what physical and mental tools for anxiety?

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Hi

Im haveing CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and need to find physical tools and mental tools for coping with anxiety.

An example of a physical tool is jogging, and an example of a mental tool is meditation.

what tools (physical and mental) do you use to cope with anxiety?

Last edited by lotusblossom on 18 Dec 2009, 6:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yoga and massage could be physical.

Mental could be self-affirming phrases...maybe that sounds stupid?

I suffer horribly from anxiety as a result of PTSD.

things I've found most helpful are:

cognitive behavior work with my therapist (i.e. breaking overwhelming problems down into their component issues so I can see they aren't impossible to deal with) which would be mental work,

and

acupuncture, which would be a physical treatment. I've found it helps a great deal to mitigate the physical effects of long-term stress like physical pain (back pain, headaches, GI issues, generalized muscle and nerve pain, insomnia). when my body is falling apart it adds to my anxiety level.

Physical tool: Cutting out sugar as much as possible, particularly sucrose/white sugar. If I eat more than a tiny amount of sugar I become increasingly anxious, and as I find it difficult to restrain myself to a little bit of sugar, ( it tends to escalate ), I have to cut it out almost completely.

And for two years now a gf diet, but that helps more with depression, blues, gloom, black-hole-style negative thinking etc.

Mental tool: Deciding to believe in god and no longer believing in free will. These two things have helped enormously with anxiety too.

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And caffeine!! It brings your heart rate sky high and can really set off anxiety. I still drink coke and things, though, because it's one of my few pleasures. But yeah, that would help. Perhaps you've covered that..

I do yoga as a physical tool, also just lying in my bed and trying to clear my mind (that might count as meditation, though). I use a lot of herbal stuff. There are a lot of herbs that you can either make into tea or smoke (I'm not talking about tabacco or marijuana), like kava kava, valerian root, damania, mugwort (although mugwort can give you nightmares). Breathing exercises are good, too. One is that you take in a breath for four counts, hold it for four counts, breath out for at least four counts (I usually do about six), don't breath for another four counts, breath in for four counts...etc, until you mind is slightly cleared and then you take a lot of deep breaths with long exhales.

Thanks everyone

Can you think of any mental and physical tools that can be done to ease anxiety imediately?

for example, my daughter holds my hand when she feels anxious.

Well, deciding to believe in god had an immediate effect on my levels of anxiety.

I felt as if, after years of trekking through hostile and dangerous alien territory, like a lone scout, keeping all my senses alert for signs of possible attack, I had suddenly arrived home/somewhere safe.

It was quite remarkable. The feeling of relief/escape from a chronic, ( and exhausted ), stand-by/eyes and ears open/hair-trigger reaction state was so powerful that I promptly burst out crying. As if I had been in permanent crisis and at last it was over.

And whenever I think to remind myself that I believe in god I feel muscles relaxing all over my body, start breathing differently, more deeply and slowly, as a result.

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Maybe listening to a favourite cd or fiddling with a stress ball or similar toy you can fiddle with, picturing a favourite place it probably really depends on the person. What makes you feel calm. You could also try focusing on your breathing, consciously making sure you're breathing in deeply.

ativan.

I practice Buddhist-type meditation techniques. In particular Mindfulness of Breathing and Loving-Kindness meditation.

That's funny, my rejecting the whole notion of the superstition of a personal deity helped with my anxiety as a teen.