How to get rid of anxiety

In this brief guide, we are going to discuss how to get rid of anxiety.

This will include a list of things to do when you are feeling anxious.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety may occur when you are afraid or nervous about something.

It may feel like an overwhelming fear.

You may have anxiety if you are experiencing any of the below:

• You feel frozen to the spot
• You can’t eat
• You have hot and cold sweats
• You get a dry mouth
• You get very tense muscles
• You sweat a lot
• Your stomach churns or your bowels feel loose
• Your heart beats very fast – maybe it feels irregular
• You breathe very fast
• Your muscles feel weak
• You find it hard to concentrate on anything else
• You feel dizzy

How to get rid of anxiety

There are various ways to get rid of anxiety, we will list a few proven ways to get rid of anxiety below:

Meditate 

A very good way to get rid of anxiety is by meditating.

Meditating allows us to almost fall into a trance-like atmosphere where we can think much clearer, analyse the reasons why we are anxious, calm our nerves, dump out any negative energy, attract positive energy and plan our approach to deal with our anxiety.

You can meditate wherever you are and it is a good way to deal with panic attacks etc

The 15-minute plan

Another important way to get rid of anxiety is to use the 15-minute plan and try and overcome the anxiety you are facing by essentially disregarding it and ignoring it.

With the 15 minute plan, you essentially find things and do things to distract you.

This could be going for a walk, cooking, watching a movie, speaking with a friend etc.

This plan, of course, doesn’t help you get rid of your anxiety, it just defers it and the root causes of your anxiety will still remain but it is a short term win for the moment.

Imagine the worse

Another very unusual way to get rid of anxiety is by thinking about the worst that can possibly happen.

This is used as a way to chase the fear that you have by almost belittling it.

If the worst that could happen would be you having a heart attack or falling or whatever then imagine this and see if your anxiety is still around.

If this doesn’t work for you then, of course, don’t try it too often.

Breathe

Another important way to get rid of anxiety is to ensure you control your breathing.

Your breathing is very important as it can escalate or deescalate your level of anxiety.

Use your breathing to control how anxious you are feeling by doing very simple breathing exercises.

The HFNE app has a specific tool which allows you to do breathing exercises which help regulate and control your breathing.

Challenge negative thoughts

Sometimes it is important for us to challenge the very difficult and pointless fearful thoughts which we are having.

This is because sometimes our thoughts can be so unreasonable and almost impossible to imagine.

For example, someone who gets anxious because they are scared of using the stairs because they will collapse.

Thinking about it and saying to yourself, what proof is there of stairs randomly collapsing may help you overcome your anxiety.

Stress Ball

Stress balls are one of the good ways to get rid of anxiety.

You can get a cheap stress ball from Amazon and this may allow you to control your nerves when you are getting anxious. 

Stress balls are also very good as they can offer relative ease with little effort. 

Best stress balls:

Some of the best stress balls are:

• 21 STRONG Grip Balls.
• PBPBOX Hand Therapy Ball.
• InsidersPro Stress Relief Ball.
• Elbo Star Hand Therapy Stress Ball

Practice

Another way to get rid of anxiety is to practice the steps which will prevent you from being anxious.

Some people practise visualisation techniques which allow them to visualise where they want to be and almost take themselves to be in those places, to the point where they can smell, feel and almost see things around them differently.

This tends to be a very good coping mechanism.

Some other people may have coping techniques such as pinching themselves or rubbing their fingers.

If you don’t know what your coping technique may be helpful to you then the next time you feel anxious, try a few things and see which one works out the best for you and then stick with it as your method of overcoming anxiety.

Destress your environment

Another very useful way to get rid of anxiety is to destress your environment so you don’t feel anxious.

This means avoiding people and things which may make you anxious.

If tight places make you anxious then avoiding the lift in your workplace will help you reduce the amount of anxiety you have and may eventually help you get rid of anxiety.

Medication

Anti-anxiety medication such as citalopram and escitalopram are very good when it comes to helping you get rid of anxiety.

These are antidepressants that can really help you reduce the amount of anxiety you are experiencing.

Antidepressants should never be self-prescribed and you should not stop taking your anxiety medication without informing your doctor first. 

Anxiety medication is one of the sure-fire ways to get rid of anxiety.

Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) is reported to be an effective treatment for anxiety. It is an FDA-approved, prescriptive, noninvasive electromedical treatment that has been shown to decrease anxiety, insomnia, and depression significantly.

Here is a quick list of the Best cranial electrotherapy stimulation devices that can lower symptoms of anxiety.

Talk about it

Another way which you can use to get rid of anxiety is by talking about it.

You can talk about it to your friends, to your family, to your counsellor to your doctor and hopefully, they will offer you useful guidance and support on how unrealistic the things you are worrying about truly are.

Face your fears

Another way a lot of people overcome their anxiety is by facing their fears.

If you are scared of heights then maybe doing a skydive may help you get rid of these fears.

Confronting your fears may be a great way to overcome your anxiety and find a new you but at the same time, it could worsen your anxieties if you don’t fully confront your fears and let them over power you in your attempt to confront them.

Seek counselling to get rid of anxiety

A very good way to get rid of anxiety is by seeking counselling.

Sometimes we have a variety of things which cause us to be anxious and there is no reason why we may be able to identify all of these things by ourselves.

It is possible that we may know why we are anxious or we may be able to self diagnose ourselves but there is no reason why we should assume that we know more than a trained counsellor.

Sometimes the human mind creates a lot of bias and does not allow us to fully understand what causes us to be anxious or what will allow us to find whatever we need to get rid of anxiety.

Counselling may be through a variety of techniques such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

Depending on how serious your issues are counselling may last from a few weeks to a few years before you begin to feel like you have finally get rid of anxiety

Go back to basics to get rid of anxiety

A lot of people overcomplicate things by trying to hard to get rid of their fear and anxiety that they end up causing more problems and issues for themselves. 

People will usually resort to drinking, taking drugs and other types of behaviour as a means of getting rid of anxiety.

Sometimes all they really needed was to just have their 3 meals a day, eat lots of vegetables, drink lots of water and get a good night’s rest.

Reward yourself when you beat anxiety

Whenever you overcome your fears and anxiety you should always reward yourself with whatever you feel is necessary.

This could be a massage, a night out, a holiday, going to a restaurant, a new bag or whatever.

Rewarding yourself builds a nice structure in your head and allows you to excel more in situations where anxiety comes as you are now more willing to overcome your anxiety simply because of the reward.

It is a great type of positive reinforcement.

If you are suffering from depression, anxiety, loneliness or any similar mental health issue then seeking help for it may be a good option.

Mental health issues such as depression, loneliness and anxiety can affect anyone of us.

If you are under 18 then CAMHS, an NHS run programme may just be the answer for your mental health struggles.

You should look to see if you meet the CAMHS referral criteria and then fill in the CAMHS referral form.

In this brief guide, we discussed how to get rid of anxiety and provide you with a list of things that may help you get rid of anxiety.