Holistic experts weigh in on how to manage anxiety before it cripples you<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt trapped in my head \u2026 overwhelmed with everything,\u201d says Jen Lancaster of the anxiety that plagued since she was a child. \u201cI couldn\u2019t control the racing thoughts, because I didn’t know racing thoughts were a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
While one-third of Americans will have an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, anxiety will affect nearly two times more women than men, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.<\/p>\n
One in three women will have an anxiety disorder \u201cif (they) don’t have one already,\u201d says Dr. Helen Blair Simpson, president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were to dip a litmus strip into the waters of modern life, the measurement, the pH of these waters, is anxiety,\u201d says Ellen Vora author of \u201cThe Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response.\u201d<\/p>\n
With no regard for race, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status, \u201cAnxiety is a great equalizer,\u201d says Lynn Charles, a clinical social worker and psychologist in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
What it feels like<\/p>\n
While there are many different anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) – defined as excessive, uncontrollable worry about everyday events, – an anxiety attack often leaves an individual breaking into a sweat while their heart races.<\/p>\n
Built into human DNA, anxiety can be an effective tool to keep us safe. Having a heightened sense of lurking danger likely helped our ancestors stay alive. But when anxiety creates an irrational threat that\u2019s not connected to real life, it becomes problematic, Simpson says.<\/p>\n
\u201c(When) you were threatened, but you\u2019re no longer threatened, you\u2019re safe, but you can\u2019t let it go, your body is in overdrive and you can\u2019 t turn it off,\u201d then anxiety is no longer effective but rather, \u201cdisrupt[s] and then distort[s] your life,\u201d says Simpson, who is also the director of the Center for OCD and Related Disorders at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.<\/p>\n
Managing anxiety<\/p>\n
Theresa Nguyen, chief research officer at Mental Health America says there is strength in anxiety. \u201cIdentifying what you\u2019re really afraid (of) provides clues about where to start solving your anxiety,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
And more, there is power in speaking it: \u201cSay it out loud,\u201d Charles suggests. \u201cThrow it out onto an invisible whiteboard so you can see it, visually.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually, I can talk myself out of it,\u201d says Lancaster who is a novelist. \u201cBut, if it\u2019s just physically taking me over, and I\u2019m having a panic attack, I know that I have 1,000 friends who have my back and can fix my neurochemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are medications that treat anxiety such as serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and \u201care often the first- line treatment,\u201d Simpson says. \u201cIn combination with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which teaches people to challenge negative thought patterns, there can be great success in relieving anxiety symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nguyen says that even though it sounds counterintuitive, \u201cYou actually learn to control your thoughts by leaning into them.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the most important step to tackling anxiety, Simpson says, is raising public awareness.<\/p>\n
Mental health apps that help manage anxiety, panic attacks and stress:<\/p>\n
7 Cups -Through secure, anonymous bridging technology, the app connects people in need to a network of active listeners for one-on-one conversations. Browse by age, gender or topic, more than 500,000 trained volunteer listeners provide support in 140 languages.<\/p>\n
Breathe2Relax – Teaches breathing techniques to manage stress and helps those with anxiety disorders, stress and PTSD.<\/p>\n
Calm – Helps to relieve stress, induce sleep and live mindfully.<\/p>\n
Mindshift – Helps teens and young adults gain insight into and basic skills to manage anxiety, including GAD, social anxiety, specific phobias and panic attacks. It\u2019s also useful for managing worry, performance anxiety, test anxiety and perfectionism.<\/p>\n
Panic Relief – Helps people with panic disorder with easy-to-use, empirically supported coping tools to better manage and move through panic attacks. The free version includes access to progressive muscle relaxation skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Holistic experts weigh in on how to manage anxiety before it cripples you \u201cI felt trapped in my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[5176,137530,34621,2665,25095,8745,535,4378,188439,105,1429,32505,218,188438,12,5179,5185,20907,5180,11759,4920,186338,5181,16,15,11758,86655,1292],"class_list":{"0":"post-600659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-and","9":"tag-anti-anxiety","10":"tag-anti-anxiety-drugs","11":"tag-anxiety","12":"tag-anxiety-u0026-stress","13":"tag-content","14":"tag-drugs","15":"tag-emotions","16":"tag-emotions-and-moods","17":"tag-health","18":"tag-life","19":"tag-mental","20":"tag-mental-health","21":"tag-moods","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-overall","24":"tag-overall-positive","25":"tag-phobias","26":"tag-positive","27":"tag-sharing","28":"tag-stress","29":"tag-studiog-modernwoman","30":"tag-u0026","31":"tag-uk","32":"tag-united-kingdom","33":"tag-usat","34":"tag-usat-content-sharing-life","35":"tag-women"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115631322966353765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}