How to get rid of anxiety at home
We are confronted with anxious thoughts every day, and there is nothing to worry about. But if anxiety interferes with life and affects well-being, it must be fought. We will discuss with psychologists what threatens increased anxiety and how to get rid of it.

Anxiety is a normal reaction of our body to a real danger.1. But sometimes anxiety becomes excessive and arises for any reason. This condition prevents you from enjoying life and can cause physical and mental illness.

Together with our experts, we figured out how to get rid of anxiety at home with the help of simple practices. We also found out what threatens increased anxiety and what symptoms indicate that it is time to see a doctor.

10 Best Ways to Get Rid of Anxiety

Increased anxiety occurs in response to extreme situations and ordinary life troubles – fire, financial crisis, physical illness or conflict with others1. But it also happens that a sense of anxiety haunts prosperous and seemingly self-confident people.

Our experts have suggested 10 effective ways to get rid of anxiety. However, they emphasized that each case requires an individual approach, and successful treatment of anxiety begins with a consultation with a psychologist.

1. Body practices

Lack of physical activity disrupts the metabolism and negatively affects the mental state. Therefore, with increased anxiety, bodily practices are very useful – yoga, dancing, martial arts and any physical exercises. They help the body produce “hormones of happiness” and distract from disturbing thoughts.

2. Meditation

Meditation allows you to be alone with yourself, your body and emotions. With the help of meditative exercises, you can “slow down” – break out of the circle of obsessive fears, discover the source of internal energy and find harmony.

3. Five-therapy

Communication with pets can restore peace of mind and prevent depression. For pet therapy, you do not need to specially train the animal – a friendly attitude towards the person and emotional contact between the pet and the owner are enough. The best pet therapists are dogs, dolphins, horses, cats, rabbits and birds.

4. Mindful eating

People with increased anxiety often go to extremes – they practically refuse food or eat too much, “jamming” with stress. A conscious attitude to nutrition and cooking will help to change the situation. One of the easiest ways to learn mindfulness is to peel and eat an ordinary tangerine. You need to do everything slowly, being aware of each action, enjoying the bright color, pleasant smell and juicy taste of citrus. This exercise perfectly helps to activate sensory channels and return to reality, which is so lacking for anxious people.

5. Keeping a diary

People with increased anxiety will benefit from keeping a diary of emotions. You need to track your own feelings and experiences and fix them on paper. Possible diary format: description of the event and reactions to it. It is recommended to record any reactions:

  • bodily – how breathing and heartbeat have changed;
  • emotional – what feelings arose in response to the event;
  • mental – what thoughts appeared.

After some time, the records need to be re-read. This will help to understand how reactions change and awareness grows. It is very important to praise and reward yourself for personal growth and development.

Many people find it difficult to recognize their feelings and emotions at first. To help them, psychologists give a kind of visual aids – a “wheel” or “chamomile” of emotions. So it will be easier for a person to understand what he feels during the day, week, month and other time interval.

6. Drawing

Drawing does not require artistic abilities and skills, a sheet of paper, a felt-tip pen or paints is enough. A good therapeutic effect can be achieved by drawing mandalas – geometric symbols of complex structure. You can do this – draw a circle on paper, and then fill it with geometric elements and ornaments. Or you can do it easier – buy an album with a set of mandalas and color them.

7. Singing

As in the case of drawing, creativity is not required here. You can sing anything, up to a set of sounds: A-O-U-S. It is very useful to sing in nature and in the shower, imagining that you merge with the trees, water, air and everything that surrounds you. This exercise perfectly helps to relax and find inner harmony.

8. Reading

It is most useful to read familiar and favorite text. It doesn’t matter if it’s poetry or prose. You need to read carefully, considering every sentence and every word.

9. Letter

This technique helps a lot in times of acute crisis experiences. Exercise should be done in the morning. You need to take your favorite pen and a blank sheet of paper, put a glass of water with lemon next to you and start writing literally everything, without thinking about the meaning and style of presentation. Attention should be directed to the center of the chest and to the hand that prints the letters on a piece of paper. Psychologists recommend writing at least 2-3 pages at a time.

10. Medicines

In some cases, you can not do without drugs. Antidepressants and neuroleptics are commonly used to treat anxiety disorders.2. Antidepressants stabilize mood and help get rid of “emotional swings”2. Antipsychotics have a calming effect, normalize sleep, improve memory and attention2. However, any medications can be taken only as directed by a doctor after a comprehensive examination.

Psychologist tips for getting rid of anxiety

Increased anxiety is a companion of many modern people. Therefore, the question of how to get rid of anxiety does not lose its relevance. One of the “culprits” of anxiety disorders, psychologists consider the information noise around us. Experts tell how to reduce dependence on the information field:

  • learn news only from those sources that you trust 100%;
  • do not read the news every hour, but give this activity a maximum of 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon, 3-4 hours before bedtime;
  • periodically arrange “days of silence”, during which not to view the media and social networks.

To get rid of anxiety at home, you can try the techniques of behavioral therapy, which teaches you to think rationally and control your emotional state. You can start by answering a few questions:

  • How objective is the cause of my anxiety? With increased anxiety, the reason is usually far-fetched, and the person deep down understands this.
  • How do anxious thoughts help me? An honest answer allows you to realize that mentally scrolling through the causes of anxiety does not help to control the situation.
  • What will I do if what I fear happens? If you paint possible scenarios, you can make sure that there is always a way out.

It is very useful to allow yourself to worry “by the clock.” To do this, you need to set a timer for a certain period of time, from 10 minutes to an hour. After the first beep of the timer, you start thinking about disturbing topics and stop doing so after the second beep.

Popular questions and answers

Our experts – gestalt therapist Elena Masolova, psychologist Yulia Orlova, family psychologist Dmitry Sobolev and psychologist Natalia Kaurova – answer popular questions and tell how to quickly relieve anxiety at home.

When should you see a doctor for anxiety?

– You need to see a doctor if you are in a state of stress most of the time and cannot concentrate on work, communication with loved ones, household chores. It is also necessary to consult a specialist if your appetite has been disturbed, you have lost rest and sleep, your thoughts “rush at a gallop”, and your movements are chaotic. These symptoms are a good reason to consult a psychotherapist. The doctor will select therapy and, if necessary, refer to other narrow specialists: endocrinologist, cardiologist, gastroenterologist.

What happens if you live with a constant sense of anxiety?

– In response to anxiety, our body produces “stress hormones” – adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol. In an acute stressful situation, these hormones are useful because they make us think and act faster.1. However, with increased anxiety, hormones begin to be produced constantly, which disrupts the normal functioning of internal organs.1. The result can be diseases of the thyroid gland, heart, liver and kidneys.1. People with high levels of anxiety often suffer from overweight, depression, memory and attention disorders.1.

How to quickly relieve anxiety?

-First, open a window or go outside for fresh air, because the lack of oxygen increases the feeling of anxiety. Drink a glass of water, because dehydration also increases anxiety. After that, you can do a simple breathing exercise: first, a short breath through the nose, and then a long exhalation through the mouth, it is possible with some kind of sound. To calm down, you need to repeat the inhale / exhale cycle 3-5 times.

Another practice will help to stabilize the emotional state. Slowly say out loud what your name is, how old you are, what date it is today, and where you are. Then talk about the objects that are in the room and outside it. When we list aloud everything that we see, we return from the fictional scary world to the reality that surrounds us. Here I see a white chair, a brown wooden table, on it is a black laptop, a blue mouse, a green pen with a button, a maple branch outside the window, a gray bird – presumably a thrush, and so on. This helps to reconnect with the real world and calm down.

Sources:

  1. Generalized anxiety disorder and symptoms of anxiety in general medical practice. Russian Medical Journal No. 22, 2004
  2. Anxiety disorders in adults. Russian Society of Psychiatrists. Clinical guidelines 2016. https://clck.ru/dY4o5

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