| Top Ten Ways You Are NOT Helping Your Anxiety |
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You hate your anxiety. You say you'll do anything to get rid of it. But are you continuing to do things which actually make your anxiety worse? Here is a snippet from Carolyn Chambers Clark's book, Living Well With Anxiety: 1: Avoidant Behaviors As long as you continue avoiding sitautions or objects that cause you anxiety, your anxiety will continue. Avoiding a situations doesn't eliminate it. You continue to worry and spend a great deal of energy to make sure you don't have to confront the situation or object. The key to unlearning your phobic reaction is to approach the upsetting situation or object in small steps.
2: Negative Self-Talk
We all talk to ourselves in our minds. Some times it's so automatic and subtle you don't notice it. Self-talk can be positive and encouraging or can be negative and create more anxiety. It is the following kinds of self-talk that must be silenced, including: "What if I have another panic attack?" "I'll never be able to deal with this!" "What if I lose control over myself?" "What will people think if I lose control?" "I'm having a heart attack-- I just know it!" "My legs feel so weak, I can't walk." This kind of talking scares you even more and aggravates the physical aspects of anxiety. The good news is that you can learn to stop your negative self-talk and replace it with positive, encouraging messages.
3: Mistaken Beliefs
It is these mistaken beliefs that bring about negative self-talk. If you believe you are losing control, you can talk yourself and everyone else around you into believing that it's true. If you're programmed to believe life is meant to be hard, then you will think something is wrong when things go your way or people offer help. If you believe the world is a dangerous place and people can't be trusted, you will live a life filled with suspicion and will never veer away from taking the risks necessary to overcome many anxiety conditions.
4: Denial of Feelings
When you deny anger, frustration, sadness, and even excitement, you can feel more anxious and not know why. You may have discovered that after you let out your anger or have a good cry, you feel more at ease, calmer. Expressing your feelings is a good way to reduce your anxiety.
5: Lack of Assertiveness
Assertiveness is the vehicle that allows you to express your feelings in a respectful but honest way to other people. If you're not assertive, you may fuss and stew inwardly or avoid the person ot the expression of how you feel. You may think it's not nice to be open about what you want and need because you might alienate the other person. The problem with not being assertive is that it builds resentment and confinement, two feelings that aggrevate anxiety conditions. You can learn to be assertive.
6: Muscle Tension
When you feel uptight, you have tight muscles, and this restricts your breathing, healthy heartbeats, digestion, circulation, thought, and just about all body processes. You may have learned that when your body is tense, your mind races. When you relax your muscles, your mind will slow and calm. Anxiety cannot exist in a relaxed body, so the key is to use relaxation skills to be at peace. Vigorous exercise and deep muscle relaxation can help you remain calm.
7: Lack of Self-Nurturing
You may have a deep sense of insecurity due to a parent's neglect, abandonment, abuse, overprotection, negative crticism, alcoholism, or chemical dependancy. Growing up in this kind of household means you never received consistent or reliabile nurturing as a child and so you never learned how to take care of yourself in a loving and nurturant way. You probably feel anxious and overwhelmed by the adult demands placed upon you, and this can lead to perpetuating your anxiety condition. Learning to nurture your "inner child" is the way to grow and learn to be a responsible adult.
8: Poor Nutrition
Drinking lots of coffee and sodas, eating junk and fast foods, sugar, food additives, foods your body is sensitive to, and eating while doing something else can increase your anxiety. Just eliminating caffiene from your diet (including the caffiene in over-the-counter medicines) can relieve a great deal of anxiety and worry.
9: Stressful Lifestyle
Lack of time-management skills, not grieving losses and changes, burning the candle at both ends, smoking, drinking, and taking drugs can worsen your anxiety condition and even bring it on.
10: Lack of Meaning and Purpose We are all spiritual beings. If you've lost (or never developed) a sense of purpose for your life, something larger than immediate self-gratification, you will tend to be bored and anxious.
These are all reasons for increased anxiety, and your first step to recovery may be as simple as switching a can of cola to a bottle of water. The following tips came from the book, Living Well With Anxiety, which gives more detailed descriptions of how to reverse these top ten bad habits throughout the book.
Author Carolyn Chambers Clark is a board-certified advanced holistic nurse practitioner with a master's degree in mental health nursing and a doctorate in education. She is a faculty member in the Health Services Doctoral Program at Walden University, and she hosts http://home.earthlink.net/~cccwellness and http://HolisticHealth.bellaonline.com
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