Learn to Calm Anxiety Without Medication

With the modern-day pressures of work, money, relationships, and trying to stay in shape, you can increasingly find yourself feeling more anxious. More people than ever before are admitting that they feel anxiety daily and roughly 8 percent of Americans take anti-anxiety medication to help their anxious feelings. That is around 27 million people. Even though anxiety can be managed by medication prescribed by your doctor, there are concerns that medication does not deal with the root issue that is causing you to feel so anxious all the time.

Generally, anti-anxiety medication involves SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) which have been found to be a safe choice to help decrease anxiety, yet they also have side effects such as weight gain, insomnia, and dizziness. Therefore, if you are an anxiety sufferer it is advisable for you to try and learn to calm your anxiety without medication by instead focusing on more natural and wholesome techniques.

 

Talk About It

One of the best ways to naturally calm your anxiety and any anxious feelings you may have is by being open with your loved ones about how you feel. Anxiety can sometimes make us feel inferior and worried about how we look to others if we are honest about how we feel. But this can only make our anxiety worse. If you are concerned about something, then just be honest and open about it. You might wonder, is telephone counseling appropriate? The likelihood is that the thing you are worried about can be sorted/doesn’t even exist and your anxiety is just tricking you into worrying about it. So, speak out, and don’t let your anxiety take over. Go ahead and talk to a professional therapist.

 

Meditation

A lot of research has gone into how to calm anxious feelings without the use of drugs and meditation has found that naturally increasing dopamine can help. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that sends messages between our brain cells that create feelings of pleasure and happiness, which is what teaches us to repeat behaviors. If our brains don’t get enough dopamine, then we are likely to feel depressed and lethargic.

As this ultimate guide to increase dopamine naturally shows, meditation has been found to release dopamine as it involves training your brain to stay focused on positive thoughts and avoid the negative thoughts that may be feeding your anxiety. Practicing meditation can be a great way to increase mindfulness and can provide you with the tools needed to remain calm when anxiety hits throughout the day.  

 

Avoid Caffeine

A cup of coffee maybe your go-to comfort if you are feeling anxious, but step away from the caffeine! This can actually make your anxiety worse. Caffeine gives the nervous system a boost in order to help you feel more energized. However, this is added pressure to your body when you are already feeling anxious and it could lead to an anxiety attack. You don’t have to give up caffeine altogether, but it is recommended that if you do suffer from anxiety that you only occasionally grab a caffeinated drink.

You should consider trying herbal teas as Chamomile tea is known to have calming and relaxing effects when consumed.

 

Get Enough Rest

One of the main reasons we may feel particularly anxious is because we haven’t had enough rest. We all need sleep to function properly and not getting enough rest can be seriously damaging to our physical and mental health.

No matter how stressful your waking hours are, you need to ensure that you are giving yourself time to wind down after a long day before getting into bed at a reasonable time. Many of us are sat doing work on our laptops or scrolling through our smartphones just minutes before we turn the light off and try to get some shut-eye. But you should dedicate the last hour of your day to winding down and perhaps doing something that calms you. It is a good idea to read a book in bed before you go to sleep. You may only get a chance to read a few pages a night, but you may find that your anxiety starts to settle so you can get to sleep without staring at the ceiling worrying until the early hours.

Anxiety can be an overwhelming and destabilizing emotional feeling that may leave you struggling to fulfill your daily tasks. However, if you have anxious feelings then don’t feel like the medication is your only option. Some of the suggestions above are great alternatives that may significantly help calm your anxiety.