How much time do you spend with your stomach in a knot and your mind in a frenzy? Are you the type of person that always goes from thought to thought and action to action, keeping your brain fully engaged and unable to slow down – even for a second? If so, you may be doing some serious damage to your body.
It’s one thing to have moments of anxiety, such as with an upcoming test or stressful event, but when you have tension in your life from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed at night, day in and day out you are going to feel it. It’s like living in a whirlwind that just won’t let up.
Symptoms of anxiety
If you don’t relieve your anxiousness on a regular basis, you’ll likely suffer from some of the following troublesome symptoms:
- Trouble concentrating
- Unable to relax
- Difficulty sleeping
- Feeling lethargic throughout the day
- Headaches
- Muscle aches
- Irritability
Well, how many were you able to check off? Unfortunately, if you’re like a lot of people, probably quite a few. In this fast paced, high demand world it’s not hard to feel like you’re in over your head on a regular basis.
How to get relief
If you have symptoms of anxiety more often than you’d care to realize, then maybe it’s time you start to reduce the amount of anxiety you carry on your shoulders every day. Work towards resolving your nervousness and worry so that it doesn’t start to take its toll on your health.
Here are seven ways to begin that process today:
1. Spend some time in quietness
Sometimes all you need to do is give your mind a moment to relax. Shut it off and take a break from everything that is happening in life. Turn off the phone, shut down the computer, quiet the room and just be.
If you’re into meditation or focused breathing, this helps a lot. It soothes your body and allows it to rejuvenate and heal itself. It gives it a moment of peace and quiet so it can regroup and you can look at life through bright new eyes.
Aim for some alone time daily for maximum relief from anxiety. It may feel strange at first if you’re used to running around and doing, doing doing; but you’ll soon look forward to the few moments you get when you can just exist without feeling pulled in several different directions.
2. Stop “What If” statements
Worry can zap you of any life you have in your body (and mind). It keeps your brain in a panic-like state as you try to come up with every possible scenario to every potential situation. You want to be ready for anything and everything that may head your way so you “what if” all day long.
Here’s the reality: most of the things you worry about will never come to pass so you’re wasting your precious time and energy on situations that won’t ever become real. Imagine that you’ve done all that fretting over nothing. Seems like a waste, doesn’t it? Yes, because it is.
Let go of “what if” statements. They really serve no purpose other than to keep your mind focused on what may possibly go wrong, meaning you’re going to miss what may possibly go right.
3. Stay in the present
When you spend a majority of your time thinking about what may happen in the future or reliving what has happened in the past, it’s easy to get yourself all worked up. You create the anxious responses in your body just as if you are right there and fully engaged in whatever has you in a dither.
Why do that to yourself? It’s bad enough to go through stressful, anxiety provoking situations once, but to put yourself through them time and time again? It does nothing helpful for you.
If you notice that your thoughts keep straying to tomorrow or yesterday, bring them back to today. Stay focused on what you’re doing in the present moment and you’ll instantly feel a tension release that is sure to relax your body and mind.
4. Believe in yourself
A lot of anxiety happens when you don’t believe that you’ll handle a situation correctly or that you’ll be faced with something too big to accomplish. This creates a fear that you’ll do the wrong thing or not live up to other’s expectations. It’s no wonder you get anxious.
But, you really need to give yourself more credit. You are capable of handling whatever comes your way. Don’t believe that?
Think back to a time when you had a lot of strength and courage and made it through a difficult situation or event, even though you didn’t think you could at the time. If you did it then, surely you can do it again.
5. Focus on the positive aspects of your life
Your energy will go wherever you direct it. So, if you spend a majority of your time thinking or worrying about the negative things that have happened or will happen, then that is where your mind is going to stay.
Instead of concentrating on areas that are difficult in your life, focus on areas that are good. Choose things that you are thankful for or feel blessed by. Maybe you have good health or perhaps you make enough money to pay the bills. It could be that you have a supportive and loving family.
The more gratitude you have for all of the wonderful things that are happening for you, the less anxious you will feel. You’ll replace the stress and worry with feelings of happiness and contentment because you know you have a lot of great things going for you.
6. Have faith it will all work out
Faith is easy when things are going good, but not so much so when you feel like life is bleak. It’s easy to get sucked into the mentality that things are never going to change and you’ll be in the same spot twenty years from now as you are today. It can be very discouraging.
However, chances are good that if you look back through your life, you’ll be able to pinpoint times when you thought that life wasn’t going to improve, yet it did. Something happened for you that turned things around and sent you in a new and even better direction.
You need to have faith that the same thing will happen now. Everything happens for a reason so accept life for what it is because you’re exactly where you’re meant to be to be able to progress to the next level.
7. Look forward to future opportunities
One of the most anxiety provoking events is change. When you get thrown into a new world with new actions and new surroundings, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and overtaken with fear and worry. Because change happens all the time regardless of if you’re ready or not, altering your perception of it is going to make your life much easier.
Instead of dreading things being different for you, learn to look forward to changes. View them as challenges to see how far you can go in life. Spend more of your time looking for doors that change opens versus doors that change closes.
By just incorporating this one alteration to the way you think, you’ll relieve a world of anxiety because your fear will turn to excitement. Your concerns will morph into enthusiasm. You will begin to welcome change instead of dreading its very existence.
Anxiety doesn’t have to rule your world. It’s time to take your life back and start to enjoy it again. Today.
Love this..thanks