How to Deal with Chronic Anxiety

Chronic anxiety is a type of worry or fear that builds over time. It may be due to past mistakes or a future concern. Your anxiety may be situational. For example, if you are trying to care for your aging parents while raising your own family, you may experience caregiver stress and anxiety.

You may be unable to pinpoint exactly why you have anxiety. Chronic anxiety lies just below the surface and can make you feel on edge and isolated. Counseling can help you overcome chronic anxiety and discover your triggers. There are also several things you can do to lessen the impact of chronic anxiety.

Self-care tips.

Are you considering talking to your doctor about chronic anxiety but want to get a head start on treatment? The following is a list of several self-care tips that help to reduce anxiety. You may want to tackle each tip for a few days before moving on to the next one to see how it affects your anxiety.

Avoid stimulants.

Stimulants, such as caffeine and sugar, can worsen anxiety symptoms. If you tend to overdo it on coffee and energy drinks, you may feel jittery, lightheaded, dizzy, and have a rapid heart rate. Too much caffeine will also raise your blood pressure, increasing your risk for heart attack or stroke.

Consider cutting back slowly if you cannot imagine getting through a Monday morning without your cup of joe. Try drinking one or two cups instead of three. Or switch to half-caffeine coffee or decaf. Sugar can also worsen symptoms, so start cutting back on how much sugar you ingest.

Avoid alcohol and stop smoking.

As with caffeine, too much alcohol can cause a range of issues in your emotional and mental health. Often, we feel that a glass of wine or a beer will relax us after a stressful day, but it is easy to develop a higher tolerance to alcohol, requiring more to achieve the same effect.

Although we know that smoking is not suitable for our physical health, our brains reward us for providing nicotine by releasing feel-good chemicals. Yet, smoking also contributes to chronic anxiety. You may want to see a counselor for smoking cessation to learn new habits and break the habit.

Exercise consistently.

To use exercise to manage anxiety, consistency is what matters most. Do you tend to exercise for a week straight and then stop for months? You are not alone. Most people exercise for two or three months, then stop for various reasons.

To manage chronic anxiety, you need to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, most days of the week. Try a few of these workouts or mix them up and do a different one each day:

• Weightlifting.
• Walking.
• Jogging.
• Dance.
• Bicycling.
• Spinning.
• Treadmill or Elliptical.
• Pilates.
• Yoga.
• Rebounding or Trampoline.

Even just dancing with your children while making dinner in the kitchen counts. Try splitting up your workouts to give yourself a break. For example, you could lift weights for 30 minutes in the morning before work, take a walk during your lunch break, and practice Pilates before bed.

Practice stress management.

Stress management and relaxation techniques can improve how you manage your anxiety and stressful situations. Deep breathing, meditation, prayer, massage, and stretching are all excellent ways to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). When the PNS is activated, your breathing becomes more relaxed, and your heart rate and blood pressure lower. It also helps your digestive tract digest food, properly decreasing heartburn and acid reflux.

You can learn more about deep breathing techniques and meditation online. Many people use their prayer time to meditate on God’s word, repeating God’s promises back to themselves. Check in your community for places offering massages or stretching classes. Releasing tense muscles can relieve stress and reduce headaches and body aches.

Use food as medicine.

Do you think of food as medicine and fuel? Changing your perspective on food can help you consume less food and choose more nutritious foods. Additives, preservatives, dyes, and different types of sugar can cause chronic inflammation and worsen anxiety.

Choose a healthy food plan to follow as a lifestyle (not a diet). Consider asking for advice from a nutritionist.

Consider counseling for chronic anxiety.

Seeing a counselor for your chronic anxiety is a form of self-care. Most counselors offer face-to-face and virtual sessions to accommodate your needs. They can help root out the meaning behind personal triggers and teach you techniques to lessen chronic anxiety and stop panic attacks.

Contact our office today at Texas Christian Counseling to schedule your initial session with a Christian counselor in Texas.