Understanding Generalized Anxiety Disorder -- Prevention
How Can I Prevent Anxiety?
If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you will need professional help. See your doctor for a referral to a mental health specialist.
Though not a treatment for anxiety disorders, the following tips can help reduce symptoms of anxiety:
>>Take care of your body by eating a well-balanced diet. Include a multivitamin when you can't always eat right.
>>Avoid alcohol, and reduce or eliminate your consumption of sugar and caffeine.
>>Take time out for yourself every day. Even 20 minutes of relaxation or doing something pleasurable for yourself can be restorative and decrease your overall anxiety level.
>>Trim a hectic schedule to its most essential items, and do your best to avoid activities you don't find relaxing.
>>Keep an anxiety journal. Rank your anxiety on a 1-to-10 scale. Note the event during which you felt anxious. Jot down any feeling or thought you had just before you got anxious. Keep track of things that make you more anxious or less anxious.
>> If you begin to hyperventilate, exhale into a paper bag and inhale the air within the bag. This increases the amount of carbon dioxide you are inhaling, which can reduce the urge to hyperventilate. Inhaling from a bag will help relieve any dizziness or tingling you might feel.
Some clinicians have a “rough rule of thumb" for prevention of any anxiety disorder: try to avoid any food (red meat, chocolate, etc) or drinks (tea, coffee, soda, or red wine, etc.) that is brown in color.
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How Can I Prevent Anxiety?
Moderators: windsong, BlueGobi, Moderators, Astrid
Good article. However, a note. There is such a thing as runaway hyperventilation that can last for DAYS, if not weeks. Some of the symptoms of this is sighing a lot. Other signs that you may be breathing too shallowly and fast is chest pain that resembles a heart attack where it is a crushing sensation. What this actually is, is muscles cramping in the rib cage from over use and lactic acid building up. If you are over 35 years of age, or have a history of heart issues and conditions, always see a doctor. These muscle cramps though are without the pain down the arm, or nausea or profuse sweating.
For this condition because it has gone on for awhile, it takes days to recover, usually some prescription short term anti anxieties meds with some muscle relaxants or mild pain relievers for the cramped rib cage muscles and a recommendation to see someone about biofeedback techniques.
People can get scared over all sorts of things in life. In my sister's case it was a stalker issue. I'm so glad their are anti-stalking laws now.
For this condition because it has gone on for awhile, it takes days to recover, usually some prescription short term anti anxieties meds with some muscle relaxants or mild pain relievers for the cramped rib cage muscles and a recommendation to see someone about biofeedback techniques.
People can get scared over all sorts of things in life. In my sister's case it was a stalker issue. I'm so glad their are anti-stalking laws now.
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Anxiety can be best treated through counselling. Many people think by going to counsellling they are weakening themself but its not so. For more information visit Substance abuse treatment Denver.
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Seek help if your anxiety becomes worse. Talk to friends and family and look for a support group. Get professional help if your fears lead you to become depressed or become so severe you cannot function normally. Learning to accept uncertainty, like learning to live in the present, is a process that can take a lifetime. Writing in your journal at the beginning of your day with a cup of herbal tea can help prevent anxiety. Plug time with calming friends into your schedule. They'll make you feel even better about your struggles.
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