It’s normal for people to feel anxious at times. This can occur when, for instance, you’re expecting something big to happen and you’re not sure how you can handle it well. Being anxious and nervous can also be your body’s response to stressful situations. It can be the first day of school or work, a job interview, a big presentation, or speech in front of many people. Instances like these usually cause you to feel fearful and anxious—and that’s normal.

Anxiety disorder, on the other hand, is a different story. Anxiety disorder displays intense symptoms that aren’t normal to have on a daily basis. This condition is often diagnosed by a professional and should be taken care of if you want your mental health to be well. If you’re suffering from anxiety disorder, you can search for more information on the internet about the different treatment methods available.

Being able to manage your anxiety can benefit not only your mental health, but also your overall well-being. For many people, this can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. Here are some ways managing your anxiety can benefit your overall health:

Improves Your Self-Esteem 

Your self-esteem plays a significant role in your life. This can be described as feelings of self-worth or personal value, which can help you determine your life’s purpose. With this, you can motivate yourself into reaching who and what you want to be. Self-esteem allows you to believe that you can achieve your goals. How you see yourself is also an aspect relating to self-esteem.

When you’re suffering from anxiety, it’s more than likely that you have low self-esteem. This can lead you to feel worthless and become overcritical of your words and actions, which won’t do your mental and physical health any good. When you’re anxious, you may have the tendency to isolate yourself and be in a depressed mood. You also won’t have the energy and motivation to accomplish tasks or keep yourself going. You’re susceptible to bottling up your feelings until you won’t be able to escape or handle them anymore.

When you learn how to manage your anxiety, you’ll be able to improve your self-esteem, which can help you have the confidence to believe in yourself once again. This can improve your mood, as well as the way you perceive yourself. Keep in mind that people have the tendency to treat you the way you treat yourself, which is why you should fill yourself with love and respect. Then, everything else will follow.

Helps You Be Calm 

Suffering from anxiety may make you feel nervous, restless, and tense. This isn’t helpful, especially when a big event or change in your life is about to happen. You might not be able to perform to the best of your abilities, which may affect your work or studies. But when you’re able to manage your anxiety, you’ll be able to face any event in a calm and composed way. This can help you be at peace, as well as aid you in making level-headed decisions.

There are a lot of things that can help you achieve a sense of calmness. You could try to do exercises, aromatherapy, yoga, or deep breathing exercises. Breathing exercises have been known to be the most convenient and helpful way to try and be calm when your anxiety kicks in. Breathing exercises can be done anywhere and only requires your full concentration.

Helps You Be Happier

People who experience anxiety also tend to become depressed. In some cases, anxiety and depression go hand in hand, especially since their symptoms tend to overlap, which can be especially tough to manage when both conditions are intense. Some symptoms that anxiety and depression share include the following:

  • Fatigue
  • Loss of concentration
  • Difficulty in sleeping
  • Difficulty in making decisions

Constantly feeling anxious can lead to depression when not treated immediately. Since the symptoms of anxiety and depression overlap, managing your anxiety can therefore lead to also managing or even treating your depression. This could do wonders not only to your mood, but also to your overall health as you’ll be able to sleep better at night, concentrate on your activities, and make better decisions whenever needed.

Lesser Headaches

Headaches are known to be linked to anxiety as it’s an effect of constantly worrying about everything. When you’re feeling anxious, you can’t seem to stop thinking about so many things, which can cause you to feel jittery. This may result in intense headaches brought about by excessive thinking and stress. Aside from headaches, you may also tend to feel more irritable since you’re worrying too much.

Managing your anxiety means experiencing lesser headaches and becoming less irritable about the world around you. It helps keep you calm, reducing or even removing any of the worries that you’re feeling. By managing your anxiety, you’ll generally feel better.

Improves Breathing

When your anxiety attack has developed into panic attack, you might experience rapid breathing, which may eventually lead to respiratory issues. A panic attack happens when you suddenly feel an intense fear of losing control, of death, or of anticipating doom or danger, causing you to panic. The symptoms of a panic attack include:

  • Rapid and pounding heart rate
  • Trembling
  • Shaking
  • Chills
  • Chest pains.

Anxiety attacks, on the other hand, are lighter than panic attacks and are usually caused by stress and constant worrying. An anxiety attack can develop into a panic attack when there’s a rise in tension. Some instances this may happen are when you’re faced with an intense problem, or one that you may not have anticipated or are ready for.

Managing your anxiety may improve your breathing. As mentioned earlier, deep breathing exercises can help you calm down in situations when you’re starting to feel anxious.

Reduce Heart Palpitations

Aside from breathing problems, anxiety attacks may also cause heart palpitations. This is commonly experienced with panic attacks, but they could happen to those having an anxiety attack as well.

Palpitations happen when your heart is beating rapidly that you have no way of physically slowing it down. When some people experience heart palpitations and realize they’re having one, this might cause them greater anxiety since they have no control over their body.

Managing your anxiety can then lead to lesser instances of having heart palpitations since you’ll be able to calmly handle the situation. By doing this, you’ll be able to reduce your heart rate and eventually bring it down to its normal pace.

Moreover, you can also prevent the following complications when you’re able to reduce your heart palpitations:

  • Fainting – This happens when the blood flow to your brain has decreased, or your body wasn’t able to accommodate the immediate change of your oxygen intake due to rapid breathing.
  • Heart failure – This happens when your heart wasn’t able to pump blood the way that it should.
  • Stroke – This happens when there’s a blockage of arteries leading to the brain, limiting its supply of blood.
  • Cardiac Arrest – This happens when there’s a sudden loss of blood flow, resulting in failure of the heart to pump effectively.

Reduce Digestive Issues

Having anxiety may also be accompanied by an upset stomach. This is because anxiety releases cortisol, the stress hormone, which results in an excess of stomach acid. Vomiting, nausea, damage to the lining of the esophagus, stomach pains, and even stress-induced ulcers are just some of the digestive issues that you could experience because of anxiety.

Learning how to manage your anxiety would be beneficial for your overall health as it can reduce your stomach pains. Having frequent stomach pains might develop into complications that may not be related to anxiety anymore.

To prevent this from happening, you can try to manage your anxiety by going for natural treatments at home. Some simple changes you can make are living a healthy lifestyle, ditching the caffeine, getting enough sleep, and practicing deep breathing and meditation. These should help ease your anxiety to some degree without the aid of medication.

Get Better Sleep

When you’re feeling anxious, there is a big chance you’ll have trouble sleeping at night. Excessive worrying can cause fatigue, which can affect how your day plays out. If you have anxiety and have not slept well for days, you may be more inclined to stress over the quality of your sleep, thus leading to poor sleep quality, thereby resulting in a vicious cycle.

What you can do to manage your anxiety for better sleep is to try to meditate on your bed. You won’t need any special equipment, just a quiet environment and your full concentration. Trying to clear your mind before going to bed can help you fall asleep faster, leading to a great mood the next day, as well as a strengthened immune system.

Controlled Blood Pressure

Aside from any current illness, your blood pressure is most likely to rise when you’re having an anxiety attack.

Frequently having a high blood pressure can be accompanied by shortness of breath, which might further lead you to have increased levels of anxiety since you’d find it difficult to control this symptom.

High blood pressure could lead to:

  • Heart attack
  • Stroke
  • Heart failure
  • Kidney disease or failure
  • Loss of vision
  • Sexual dysfunction
  • Heart disease

By avoiding stressors and keeping yourself healthy, you can maintain normal levels of your blood pressure, therefore also managing your anxiety.

How To Manage Anxiety

You must learn how to manage your anxiety so you can get right back in the driver’s seat. You shouldn’t let your anxiety take control of your life—it should be the other way around. Here are some tips that could help you manage your anxiety:

  • Practice Deep Breathing – Deep breathing exercises can help you achieve a state of calm. Again, you don’t need any special equipment to get this done. You could try to breathe in for four seconds and breathe out for another four seconds. Do this for five minutes. The 4-7-8 technique has been known to be helpful as well. This technique works by inhaling for a full four seconds, holding your breath for seven, and exhaling for another eight. Not only does it help you to be calm, but it can also put you to sleep faster at night.
  • Practice Meditation – You could practice meditation in a quiet and distraction-free room. All you have to do is try to focus on clearing your mind, and put your thoughts and worries aside.
  • Try Aromatherapy – You could try soothing essential oils such as lavender, chamomile, and sandalwood to help you be calm. Diffuse your essential oils with candles and use them while you take a warm, relaxing bath. You can also add them to your massage oils for some added aroma.
  • Write It Down – Maybe you just want to release your anxiety since they’re all bottled up. You could try to write down your thoughts on a piece of paper, which may help you release all your worries away.
  • Take A Walk – Every now and then, you could use a breath of fresh air. Focus on your environment rather than focusing on your mind. This could help you be calm, especially when you go to a place that makes you happy.

Conclusion

Having anxiety isn’t fun. It’s always better to try to manage your anxiety so you can be free from all its negative effects. There are a ton of ways you can free yourself from anxiety on your own. However, if you feel that what you’re going through is getting more intense and more frequent, consider visiting a doctor to help you out.

Apart from this, you could also try avoiding any triggers so you can have a lesser chance of becoming more anxious as you try to manage your condition.

Keep in mind that you have to be the one to be in control of your body. This can be difficult but you should never stop trying to help yourself rise above your condition.