9 Little Habits That Neutralize Anxiety

Anxiety is often one of the biggest roadblocks to living a happy and productive lifestyle. Anxiety is one of the few common mental health issues that causes physical, mental, and emotional symptoms, and when you experience anxiety you often find that all three of those issues can stop you from achieving a more balanced, content life.
The problem is that many anxiety medicines don’t help you find that contentment. Rather they act as a tranquilizer, offering you temporary relief from your overall symptoms in exchange for most of your energy. Taking tranquilizers neither cures anxiety nor improves your quality of life. All it does is take some of the physical symptoms away.
The best way to reduce anxiety in the long term in order to all improve your quality of life is to integrate habits into your routine that neutralize anxiety. The more you do every day to help yourself remain calm and relaxed, the easier it will be to endure your anxiety over the long term.

Habits That Reduce Anxiety

1. Exercise
Exercise is possibly the most beneficial way to neutralize your anxiety. Its primary benefit is the physical release you get from regular, intense exercise. Too much physical energy only exacerbates your anxiety level, so exercise is used to tire out your mind and body to give you long periods of relaxation and improved sleep.
Exercise also releases endorphins – “feel good” neurotransmitters that improve mood and promote tranquility. It can also make you healthier, which will reduce anxiety symptoms, and it can improve your overall confidence which helps improve your ability to cope with stress.

2. Creative Outlets

Hobbies are a fun way to occupy your time. They are also a good way to neutralize your anxiety. Often bottling up your fears and frustrations only leads to furthering your anxiety. But by finding a creative outlet – one that allows you to express yourself in ways that appeal to you – you are able to let out some of what frustrates you in a productive, interesting, fun and unique way.

3. Keeping a Positivity Journal

One of the many problems with anxiety is that it causes people to focus on the negative while avoiding the positive. It is not uncommon to come out of an event and only remember all of the mistakes you feel you made, rather than think back on the those things that you enjoyed.To help cure anxiety, it’s important to change that mindset. Many experts recommend creating a positivity journal. Every day you think back about what occurred during the day and come up with a list of all of the good things you enjoyed. If your day was filled with stress and anxiety, then figure out how to put a positive spin on what happened. Over time you will not only teach yourself how to look at life’s positives – you will also have a giant list of all of the great things that happened to you over the course of the year that you can refer to when you’re experiencing too much anxiety.

4. Eat Healthier

Numerous studies in scientific journals all over the world have found that poor nutrition leads to greater levels of stress and anxiety. That is why one of the first things you should do to neutralize your anxiety is fix your diet . Eating healthier with good vitamins and minerals will support your anxiety reduction efforts and keep your body feeling healthy and relaxed.

5. Purposeful Tick

It’s not uncommon to have little ticks and twitches when you have persistent anxiety. Some people shake their legs, others cough, some people blink – all of these are usually unwanted and many people seek ways to stop them.
But ticks have a small advantage as well – they are your body’s physical release for its anxiety related energy. Rather than simply removing your unwanted ticks, try creating a small, barely noticeable behavior that you can use to calm you down.

One idea is to rub your right thumb gently over your index finger. Every time you’re feeling anxious, rub your index finger with your thumb until you calm down. Over time, you’ll find yourself doing this behavior every time you’re anxious. This small behavior will help you release some of your anxiety in a barely noticeable way.

6. Clear Your Place

Clutter doesn’t necessarily cause anxiety, but it does reduce your ability to relax. A cluttered home makes a home feel less welcoming/inviting to the eye, and while you may find a little bit of comfort from having familiarity around you, the clutter itself makes can make your daily life seem busy and over-filled. Cleaning your home and opening up space will provide you with far more comfort, and the act of cleaning your home may have some calming benefits as well.

7. Drink Water

Healthy eating is not the only thing that can neutralize anxiety. Cutting out coffee and soda can also improve your stress levels as well. Caffeine is known to increase anxiety, while soda is filled with artificial sugars, caffeine and other agents that may lead to more feelings of stress. Water, on the other hand, is beneficial for your body, free, tasty and good for you. Drinking a decent amount of water every day and reducing your soda and caffeine intake will lead to lower levels of anxiety over time.

8. Laugh

Laughter really is a great form of medicine. Laughter does more than simply improve your mood. It also has both short and long term benefits. You take in greater quantities of air, you improve blood flow to and from your organs, and you let out significant amounts of physical tension. It has even been shown to improve your immune system.Watching comedies, hanging out with funny friends, reading great jokes or just fake laughing for 15 minutes each afternoon can potentially reduce your anxiety by a considerable margin in addition to bringing you more joy to your day.

9. Deep Breathing

Long, deep breaths stimulate blood flow and boost your body’s calming response. Deep breathing is a specific type of breath that is known to improve relaxation . To deep breathe:

- Loosen all of your clothes and lie down on your back somewhere comfortable.

- Lay one hand on your abdomen and one on your chest.

- Take in oxygen slowly through your nose. Feel the expansion of air in your stomach.

- Exhale slowly through your mouth, keeping your lips closed to reduce air flow.

- Repeat for ten minutes.

Deep breathing is considered a far healthier way of breathing and encourages your body to improve its overall oxygen flow, which in turn cuts down on anxiety related symptoms.

Integrate These Helpful Habits Into Your Life

Medications are not a useful long term solution to anxiety. To truly neutralize anxiety, you must start introducing new and effective anxiety reduction habits into your life. The above list represents just a few of the possible ways that you can reduce your anxiety and improve your ability to fight stress and nervousness.