques have been used for thousands of years not only to help promote a healthy mind, but body as well. Meditation, and deep breathing exercises work really well to cut down on anxiety levels, and help calm the body. Many may say ‘I don’t have time to meditate or do breathing exercises.’ The answer to that excuse is that this is exactly why you have stress and anxiety, is that you don’t have time for anything. In order to do any of these things effectively, you have to choose to do them. Same goes for any other natural remedy or medication.

It isn’t really hard to do a simple deep breathing and meditation technique. Sit in a quiet room in a comfortable chair. You don’t want to be so comfortable that you will fall asleep, just rested and relaxed. Now you can either have total quiet, or you can listen to some prerecorded music or environmental sounds, like the ocean breaking waves, or a babbling brook, whatever is good for you. You don’t want any music that is upbeat, has a lot of bass, or vocals.

Close your eyes, taking a deep breath, in slowly but steadily in through your nose, gently out through your mouth. Just spend the first few minutes doing this, then envision yourself sitting at the edge of a pond, and the pebbles you can see in it are stress, at work, or worried thoughts. One by one remove them from the pool, also removing them from your mind. Once empty, stay like that for another few minutes. This can also be a time, to put pebbles that represent new and different ideas can be programmed in as well. Spend at least 10-15 minutes doing this every day.

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The number of people who need an anxiety therapy has increased dramatically since the late 1990s and more and more doctors are seeing patients who complain of anxiety and seek help.  Anxiety has become a significant health problem among adults and by most accounts is getting worse.  This means that there is a rise in anxiety medication use.  Pharmaceutical companies are raking in the cash as doctors write the prescriptions and patients scramble to get the meds.  But is this really the best way?  Is there a better way to manage your anxiety without using mind numbing medications and prescriptions that have unsavory side effects?  Actually, you can manage your anxiety yourself and be drug free.  Before you reach for the drugs, try these five simple things.

Establish a Good Support System

Employ the help of your family and friends to be there for you. Find a couple of people who are close to you who can “talk you down” when your anxiety rises. They can talk to you or just listen when you need them. If crowds upset you, you can have someone in your support system accompany you when you go shopping. This does not mean that you find people to do the things for you that you don’t want to do for yourself. You don’t need enablers, you need support. They should be there to help you, not do it for you. Make sure that you, and they, know the difference.

Simplify Your Life

One of the best things that you can do to ease your anxiety is learn to say no. Don’t overextend yourself. When you have too many things on your plate, you tend to stress yourself out. Make your life as simple as possible. Go to bed early, get enough sleep, eat well, and live simply. Take a look at the things that you are doing right now. What can you do to make your life easier? Can you carpool instead of driving to work? That would give you some time that you don’t have to drive and would save some money. If you have children, you can have them help you with the cleaning and the cooking. Don’t do it all, you can’t.

Take Time for You

Take time for yourself. Take a hot bath, read a good book, or go for a walk. Do things that make you feel relaxed. Make yourself feel good. Eat at least three healthy meals a day, don’t skip meals. It is best if you can eat three meals and two or three healthy snacks a day. Try spacing your meals out about two and a half hours apart. This will keep your blood sugar stable and help to keep you anxiety under control. This is just a simple thing, a simple way to take good care of yourself, but it is so very effective.

Remember to Breathe

Breathing regularly will help keep you stable and your anxiety low. Many people, when they feel anxiety creeping up, will hold their breath or breathe shallowly. This depletes the brain of oxygen as well as the organs, putting your body under stress. This, in turn, will increase your anxiety. Try deep breathing when you begin to feel anxious. Sit up straight, close your eyes and breathe. Breathe in through your nose, deeply, and out through your mouth as if you are blowing out a candle.

Find Self Comfort Techniques

Different people respond to different things and find comfort in them. Some people carry a “worry rock,” a smooth stone that they rub when they feel anxious. Others use emotional freedom technique (EFT) and others meditate. Find out what comforts you and don’t be afraid to use it when your anxiety begins to rise. This will last far longer and have no side effects. You can manage your anxiety yourself.

When it comes down to it, “anxiety therapy” means anything that helps lessen the life changing affects of out-of-control anxiety.  It doesn’t have to be expensive weekly trips to your doctor’s office.  It doesn’t have to be a permanent regiment of medication.  Sometimes, all you need is a guideline to follow, and you can regain your life yourself.

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Sometimes it’s hard to figure out your anxiety cause or causes.  It comes, at the worst possible times, and wreaks havoc on your life and much of the time you just don’t know why.  While some people do have chemical imbalances in the brain or genetic disorders that contribute to anxiety, most times a person’s anxiety is due to things that they can control.  See if you are doing any of these things.  If so, maybe it is time to make some changes in your life.  Think about these common causes of anxiety and then take inventory in your own life.

Stress

Are you “stressed out?” Do you have a lot of pressure from work, family, marriage, or school?  Does it ever seem like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done or do you feel like you are chasing your tail?  Stress will kill you. Look for ways that you can alleviate your stress.  It may mean that you have to say “no” sometimes.  It may mean that you have to give up some projects.  It may mean that you have to admit to yourself that you can’t do it all.

Fatigue

Lack of adequate sleep will wreak havoc on your body and your mind.  When you are fatigued and tired, you will feel more anxious.  Adults should have between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night.  Children and teenagers should get even more.  Figure out how much sleep you need, and start getting it.  Even if you have been going to sleep after 11 p.m. for years, you may need to change.  Your body may need to start sleep at 8 p.m. so it can wake at 5 a.m.  Try going to bed earlier for a couple of weeks and see how you feel each morning.

Poor Diet

Poor diet is a hallmark anxiety cause.  Skipping meals, not eating regularly, eating processed foods, or foods high in sugar will cause your anxiety to skyrocket.  If you want to manage your anxiety more effectively, you need to take a hard look at your diet.  Stop skipping meals and eat breakfast.  Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and stay away from processed foods.  Avoid sugar and caffeine.  Blueberries are a natural mood lifter.  When you are feeling stressed, grab a handful of blueberries and have a quick snack.

Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem can cause your anxiety to get out of control when you are put in certain situations.  If you feel inadequate or feel that you can’t do something, your anxiety will increase.  If you have low self-esteem, you may feel that people don’t accept you.  This can open you to a whole world of anxious moments.

Social Insecurity

Social insecurity can cause tremendous anxiety moments.  If you are shy, or the proverbial “wall flower,” being in social situations can be quite stressful.  Being an introvert can also cause you to be anxious.  While this is not necessarily social insecurity, it is an aversion to social situations.  People who are introverts will walk away from social gatherings feeling stressed and exhausted.

Ultimately, take stock of your own life and start thinking of all the controllable factors that help cause your anxiety.  Making some simple changes in your life may not completely eliminate your anxious moments, but it is definitely a necessary first step in the right direction.

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“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” –Benjamin Franklin

If you have constant anxiety, you probably just want an anxiety cure.  After all, we all just want to be happy, don’t we?  I haven’t met one person in my life that didn’t want to be happier.  Have you?  Well, wanting to be happy means something completely different when you have chronic anxiety when happiness sometimes feels like an impossible goal.  All you really want to do is cure your anxiety.  Banish your fear.  Eliminate your worry.  But an anxiety cure?  Can you cure your anxiety?

The fact is every human in this world has anxiety, fear, worry in their life (some more than others). But that’s not all. There are tens of millions of people who suffer moderate to severe anxiety—anxiety that interferes with their lives.

Now, you don’t cure anxiety like cure athlete’s foot. Anxiety is an emotion; eliminating anxiety would be like eliminating sadness, or eliminating happiness. Anxiety can serve a good purpose. In many circumstances having a “gut feeling” or “having a bad feeling” is incredibly valuable. An “anxiety cure” isn’t about eliminating anxiety, it’s about make it so anxiety doesn’t trap you.

So if you were going to “cure anxiety” how can you make your moments of anxiety, fear, and worry less frequent? How can you function normally most of the time?

Anxiety Solves Nothing

Well, the first thing is to realize that most of the time anxiety doesn’t make solutions. It is a fear about something that may or may not happen in the future. Often it is arbitrary or extreme: “If I make a fool out of myself in public I will surely die of shame.” Realistically, I’m pretty sure no one has literally died of shame. Doesn’t make the fear not extremely real, but don’t look to it for answers to problems.

Avoid Active Negativity

The trouble to most of us is that we don’t count the blessings around us; our loving family, our caring friends, a comfortable bed, a nice house, and a stomach that can eat three times a day. We tend to focus on the negative (one study suggested that about 80% of all American speech is negative; “this weather sucks,” “I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday,” I’m bored.”) When you have an anxiety disorder, always focusing on the negative keeps your anxiety ready to explode. Positive thinking won’t eliminate your anxious moments, but can you see how negative thinking makes them certain?

Spend Time with Close Family and Friends

For a lot of us this is easier said than done. Social situations are often the #1 cause of anxiety, shame, and panic attacks. Any social interaction, even with close friends, might be something that you fear. But for some reason, when you discuss your anxiety and worry with someone you trust, it unburdens it. It helps release it. Now, when you talk about your anxiety don’t try to get pity, you don’t need that. Don’t be too negative, it’ll bring them down. Just discuss your anxiety problems as a matter-of-fact part of your life. You don’t even need advice for it, the discussion will make you feel normal (and isn’t that what most of us crave?).

Relax!

One other way to treat your anxiety is by relaxing (I know, easier said than done). You know how focusing on negative thoughts makes anxiety almost certain? Well, if you have anxiety problems, a tense, tired, and unhealthy body makes it almost certain too. There are millions of ways to relax and get healthy, you just need to choose a few and follow through. You can meditate, do yoga, stretch, take a long hot bath, pray, have quiet time alone, or get massaged. Possibly most important, you need a long, good night sleep since exhaustion is a breeding ground for anxiety. You know what else helps your body relax? Strangely enough, it’s daily exercise, a healthy diet and avoiding caffeine, alcohol and drugs. Let me make it clear that if you have intense fear or worry, or an anxiety attack, alcohol and drugs are pretty much the worst ways to fix the problem. Beside negative health implications, they just don’t help anything and most of the time makes it worse.

If you are looking for an anxiety cure, you won’t find a silver bullet to cure everything immediately. Don’t trust anything that says it can. But if you’re someone who just has some stress related anxiety, these techniques will help; if you’re someone who has severe chronic anxiety, these techniques will also help. But if you have severe chronic anxiety, these methods will probably not be a “cure.” If you’re suffering, you may need to see your physician or therapist. Either way, a great first step toward conquering anxiety is to realize that you don’t need to completely “cure” anxiety, rather you need to make it so you can live your life without being controlled by it.

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Top Three Places to Find Anxiety Support

When you have constant anxiety it’s easy to feel alone, isn’t it?  You feel like you need some anxiety support, but you don’t know where to look.  They say there are millions of other people going through the exact same thing as you, but if they are, they’re hiding it.  Well, both of those things are true.  Let me ask you—do you hide your anxiety or do you talk about it openly with other people?

Most people with phobias, or panic attacks, or regular anxiety try to keep it to themselves.  Much of that is driven by shame: “What will they think of me if they knew?  I’m embarrassed.”  Sometimes you simple don’t want to burden anybody else.  Well, one of the most effective ways to manage your anxiety is to seek out anxiety support.  A support structure will help you up when you fall and make you feel loved and normal.

Family

Often the best place to look for anxiety support is your family.  When you’re burdened by anxiety reach out to the family members you trust the most—your mom or dad, siblings, grandparents—and have a conversation to them about your anxiety.  I’ve heard of people doing this only to have the family member say that they have had bad anxiety too.  Keep this in mind, though.  The purpose of this is twofold: 1) to get your anxiety out in the open and stop hiding it from the world, and 2) to gain a person you can rely on to be there when you’re in need.  Accordingly, don’t make your anxiety burden theirs.  Don’t expect them to be able to take on your problems and fix them for you.  But the act of getting it out in the open can be very powerful if you haven’t before.

Friends

There is nothing like a good friend for support.  Most people have a handful of friends that they trust with their life—trust them with your anxiety.  But opening up to friends is different than opening up to family most of the time.  You tend to care more about what friends think than family.  If your family thinks your weird, well, your family thinks everyone’s weird…  Friends, on the other hand, could possibly choose to stop being friends with you.  Here’s the thing, if you keep from burdening your buddies with your emotional problems, they are going to be happy to listen and help however they can.  Virtually everyone would be okay having a casual conversation with a good friend about anxiety problems.  So long as you don’t ask them to pity you or ask them to solve your problems, you’ll have a good pillar of support as you continue to manage your anxiety.

Yourself

The most important place to find anxiety support is in you.  I know, that’s corny and cliché, but hear me out.  Ultimately, you will be the deciding factor in managing or treating your anxiety.  Medicines aren’t a cure-all, and even if they were, you’d have the responsibility to take them consistently and responsibly.  Therapists aren’t a cure-all, and even if they were, you have to show up and consistently work on their professional advice or tips in your everyday life.  If you cannot start supporting yourself, you can’t expect anyone to do it for you.  So let me take this moment to empower you.  You have the ability to start managing your anxiety right now.  You can start a daily journal where you discuss your challenges with anxiety and then analyze where they come from and what you’re going to do about it.  Just like with your family and your friends, the process of getting your feeling out of you and into the open can be incredibly liberating.

I promise you, the worst thing you can do when you have constant anxiety, fear, and worry is to keep it bottled up inside.  It’s like shaking a Coke can—it looks fine on the outside, but when it finally opens up, it explodes.

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