Are you overwhelmed on a regular basis? Do you feel like you need to know the future? There is a chance that anxiety may be the cause for you feeling this way. It’s estimated that a shocking 32.3 percent of adults report symptoms of anxiety.
Anxiety can cause issues like fatigue, muscle aches, and nausea, but the good news is that you can manage your anxiety by following simple strategies such as identifying your triggers, journaling, talking to a therapist or a supportive friend, and prioritizing your health.
Identify Your Triggers
Knowing your triggers can help you cope with some of the side effects and lower your nervousness. Let’s start with what anxiety is to fully understand what may be causing yours. “Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiety affects us physically, as well as affects our thoughts and behaviors,” says People Sense. Here are some of its more common causes:
- Childhood trauma
- Other mental illnesses
- Inherited traits
- Personality type
- Drugs and alcohol
By understanding the root cause of your anxiety, you can more easily pinpoint what may bring up uneasy feelings for you. Common triggers could include social gatherings, stressful finances, work environments, and conflicts.
Now let’s look at some of the ways to offset bouts of anxiety.
Write in Your Journal
Keeping a journal can bring peace when you feel that everything around you is falling apart. Journaling is a safe and private space where you can get all of your thoughts out. To get the most out of journaling, try to maintain a process. For example, adhering to the following steps has been known to help:
- Write down what is triggering you
- Read and think about your worries
- Think of other outcomes
- Remember your strengths
- Make a plan
- Start preparing
Giving yourself time to think and reflect may help you to eliminate the tendency to overthink things.
Talk to a Therapist or Trusted Friend
Did you know that only 36.9 percent of people suffering from anxiety see a therapist even though anxiety can easily be treated with the help of therapy? It is essential to seek out help early on since anxiety can be more difficult to manage the longer it goes untreated. If you find yourself struggling to make time or feel worried about sharing your feelings in person with someone you don’t know, then consider these additional options:
- Text therapy
- Video chat therapy
- Talking to a trusted friend
Discussing your worries allows you to stop bottling up your emotions and receive guidance from an outside perspective.
Prioritize Your Health
In many cases, prioritizing your health can help reduce symptoms, and anxiety is no different. You can start small, like getting enough rest every night. A study done on 18 participants concluded that “brain scans showed that a brain area called the medial prefrontal cortex was deactivated after a sleepless night. Previous studies have suggested that this brain area attenuates anxiety and stress.”
While we are talking about getting your health on track, here are just a few foods to include in your diet that Harvard Health Publishing recommends for reducing symptoms of anxiety:
- Foods rich in B vitamins
- Foods rich in zinc
- Asparagus
- Foods naturally rich in magnesium
It’s true that maintaining a healthy lifestyle can make a world of difference when it comes to managing feelings of anxiety. It can be the missing piece to feeling more in control of your emotions.
Anxiety can be difficult to manage by yourself, so make sure you have a therapist or trusted friend to help you along the way as you navigate through your journey of identifying triggers, journaling, talking with friends and professionals, and maintaining your health.
A version of this article was published by The Daily Herald. It has been republished here with permission.
