Nine More Natural Ways To Relieve Anxiety

Nine More Natural Ways to Relieve Anxiety

Manage Your Diet to Relieve Anxiety

It is just how humans are wired—when we are hungry, we get irritable and anxious. There is even a correlation between anxiety and changes in blood sugar. If you start to feel panic or high anxiety, this may mean that your blood sugar is starting to drop.

If you find that you are experiencing a small bout of anxiety and you haven't eaten in a while, grab yourself a small snack, like some dark chocolate or a handful of pistachios. Pair it with a cup of non-caffeinated tea or a big glass of water.

This will help in the short term, but you should also consider altering your lifestyle so your body can manage anxiety more effectively. Many physicians recommend eating a diet focused on vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, emphasizing healthy meats such as poultry or seafood while eating much less red meat.

Also, eating a lot of dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach is recommended to get folate. Green tea is a great way to ensure that you get a high level of phytonutrients with antioxidant qualities and anti-anxiety properties. A diet like this will keep your blood sugar balanced and provide your body with all of the energy and nutrients it needs to run at peak performance, which will mitigate anxiety in various ways.

Eat Breakfast!

A healthy diet can do wonders for your anxiety, but don't try to save calories by skipping your breakfast. There is a strong correlation between people who skip breakfast and people with tendencies toward anxiety, and the reverse is also true.

Great things to add to your breakfast are eggs and whole wheat. Whole wheat is highly beneficial because it is densely nutritious, and takes a lot of work for your stomach to burn, which helps keep insulin levels balanced while providing you with a lot of energy. Eggs are great because they are the number one source of choline found in nature. People that do not get enough choline are more likely to experience anxiety.

Skipping breakfast is bad for anxiety because it encourages your body to produce unhealthy cortisol levels. Cortisol is the hormone that controls and balances the fight-or-flight response.

Cortisol is a necessary hormone that controls pain and helps you make split decisions and act on impulse when needed, but when your body makes too much, it can leave you on edge and can cause you to become more and more unhealthy over time.

People with elevated cortisol are prone to very high anxiety levels and are at increased risk of different cardiovascular complications, including heart attack and stroke.

Omega-three Fatty Acids and Anxiety

Omega-three Fatty Acids are essential oils that you can only get from animal products. These essential oils are highly beneficial and necessary for optimal health, and fish have the highest concentration of Omega-Three Fatty Acids.

These Fatty Acids have been shown to alleviate anxiety, among their other various benefits. In one study, students were given 2.5 mg Omega-Three Capsules once daily over three months. The group that took these capsules experienced less anxiety than those that were on placebo.

Even though supplements are an acceptable way to get your essential Omega-Threes, nutrition specialists recommend getting them from natural sources whenever you can. The fish with the highest levels of Omega-Three Fatty Acids are cold-water species of fish such as salmon. A single, six-ounce fillet of salmon contains 3.5 g of Omega-Threes.

Other Benefits of Omega-Three Fatty Acids

Omega-three Fatty Acids play a role in many different biological functions, and the human body cannot produce them, so we have to get them in our diet. There is evidence that getting healthy levels of these nutrients can protect the heart from heart disease and stroke.

Omega-Threes are really good for the heart because they promote increased levels of Healthy HDL cholesterol, which many people in America don't get enough of in their diet.

This nutrient also helps promote normal blood pressure and can be used to alleviate hypertension when taken in high doses recommended by a qualified physician. The positive impact that Omega-Threes have on cholesterol also reduces diabetes risk because the nutrients have a suppressive effect on triglycerides and apoproteins, which are diabetes markers.

Stop Creating Disasters in Your Mind

One issue that people with high levels of anxiety face is that they tend to turn minor problems into significant ones in their minds. When an episode of increased anxiety hits, many people have a tendency to immediately consider the worst. They think about something that frustrates them or causes them anxiety and extrapolates that out to worst-case scenarios, amplifying the anxiety and making minor issues seem like major problems.

Think about the way you feel when you experience anxiety. Do you have this tendency to automatically brace yourself for the worst? When you start to feel anxiety, force yourself to calm down.

Engage in a bit of focused breathing, then take a quick walk and think through your problem realistically rather than letting your anxiety take control.

When you take the time to evaluate your anxiety, you will find that the root of your episode is far less of an issue than you initially led yourself to believe, and you can take steps to further relieve your anxiety and mitigate the situation.

We have a tendency to see far more catastrophes in our minds than actually occur in a lifetime.

Engage in Heat Therapy

There is a reason why spending time in a steam room or sauna provides feelings of relaxation. Engaging in heat therapy has a medically-proven ability to reduce both anxiety and muscle tension. Feelings of warmth seem to be able to manipulate the neural circuitry, which helps determine your mood.

Getting in a sauna or hot bath increases the secretion of the hormone serotonin, which is widely referred to as the pleasure hormone.

Some medical professionals hypothesize that this increase in body temperature may be one of the reasons that exercise has the ability to improve mood. It also may explain why a hot cup of tea and a warm fire can provide the same sensations of comfort and contentment. There is no doubt that comfortable warmth of any kind has the ability to change the way that we think and we feel.

Other Benefits of Heat Therapy

Heat Therapy is a natural form of pain relief. A heating pad or electric blanket wrapped around an area experiencing pain can help alleviate the impact of that pain. Heat Therapy is also suitable for rehabilitation after an injury because strained or damaged muscles and other tissues often suffer from blood vessel constriction, slowing down the healing process.

Heating pads can increase blood flow to a particular area to stimulate healing. Heat Therapy can also be used to alleviate headaches, which are often caused or exacerbated by stress in the neck and shoulder muscles.

Go Out and Experience Nature

If you are experiencing a lot of stress, there is strong scientific evidence that going out for a walk or jog in the forest can do more to improve your mood than physical exercise alone. Perhaps there's something about the beauty of nature and our undeniable attraction to it which has the ability to help us feel more at ease.

In one Japanese study, researchers took two groups of people out for a walk. One group walked for twenty minutes in a beautiful forest environment. The other group walked the same distance for twenty minutes in an urban environment. They found that the cortisol levels and other stress hormones were lower among those walking through the forest landscape.

Other studies have been performed in the United States based on the same premise, and similar results were found. Researchers hypothesized that forests could both tranquilize those that experience it and improve their overall mood, mainly if the individual has recently labored or experienced anxiety.

Learn How to Meditate and Turn Off Your Mind

One thing that causes anxiety and amplifies stress is that, especially in the West, we tend to leave our brains on all the time. If there is one crucial thing to know about stress, taking time to collect oneself occasionally is incredibly important if one is to maintain a balanced psychological profile. In Buddhist societies, meditation is central to fostering mental balance and enhancing the mind's connection to the body and the environment.

As scientists have studied meditation, they have found that it produces profound benefits to the body and the mind. One aspect of Eastern Meditation is Mindfulness. Learning how to turn your thoughts on and off through your sheer will and concentration is essential.

Doing so gives your brain time to reset itself and focus, which is a fantastic way to eliminate anxiety. Many psychologists utilize meditation in therapy because it helps the patient appreciate the moment rather than agonize over the past or the future.

Other Benefits of Meditation

Meditation not only induces relaxation and reduces anxiety, but it also has several other health benefits as well. There is evidence that meditation has the ability to help people control pain, allowing them to handle physical pain more quickly. It actually appears that meditation reduces activity in the portion of the brain which registers pain. Meditation also safeguards the mind against cognitive decline because it encourages the prefrontal cortex to maintain its thickness, which usually starts to lose its volume with age.

The reduction in psychological stress is also correlated with increased cardiovascular health. Men and women who meditate have healthier blood pressure and produce more nitric oxide, which is responsible for expanding blood vessels. Meditation also has the ability to reduce the body's inflammation response, which helps the immune system stay stronger.

Be Mindful When You Relax

This is connected with mindful meditation, but you can engage in it at any time, even when you only have a few brief moments to contemplate. This concept is readily incorporated into breathing exercises if you want to enhance the benefits of that activity.

While you are sitting or resting peacefully, take the time to ask questions and engage in quiet reflection. Don't let yourself get caught up in things that give you anxiety; let your mind wander.

Any form of relaxation where you exert control over your mind will produce psychological and physiological benefits. Anxiety is the mind and body's unwillingness to let go, and if you teach yourself how to let yourself let go and distance your mind from your troubles and your neurological quirks, you will become more effective at removing anxiety from your health and improving your health.

Take the Time to Recognize Your Own Anxiety

The first necessary step to controlling your anxiety is reflecting on yourself enough to realize stress's impact on your life. Understanding your mind is the first priority when attempting to curb your anxiety.

It's important to understand that recognizing your own anxiety is an essential factor in combating it. One of the most effective means to mitigate anxiety is fostering this sense of mindfulness, which is truly a skill that must be learned. Beyond the foundation of self-realization, you can start taking further steps to control your anxiety, including cognitive reframing, positive self-talk, and relaxation and mindfulness strategies.

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