How to Get Your Anxiety Attack Symptoms Under Control

Anxiety is prolific across the United States. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America has stated that Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) affects some 6.8 million adults, equating to around 3.1 percent of the entire US population. In terms of the defining factors of the illness, the association asserts that GAD is characterized by “persistent and excessive worry.”

Experiencing anxiety is a horrible thing. When it strikes, it really can feel as if it is gripping hold of you. The excessive worry can be also crippling. To add further complexity, your worry may have no logical root, and yet feel real enough for you to become stuck in a state of anxiety that affects every part of your life.

Of course, we all experience worry at points in our life, but GAD is different in that it usually manifests itself in an overwhelming and continuous state of dread.

This dread may keep you up and night, and may stick with you throughout the day – it can be exhausting. Despite the serious nature of this condition, too many people who suffer from anxiety believe that they simply need to “pull themselves together” and get on with their life.

But this is as a result of stigma and misunderstanding. Indeed, it is important to understand the neurobiological underpinnings of an anxiety disorder in order to effectively manage and combat the illness.

When you are someone who is predisposed to experiencing anxiety attack symptoms, your mind is often searching for things to worry about, even if there is nothing wrong in your life. Our immediate response is to think “why am I worrying about this?” but sometimes it is completely inexplicable and defies logic.

When your mind finds something to fixate your anxiety on, you may start to experience certain bodily reactions.

Anxiety disorders can cause a number of real and disconcerting physical symptoms, ranging from heart palpitations to perpetual tiredness and stomach issues. These responsive symptoms, in turn, can cause your anxiety to increase, and vice versa.

It can be a vicious circle. But remember, the cycle can be broken. Treatment is possible and can be extremely effective in combating anxiety issues.

Methods for Dealing with Anxiety Attack Symptoms

Indeed, there are a few ways in which we can respond to the onset of anxiety symptoms with the aim of bringing relief and recovery. We’ll take a look at three of these methods below.

1. Take care of your body

Physical symptoms of anxiety should be battled in a physical way. Studies have shown that a healthy diet and regular exercise can relieve muscle tension and drastically improve your mental health. However, caffeine and alcohol can be detrimental to the emotional and physical state of someone who suffers from anxiety.

Caffeine, in particular, is a stimulant that can effectively trigger an anxious arousal state. Start cutting out some of the unhealthy food groups, add in the healthy ones, go for a few runs, and record the difference it makes.

2. Engage in breathing techniques

Much of managing anxiety comes down to figuring out methods of keeping your emotional and physical state on a steady continuum. When you begin to feel anxious, your adrenaline spikes, an anxious arousal is triggered, and things can escalate at a rapid rate.

Breathing techniques can help lower anxiety levels before they get out of control. Breathing diaphragmatically can prevent the stress response altogether. When you develop this habit in response to an onset of anxiety and begin to witness its success, it can be incredibly reassuring to know you have techniques to rely on for times when anxiety strikes.

3. Practice mindful awareness

Another way to bring your body under control is to practice mindfulness. When the physical symptoms of anxiety appear, it can be scary, and they can dominate your thinking. But practicing mindful awareness can assist you in taking the focus off those nasty symptoms.

This can be done by focusing solely on the present, swapping out ruminating on your symptoms with dwelling on simple things such as actively controlling your rate of breathing.

You may wish to follow this up with an active appreciation and mindful focus on your surroundings – the way the sun is shining through the leaves outside or the breeze on your face.

As you engage in this process, you will likely experience a decrease in your symptoms of anxiety. The point is that you are not a slave to every symptom your body experiences. In many different areas of your physical and emotional struggle, you can learn to exercise control over your body and mind.