Exercise and deep breathing help reduce anxiety.
People suffering from generalized and excessive anxiety worry in an exaggerated way about everyday life. Anxiety can become so severe that it affects health and well-being. Anxiety-reducing activities help calm excessive worry, fear and dread. They help a person control anxiety so that it does not interfere with daily functioning at work or at school, with relationships or with social activities.
Exercise
Exercise is a good way to reduce anxiety. This need not be gymnastic exercise. Any physical activity that gets your heart pumping faster and increases your body temperature has calming effects. These activities do not have to be intense, such as running or playing basketball. Gardening, taking a long walk or even washing your car can help lessen your anxiety.
When you focus on a physical exercise, there is less focus on your anxiety. Also, chemicals that are neurotransmitters and endorphins are released within your brain by exercise and help you feel good, according to the Mayo Clinic.
A good way to lessen your anxiety throughout your day is to do physical exercise in small doses several times a day. This can mean using the stairs instead of the elevator, parking further away from work or dancing while you are waiting for the water to boil or during TV commercials. Step up the pace by turning on your favorite fast music and allowing your body to move freely to its rapid rhythms. The important point is to get the endorphins flowing, which will ease your anxiety and induce the feeling of well-being.
Although all exercises help reduce anxiety, martial arts have the added advantage of increasing power within you, thereby helping you feel less anxious. Martial arts teach you use your inner power which relieves any anxiety caused by feelings of powerlessness.
Repeating certain exercises you like is another good way to reduce anxiety because repetition itself has a calming effect on generalized anxiety. Shamans knew this and created rituals which are calming, repetitive exercises. Practice the same exercises regularly, such as going for a walk along the same route or dancing to the same songs.
Deep Breathing
Breathing exercises help you take control of your anxiety by controlling your breath. They calm the nervous system, promoting overall balance and mental wellness. This acts as an antidote to anxiety because the mind is soothed and quieted.
A variety of breathing exercises are available to help you breathe away your anxiety and any tension you feel. All involve deep breathing since anxiety forces the breath upward high in the chest. Some exercises focus on the abdomen while others focus on the diaphragm - two areas of the body anxiety tightens. These exercises keep you alert yet train you to relax all the muscles in your body, for they are designed to release the response of relaxation deep within the body.
Kansas State University offers eight free audio files to facilitate deep breathing. These audio breathing exercises guide you to slow down your breathing and stop the hyperventilation that anxiety brings. They also focus you on relaxing different muscles in your body (see References 3), helping you to focus progressively on different parts of your body. Listening to them helps you to breathe a relaxed peace into your arms, feet, shoulders, hips, hands, neck, jaws and almost every part of you.
Also available are Pranayama yogic breathing exercises. These include techniques such as closing one nostril while breathing or accompanying breathing with noises resembling the sound of a bee. These exercises vitalize energy flow in the body which calms the nervous system and releases anxiety. Free Pranayama audio MP3's are available online (see References 4).
Meditation and Yoga
Most meditation practices and all forms of yoga involve deep breathing and the reduction of anxiety, for they still the mind and focus the attention away from problems and conflicts that cause anxiety. These exercises are especially useful for anxiety caused by extreme and chronic stress and for people suffering from panic attacks, according to Timothy McCall, M.D. at yogajournal.com. Coupled with breathing exercises, yoga exercises burn off the excess nervous energy which feeds anxiety.
As the practice of yogic exercises proceeds, a person develops greater internal sensitivity and is more likely to recognize the first signs of an approaching anxiety attack. It then becomes easier for a person to ward off the anxiety through the peace-inducing yogic exercises coupled with deep breathing.
Chanting, prayer and devotional singing are sometimes added to yoga exercises to keep anxiety at bay.
Meditation has many forms and can be done with eyes open or closed, indoors or outdoors. Unlike yoga, meditation targets the deeper causes of anxiety. It can still the nervous system on the deepest of levels through faithful practice. Many insights during meditation can be gained into how an unruly mind causes anxiety by focusing on worries, leading to eventual control of anxiety.
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