What Is Anxiety? Plus Five Simple Tips For Managing This Formidable Foe

If someone was to ask you describe anxiety, what would you say? Would you be able to accurately describe what you are feeling? Would your answer be the same as friends or close family member? Would you really know what actions to take to reduce it’s impact?



To truth of the matter is that while chronic and long term anxiety are serious issues the common run of the mill type of anxiety you feel each and every day is perfectly natural, and may be vary greatly from one person to another. Nevertheless, just because it’s common doesn’t mean it can’t make your life miserable and cause serious health issues while reducing productivity.



When a person is experiencing high anxiety they become much like a tea pot which is continually building up steam. Unless you let the steam out either the tea pot will be destroyed from the inside out or seriously damaged over time. Not a pretty picture if you are talking about the human body.



The feeling of anxiety is your body kicking into overdrive, or as researchers like to call it "the fight or flight survival mechanism". When anxiety (fight or flight) strikes your body swings into action in three different ways: physically, mentally, and behaviorally.



First the brain sends a signal to your nervous system to swing into high alert. It tells the adrenal glands to flood the body with the super stimulants adrenaline and noradrenalin. You heart begins to race, your breathing pattern changes, oxygen consumption to the lungs increases while being decreased to non essential areas, and blood flow increases to the large muscle getting them ready for action.



Mentally your vision broadens in breath and scope, and your attention focuses in on the anxiety producing threat.



Behaviorally now you’re ready to run or fight. But which will it be? Will you boldly go into that anxiety riddled job interview, or will the fear component of fight or flight cause you to turn around and go home? Or will it be something in-between such as a quick stop a Joe’s bar to take the edge off?



It is how you are able to cope with anxiety that will determine whether anxiety turns out to be a friend or foe on any given day. Next I would like to pass on a few ideas that have worked for me over the years in opening that tea spout just enough to let the pressure slowly escape.



Here are the five I have used over the years and hopefully you will find them helpful.



*On important nerve racking days cut your caffeine consumption in half: This was a hard one for me, since I just love my coffee. But what I found was that if I made a deal with myself and just didn’t drink quite as much coffee I tended to function better and my overall anxiety level was substantially lower.



*Take the anxiety challenge one step at a time: Listen, no one knows how that job interview is going to turn out. There simply are too many variable at work. So accept it and deal with the now of the situation rather than the what ifs.



*Breathing is important: Of course it is important otherwise we would turn blue and pass out! Well of course, but what I am saying here is often times anxiety alters breathing patterns and reduces the amount of oxygen you are taking in and causing the toxins in the blood stream to build. This process can cause a number of problems including lack of mental clarity. So before that big job interview take ten deep breaths, slowly exhaling after each one.



*Get enough rest: It will be hard to hold the anxiety monster in its cage if you are sleep deprived. So try to get those eight hours if you can.



*Sometimes you may need a little help: If you feel your anxiety is just too much to handle, and are less than enthusiastic about prescription medications then perhaps a natural anxiety reducing supplement might be worth considering.



Rob Hawkins is an enthusiastic consumer advocate for natural health and natural living

with over 10 years experience in the field.

To learn more about anxiety along with a list of safe and effective natural remedies for anxiety



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