How to Manage Anxiety: 10 Practical Tips

Anxiety is a state of nervousness, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe. It can involve feeling restless, on edge, and ready to bolt at any moment. It can also involve physical symptoms like nausea, dizziness, and lightheadedness. It can be caused by a number of different factors but is usually triggered by an event or situation that makes a person feel threatened.

Why is Anxiety So Bad?

It's normal to feel anxious once in a while, but if you're constantly worried about things that don't seem to warrant that level of concern, you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder.

When we're anxious, our fight-or-flight response is activated—our heart rate increases and our muscles tense up in preparation for action. This might be helpful if you're being chased by a lion (or maybe not), but when you're in a situation where no immediate danger is present, and your body has nothing to do but freak out about it, this reaction can be really exhausting.

Things To Try that Can Help With Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal part of life. It's an automatic response that we all have in times of stress, and it's meant to help us cope.

However, when your anxiety becomes so severe that it begins to affect your daily life and relationships with others, then it's time to seek help. Here are some tips for managing your anxiety:

1. Identify the Cause

Learn about what causes your anxiety. Understanding why you experience anxiety will help you be more aware of when it happens, which will help you manage it better.

Some examples of possible causes include work, family, financial problems, health, past traumas, etc.

2. Take Charge of Your Thoughts

One of the most important steps you can take toward managing anxiety is learning how to control your thoughts. When you are feeling anxious, it's easy to get caught up in negative thinking patterns that make you feel even more stressed than before. But if you can learn how to reframe these thoughts and replace them with more positive ones, it will be much easier for you to feel calm and relaxed again.

3. Exercise Regularly

Exercise is one of the best ways to manage anxiety because it helps release endorphins in your brain that make you feel happier and less stressed out about life's problems (or at least give them less power over how we feel). In addition, studies have shown that people who exercise regularly tend to have lower levels of anxiety overall. That’s because their bodies can better handle stressors like long hours at work or difficult relationships with family members or friends.

4. Take Deep Breaths

When you feel like you're starting to feel anxious or stressed out, take five minutes to sit quietly and breathe deeply into the bottom of your lungs, expanding your belly as much as possible each time until all the air is gone from them again before exhaling slowly through pursed lips (like whistling). The slower you do this exercise, the better! Try doing this at least once per day until you notice an improvement in how quickly your body responds during stressful situations.

5. Keep a Journal

Write down what you're feeling, what triggers your anxiety, and how you feel about it. This will help you get in touch with exactly what's going on with your mind and body.

Journaling about your feelings has been linked to lower levels of mental distress. Researchers discovered that people with various medical conditions and anxiety who wrote online for 15 minutes three days a week for a 12-week period had higher feelings of well-being and fewer depressive symptoms after one month.

6. Get Enough Sleep Every Night

Sleep deprivation has been linked to increased levels of stress hormones like cortisol in the body, which can contribute significantly to feelings of anxiety or depression if left unchecked long enough.

7. Practice Yoga and Meditation

Practice relaxation exercises like yoga or meditation every day for 10-15 minutes at a time. These types of activities have been shown to help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression over time, so even if they don't seem like they're doing anything right away, stick with them! They'll work eventually.

8. Focus on One Thing at a Time

If there's something stressful for you right now, do your best not to let other worries crowd it out of your mind—because dwelling on those will only make things worse! Instead, focus on one thing at a time and then move on when it's done—that way, nothing gets left hanging over your head.

9. Eat a Balanced Diet

Eat healthy foods, and don't skip meals. Don't diet if you're feeling anxious—you need all your nutrients!

10. Take a Walk

When you're feeling anxious, the best thing you can do is get up and move. The more you move around, the more oxygen gets to your brain, which in turn, helps you feel better. Plus, walking is just good for your body!

The Bottom Line

Anxiety is a complex and often misunderstood feeling. It's not just "worry," and it's not just "fear." Anxiety is a response to the way you think—the way you perceive the world around you and your place in it.

When we're anxious, our minds often start racing with all the worst-case scenarios that could happen—and then we start dwelling on them! So make sure you remind yourself that these aren't necessarily true—they're fears that need to be treated as such.