Anxiety isn’t just feeling a bit nervous. It’s an ongoing and often irrational fear that you can’t escape. As soon as one anxious thought is quieted, another jumps in to take its place. At its worst, it causes physical as well as mental symptoms, but there are ways to manage it.
Symptoms of anxiety can show up throughout the body. It can make your heart race or cause chest pain. You may experience shortness of breath. Headaches, dizziness and tremors are all common. Even the digestive system can be impacted, from feeling sick to not having any appetite. All these things can make it hard to concentrate, interfere with your sleep and generally make it harder to go about your day.
In addition to generalized anxiety disorder, anxiety as a medical term can also cover conditions like phobias. These include things like claustrophobia, or fear of small spaces, that can exist without an obvious reason. Social anxiety, PTSD and panic disorder all have similarities. Any of these conditions could cause significant difficulties in trying to live your day-to-day life.
So how do you manage anxiety? It’s not something you can just cure, and if it doesn’t have an obvious source, it can be hard to know where to start. Research suggests that there may be a combination of factors influencing whether you develop anxiety, from your genes and brain chemistry to traumatic experiences in your life. This suggests you may need a combination of techniques to manage the symptoms.
Sometimes anxiety can be caused by an underlying medical condition and can be alleviated by treating that condition. Other times, talking therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be used to identify the factors that trigger your anxiety and learn new coping strategies to manage it.
Often, learning to deal with phobias and other fears involves controlled exposure to these fears. Exposure therapy gradually introduces the patient to their fears in a safe environment. For example, if you were scared of spiders, you might look at a picture before you let a live one in the same room as you.
Medication to manage anxiety is often similar to that used to manage depression – the two conditions have a lot of overlap. Both may sometimes be treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). These drugs can be good at treating symptoms but may not address any underlying cause, which is why they are often used in conjunction with therapy instead of as an alternative.
You can also make lifestyle changes to alleviate some symptoms of anxiety, although it’s important to note these aren’t a substitute for professional help if you have a more severe form. This could include cutting back on your caffeine, controlling any drug or alcohol use, trying out meditation or mindfulness techniques or, on the other side, taking part in more high-cardio exercise like aerobics.
Everyone feels anxious sometimes, even if it doesn’t reach the threshold for a clinical diagnosis. Left untreated, the symptoms can be a major hindrance in daily life. That’s why it’s important to know how best to manage anxiety, from lifestyle changes to seeking advice from a doctor or therapist.
