Image Credit: Nancy Perkins
A person undergoing anxiety is never fun to be around with. Have you ever had a person talk endlessly about his problems every single minute? They can’t help it and do not know how to handle stress very well. At some point in your life, you may have also experienced stress. When stress is not managed properly, this could easily lead to anxiety. It does not only rob you of joy but makes you physically incapacitated, as well. Is work giving you a lot of trouble lately? Are the other members of the family giving you a headache? You may already be experiencing anxiety without you able to properly diagnose it. To beat the common blues that life usually gives us, here are some tips that could help you cope better.
Laugh it All Out
Doctor’s may be right when people say that laughter is the best medicine. Try this exercise. If you are feeling the blues creeping in on you, go in front of a mirror. Force yourself to smile. Notice how the forced smile suddenly becomes genuine after a few moments? Your body has tricked your mind into a state of happiness. Instead of the brain dictating the body what to do, this process is reversed in this exercise. Happy moods can easily make you forget about your day’s worries. Put down your hair and let people laugh it all out with you.
Think Without Thinking
Have you tried not thinking about your problems, but instead, end up thinking about it some more? Think of it this way. Do you have a bad habit you can’t live without like eating a little bit too much when you are stressed? Have you tried telling yourself but before the day ended, you ate more food than yesterday? It’s because you mulled over the idea until you can no longer bear the thought of not doing it anyway. Try this exercise. Say this to yourself. “I will not think of dirty cockroaches in the kitchen” over and over again. What happened next? You thought about dirty cockroaches some more, right?
Look at it From a Different Perspective
Our problems seem so gigantic according to our perspective. There is the worry that you cannot hit your goals. You think that these will never be resolved. We usually look at our problems in a subjective manner. People are feeling, emotional and thinking beings. However, when you are under stress, you tend to use your emotional self rather than your logical self when looking at your problems. Try this exercise. See your situation from a third person perspective. You are just a spectator and not the person involved in the situation. It’s amazing how your problems are dwarfed from another person’s viewpoint that you no longer see this as so much of a big problem at all, isn’t it?
Breathe In, Breathe Out
When under too much stress, your emotions are not the only ones that are being played up. You also experience physical symptoms of anxiety such as shallow breathing and increased heartbeat. If not properly controlled, this could easily heighten the feeling of anxiety. To help reverse symptoms of anxiety, purposely control your breathing. Make yourself imitate your breathing pattern when under normal situations. This will trick your body that everything is all right.
Consult an Expert
There are some people who fail to manage anxiety on their own. Instead of battling this feeling all the time, seek professional help before this gets worse. Use your IP PBX at the office and look for a qualified psychiatrist or psychologist. Talking to an expert will give you better ways to deal with stressful situations. They could also help recommend other self-help strategies or prescribe medicine to control feelings of anxiety.
