Unmasking the Causes, and How to Deal with Anxiety

Unmask the causes of anxiety so you can stop feeling agitated by it, and take back control of your life.

This article gives you a deeper understanding of the true nature of anxiety, what is behind it, what triggers it, how it can affect your personal well-being, and how you can deal with it effectively so you take back control of your life.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness that arises when a person feels uncertain about the results of events, whether they are real or just imagined.

Anxiety is actually an emotion. Emotions are primal in nature and serve a useful self-preservation purpose. In humans, they provide a sensate input, an intuitive or gut feeling, for the mind to assess and react appropriately to an event or situation.

Oddly enough, modern society doesn’t value emotions much, so we haven’t learned how to use this input properly. What purpose do they really serve? Something to ponder!

How Humans Respond

To better understand anxiety, it is important to understand how humans are wired. When faced with an unfamiliar or frightening situation, our primal reaction is always emotional. Humans are wired to react emotionally first, even before their minds can stop to assess, reason, and then respond.

What Triggers Anxiety?

Depending on each person’s individual makeup, their response will vary with the circumstances. An unfamiliar situation in life, or a situation that triggers memories of unpleasant, uncertain, fearful, or even traumatic events, can trigger anxiety in a person. The subconscious can also trigger anxiety. The collective memory of people around an individual or even society can also trigger anxiety, not just events in one’s own life.

Once triggered, this state of anxiety can persist if not addressed properly. Cerebral individuals often find themselves trapped in endless cycles of “What if?” processing, which sets off more anxiety. For those naturally intuitive, an ongoing sense of dread or impending doom can trigger heightened anxiety. But is the threat real or imagined?

The anxiety can be so strong that the mind can’t pause for rational thought, and is unable to discern real from imagined threats and respond accordingly. Anxiety will linger until the person can silence the turbulent emotions and the constant looping of their overactive mind.

What are its Effects?

While anxiety can range from mild to anxiety attacks or even panic attacks, in the long run, it affects one’s physical, emotional, and mental health. Anxiety can set off a racing heart, rapid breathing, nausea, irritability, tension, restlessness, difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping, etc — all triggered by an imagined or real sense of impending doom, or an overactive mind that goes into endless “What-if?” loops.

How to deal with Anxiety Effectively?

Like other emotions, anxiety is a form of energy that must be calmed, dissipated, or transmuted. Where there is deep trauma, you will also a need to transmute the energy to facilitate deep healing.

When the emotions and the overactive mind are calmed, stop and view the event or situation again from a different perspective. Reframe, then take positive actions to turn matters around.

Here are some effective ways to deal with anxiety:

Regular exercise such as running, walking, or swimming can dissipate tension in the body and mild levels of anxiety.
Deep breathing to calm the emotions and feelings, and the mind. Forms of Yoga, such as Hatha Yoga, are excellent for this.
Try journaling or other forms of expression so you become aware of deep festering emotions and feelings and can take action to address them properly. Journaling also allows you to see if you are stuck in a mental perspective and need to reframe.
Talk out what you are feeling. Find a suitable support system such as friend, family member, or counsellor.
Meditation to ground and find your centered space within.
Find natural healing tools that calm the mind and transmute the charge around unresolved emotions and feelings. Diffusion is one such healing tool — refer to the Diffusion link below.
In cases of trauma, find a counsellor who has the tools to help you dissipate the charge around unresolved emotions and feelings stored in memory, and reframe the event or situation in memory.
Eat a healthy diet and drink lots of water to dissipate toxicity.
Get good sleep. Try a nice hot shower or bath before bed.
Make time regularly for relaxation
Epsom salt bath (once a week) to release tension in the body.

In addition:

Avoid the use of alcohol, drugs to cope.
Limit exposure to anxiety-triggering situations.
Get professional medical advice when needed.

Conclusion

You are not alone in experiencing anxiety, it’s a part of everyday living. Once you understand the true nature of anxiety, what is behind it, what triggers it, how it can affect your personal well-being, you can take effective actions to deal with anxiety and take back control of your life.

Please note that the information provided in this article is not a substitute for professional medical advice.