9 Healthy Tips to Help Cope With Anxiety

If you struggle with anxiety on a daily basis, you can sometimes find yourself using unhealthy methods, such as drug or alcohol abuse, to cope with it.

For obvious reasons, that’s not something that you want to do, but what is?

These strategies will help to ease your symptoms:

1. Deep breathing exercises. Many of us use our chests to breathe rather than the diaphragm, which is a large muscle found in our abdomen. When you breathe in, your stomach should expand and then contract when you breathe out.

● Breathing with only your chest will cause you to have short and shallow breaths that can cause increased stress and anxiety.

1. Progressive muscle relaxation. This technique involves tensing your muscles and then relaxing them one at a time. When you do this you’re teaching your muscles that when you’re stressed, (which causes muscle tension), that you need to relax.

1. Mindfulness. This is a common technique to reduce anxiety. With mindfulness, you put your full attention to what you’re doing at that moment. You notice the sights, sounds, and smells around you. When your full focus is on the present moment, there isn’t room for feelings of anxiety.

1. Self-monitoring. What triggers your anxiety? It may be that certain people, events, or situations cause you to feel anxious. Once you figure out your triggers, you can do something to lessen or even prevent the oncoming anxiety.

1. A Great Support System. We know that support from friends and family is incredibly important when dealing with anxiety. Having someone you trust that you can talk to can be helpful.

● There are also therapists and various groups available full of like-minded people dealing with similar issues who may be able to help too.

1. Self-soothing strategies. While support from others is awesome and will help, there will be times when you are alone. You have to be able to enjoy your own company so that you can recharge your energy and renew your spirit. Positive affirmations involve taking a look at yourself and loving what you see. You tell yourself that everything will be okay and that you can handle the situation.

● It’s important that you don’t allow any negative thoughts into your mind while performing this strategy.

1. Write down your thoughts and feelings. Rather than keeping how you feel inside to fester, start keeping a journal and write out your thoughts and feelings. It’s also a form of self-soothing and can be therapeutic for you to get these thoughts out of your mind and onto paper.

1. Distraction techniques. Sometimes focusing on your emotions can make them even stronger and leave you feeling more out of control of the situation. By using distraction, you’re taking your mind off your emotions, making them easier to manage.

● You can do anything you want to distract yourself. Take a walk is, read a good book, listen to music, these are all things that can take your mind off of those anxious thoughts.

1. Work towards a goal. Achieving a goal can be motivating and can help reduce both depression and anxiety.

● Try using a technique called behavioral activation. Each time that you feel anxious, engage your mind in a positive and rewarding activity, such as working toward a goal.

These strategies can be helpful with coping and managing anxious thoughts or behaviors. Some may work better for you than others. Some may work better in different situations. And some may not work for you at all. The key is to practice them and then try them out in anxious situations to see what fits.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and things that I have tried, and by no means is this medical advice. If you are feeling anxious or depressed, reach out to your health care provider for help.

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Angela M Mitchell is the founder and CEO of Back to her. She is also a Certified Master Life & Personal Development Coach, a mental health advocate, and a Co-Author in the international best-selling collaborative masterpiece, The Image in The Mirror. She received a degree in Healthcare Administration from Bryant and Stratton College and has since dedicated her life to advocating for women who live with mental health disorders.

Angela also assists women entrepreneurs to acknowledge their struggles, change the narrative of the stories they tell, and rewrite them so that they can become deliberate, not desperate, creators of their own life's story.

She guides them through a process of self-discovery that leads them to reignite their passions and to rediscover their God-Given purpose so that they can achieve the success they desire in their personal and professional life.