Techniques to control anxiety
Some interesting techniques to control anxiety and solve this problem
Techniques to control anxiety: Anxiety is experienced as something indefinite, without reference. It is a feeling of lack of air, of pinching in the stomach, of uneasiness. Anxiety is the door to diseases such as depression. Specialists teach us guidelines to reduce these levels.
Coping with anxiety
On many occasions, anxiety occurs when we are faced with something we are afraid of. If we know how to recognize what these situations are, we will be able to face them by exposing ourselves to them.
Faced with this option, rejection is immediate, the person suffering from anxiety wants to run away from that moment and not face it, but only in this way can that irrational fear be overcome little by little.
The exposure technique should be done in a staggered way, starting with those that could be considered easier and then moving on to the more complex ones. Imagination plays an important role, you have to be mentalized, put yourself in an imaginary situation before facing this challenge.
The breath
To stand up to it, there are anxiety control techniques based on breathing.
Breathing with the diaphragm: this technique consists of taking air with the lower part of the lungs and not taking air as we usually do.
To know that we are breathing correctly, we must put one hand on the chest and the other on the stomach, so that when taking air, it swells and not the chest. The air is held for a few moments, and then slowly expelled.
This exercise helps to make it less difficult to breathe, although at first it seems to us the opposite. It is an exercise that should be performed daily between 5 and 10 minutes in a position that is comfortable for us (lying down or sitting). As we become more comfortable with breathing, it will be put into practice in other postures such as standing or walking.
The purpose of the exercise is that we can perform it in moments of anxiety in any situation, at work, walking down the street but only when the technique is fully mastered with a lot of practice.
Relaxation
Anxiety generates muscle tension and muscle tension is relieved with relaxation, so practicing this, you get to reduce anxiety levels.
The first thing to learn is to remove muscle tension from every part of our body. The muscles of our face: the forehead, the eyes, the mouth, the neck, the jaw and even the tongue with tension exercises for a few seconds to then release them and thus be relaxed. This must be done with every part of the body: hands, forearms, arms, shoulders, legs and feet.
When this exercise is performed on a regular basis, we begin to detect that parts of our body are tense; it also helps us to relax at home lying on a bed or armchair doing a mental review of the body and removing the tension that we detect in it.
Controlling panic attacks
How to fight and control panic attacks
Control panic attacks: Anxiety is a state of mind that usually announces some anomaly in the person, psychologically and physically. When we are faced with a stressful situation, a little anxiety can come in handy, it even keeps us alert and provides additional energy to complete the tasks that are pending. But sometimes, this anxiety transforms into an irrational fear, panic to something unknown that really only happens in our minds and that can disrupt our lives.
The symptoms that appear before a panic attack are many and diverse, but among the main ones we can mention above all a feeling of suffocation, pressure and pain in the chest, strong heartbeat and accelerated pulse (sometimes accompanied by arrhythmia). Nausea, dizziness and even vomiting, vertigo and disorientation may also be felt. There are people who tremble or shiver, and because of high blood pressure, they feel tingling and numbness of the upper and lower extremities. Likewise, the individual has the feeling of being living alien to reality, as if he were dreaming (or rather inside a nightmare). Above all, he feels lost, empty, afraid to do something out of the ordinary, to die or be injured in some way. The causes why a person can suffer from these attacks are diverse, but mainly it can be due to a chemical imbalance in the body, or a relationship with an unconscious memory, the side effect of a medication or an undetected psychological disorder.
To avoid panic and anxiety attacks, or at least make them reduce, there are a number of simple and practical guidelines that professionals recommend. For example, learning to control worry; it is a daily exercise that would take the individual about thirty minutes, during which he could think about all those issues that concern him, in the same place, at the same time, so that, little by little, he focuses on reality, and then continues to perform his daily tasks. Of course, it is also highly advisable to learn relaxation techniques, be it yoga, muscle or respiratory relaxation. Muscle relaxation for example is very effective, it is about contracting each of the muscles of the body from the feet to the head, relaxing them then. It is also recommended to do some kind of exercise from time to time, because it releases serotonin, which provides a pleasant feeling of well-being, and promotes subsequent rest.
Harmful elements, such as alcoholic beverages and drugs, must be left aside, since they are often the trigger for an anxiety attack by altering the chemical composition of the body. Caffeine is also harmful, as it greatly stimulates the nervous system.
If necessary, you have to go to a specialist to advise on the best technique or treatment to overcome this problem if it occurs persistently. The most important thing is not to self-medicate, since it can lead to an aggravation of the problem and even an overdose if you are not careful in the shots. The drugs used are very dangerous pills that have generated more than one problem for people who take them without a doctor’s prescription.