No-one likes anxiety. Whether at the early or advanced stages, the earlier you get relief, the better.

With causes ranging from stressful situations at work or school to past experiences, anxiety can show up without notice.

What do you do when it does?

Call 911? Rush to the hospital? Take some pills?

If you have been doing any of these, it’s time you stooped.

There are far better ways to handle anxiety than taking random over-the-counter medicine.

Rushing to the hospital or calling 911 is also extreme.

That should be a preserve of when things get out of hand.

HOME REMEDIES FOR ANXIETY

From the comfort of your home, there is a lot you can do to keep anxiety at bay.

Here is a list of 10 ways to kick anxiety out of your home with very little cost implications.

1. Exercises

The connection between anxiety and exercises has been studied and documented by many.

Exercising is not only a sure way of reducing and dealing with anxiety but an easy one too.

Exercises themselves do not directly reduce anxiety but their physical and psychological effects do. This is therefore an indirect but effective remedy for anxiety.

For you to experience the benefits though, you have to be consistent.

Do not start exercising today, skip it for three days, do it again for two days then stay away for a week.

Doing this will leave you frustrated as you see no results.

To successfully form a new habit around exercises, you should schedule it. Decide on a time of the day to exercise.

Depending on your other routines like work, ensure the time slot is free and does not collide with other major activities.

For example, to avoid getting late to work, you can decide to exercise in the evening.

You can then set an alarm to go off when you leave the office and another one when you get home.

These will remind you that you have an activity to engage in.

Although there are many types of exercises you can do, here are three good ones to start you off.

I. Jogging – this simple exercise will get your body warmed up and endorphins fired up. Endorphins are the hormones which make you feel good.

The good thing about jogging is that you can do it anywhere. If there is a park near your home, you can make use of it. If not, you can use the treadmill at the gym for this exercise. And if going to the gym is not possible, you can jog around your house.

Another exercise you can do as an alternative is rope skipping. This does not need much space and you can do it right inside your home.

II. Swimming – swimming is widely known as the exercise which works out the whole body. Not only does your heart rate increase, pumping more blood to your body, but your muscles get toned too.

Swimming will require you to either have a swimming pool or go where one is. Although it may feel like too much work, you will appreciate the benefits. Being an outdoor exercise, you will also reap the benefits of the sun.

The sun provides vitamin D which helps reduce anxiety and depression symptoms.

III. Dancing – this might be the best exercise for you because it is beneficial in many ways. First of all, it is fun and anything fun will automatically lighten your moods. This makes it possible to enjoy yourself, something which anxiety restricts.

If you can dance with others in a group, the better. You can enroll in a dancing class and learn some moves.

Zumba has come out as the most popular dance exercise for fitness as well as stress and anxiety reduction.

Here is a video to get you started.

2. Get Enough Sleep

Another simple and freely available remedy for anxiety is sleeping.

This might be the simplest of all the remedies available. Just tuck in and sleep your anxiety away.

Anxiety can be caused by insomnia.

And when that happens, it becomes a cycle because the anxiety can as well result in insomnia.

But in many cases, anxiety comes first and when it does, you can treat it with a good night’s sleep.

For a good sleep, you can try the below quick tips:

I. Do not eat immediately before bedtime – the meal you take before bedtime should be digested before you go to sleep. If you eat and immediately go to bed, you might have trouble sleeping. This is because your body will not be relaxing but working hard to digest food.

This becomes worse if you eat a meal high in fats. Fats typically take longer to digest, meaning they stay in the stomach for longer.

Worse still, this situation may result in what is commonly known as heartburn. Lying down while digestion is taking place could result in stomach acids flowing up the digestive tract.

II. Do not use your phone or watch TV in bed – use of mobile devices has been shown to make sleeping difficult. The continued engagement keeps the mind active at a time when it’s supposed to be relaxing for sleep.

At the same time, the blue light coming from the devices affects your sleep.

III. Keep your bedroom clean, dark and cool – show some love to your bedroom. As much as it is the room which may never be seen by visitors, appreciate it for the rest it provides you with. As such, take some time to keep it looking good and you will reap the benefits.

Having a clean bedroom is in itself inviting. Just think of booking a hotel room and finding the room dirty compared to when it is clean.

Keeping it dark ensures there are no distractions to your eyes, keeping your mind free from things which may trigger its attention.

The cool temperatures aid your body in relaxing. As opposed to when you’re exercising, sleep time requires cool temperatures.

To achieve this however, if in a warm climate, do not use a fan. This will blow dust into the air and affect your health when you breathe it.

Use your AC system to create a cool atmosphere but do not take the temperatures too low.

3. Chamomile Tea

What if sleep evades you? Don’t worry, there is a remedy for that.

When you drink chamomile tea before going to bed, you will increase your chances of sleeping better. Chamomile tea is first of all relaxing.

In that role, it will help you get rid of the anxiety symptoms.

At the same time, chamomile eases you into sleep mode.

This will make it easier for you to fall asleep.

If you are unable to sleep due to anxiety, taking chamomile tea before bed will give you double benefits.

4. Upgrade Your Food

Better food will always keep you away from the doctor.

This is a principle because much of the nutrients you need for a healthy life come from food.

But not all foods are the same. Some are good, others are better whereas others are plain bad.

If you have anxiety, there are those you should strongly consider making a part of your meals.

  • Brazilnuts – these nuts are famed for their high selenium content. Selenium is a strong mood lifter and is usually used as a supplement by people suffering from mood disorders like anxiety and depression. Instead of buying the supplements, why not buy the source of it and take it natural? A study conducted on the impact of selenium supplements on moods found that after 5 weeks, moods were improved. The subjects who did not take selenium reported more cases of anxiety.
  • Yogurt – yogurt is a great food to include in your diet if you desire to have some relief. The good bacteria which are in the yogurt promote mental health and function. They also inhibit free radicals which can destroy nerves tissues and lead to anxiety.
  • Eggs – these cheap sources of proteins should be an important addition to your meals too. Eggs provide essential amino acids which produce dopamine and serotonin. These two neurotransmitters are responsible for improving your moods.
  • Bananas – among the many health benefits bananas provide, they have the amino acid called tryptophan. This is also available in turkey meat. Once in the body, tryptophan is converted into serotonin. This in turn helps to relieve anxiety by promoting relaxation.
  • Salmon – salmon is a fatty fish and is classified in the same category as mackerel. The omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D in salmon helps reduce anxiety symptoms by regulating dopamine and serotonin. Omega-3 has also been shown to reduce inflammation and prevent brain cell dysfunction which leads to anxiety.
  • Blueberries – these small fruits are very high in antioxidants and vitamin C. These come in handy because anxiety “eats away” at your brain cells thus creating a need for your cells to be protected. Antioxidants can also help prevent anxiety.

5. Take a Deep Breath

One of the simplest ways of calming yourself down is by taking  a deep breath.

As you breathe in slowly and deeply, you fill your lungs with as much air as possible.

You then release the air by breathing out slowly till all the air is expelled from your lungs.

What happens during this exercise is that your whole body becomes relaxed because your heart rate is getting normalized.

A relaxed heart pumps blood throughout your body at the normal rate and that causes your body to operate normally.

This is the exact opposite of how anxiety makes your body operate.

One variation of deep breathing is the technique known as “Alternate Nostril Breathing.”

With this technique, you breath in with one nostril while covering the other one. You then cover the one you breathed in with and exhale using the one you previously covered.

This technique is very effective in making you get relaxed and ease the anxiety symptoms troubling you.

Here is a video of how to practice alternate nostril breathing.

6. Aromatherapy

As the name suggests, this is therapy using aromas. You use scents mainly from specific herbs and flowers to relieve anxiety symptoms.

Aromatherapy has been practiced for a very long time. As usage of plants for medicinal benefits, there are records dating thousands of years back. Locations of historical use include Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), India and China.

Through the different uses for both psychological and physical well-being, this practice has gained acceptance in many cultures.

For aromatherapy, what is used is the essential oil of certain plants.

An essential oil comes in concentrated form and must be diluted when applying on the skin.

This article gives a comprehensive guide on dilution ratios.

There are several ways of practicing aromatherapy. They include:

  1. Inhaling – this is the most popular way of benefiting from these oils. You can use an oil burner to get the scent spread after some heat is applied to it. Or, you can use a diffuser which uses water and some drops of the oil to form a steam which is distributed throughout the room.
  2. In your bath – you can also use essential oils in your bath. Add a few drops and soak yourself in the bath to get some relief.
  3. For massage – massages are often used with massage oils. If getting a massage for anxiety relief, specify which oil you would like used.

If you don’t have any favorite, your masseuse will most likely know the best to use for anxiety.

For anxiety, there are several good oils to choose from. All of these have a calming effect to ease your symptoms.

Some oils you can use include lavender, valerian, jasmine, bergamot, chamomile and ylang ylang. More oils can be found here.

7. Get a Massage

Getting a massage can be the best thing you can do for yourself when anxiety shows up.

Although licensed or certified massage therapists may not be available at your home, there are many ways of massaging yourself.

Check out this link with 11 ways of massaging yourself.

Massages relieve muscle pains and tension, increase flexibility and improve your blood circulation. This causes your body to be relaxed and your symptoms disappear.

As mentioned on the topic of aromatherapy, using essential oils can go a long way in making the massage more effective. It will also be more enjoyable.

8. Take a Walk

Walking is a form of exercising. It however works slightly differently from other exercises like jogging or swimming.

Those exercises are fast-paced whereas walking to relieve yourself of anxiety symptoms is slow-paced.

Walking takes the approach of creating a calm environment for clear thinking.

You will benefit most if you walked in a park or in the woods where the air is clean and fresh.

Primarily, it is the change of environment that causes the relief. As your mind is taken over by the scenes you see while walking, your mind will have something different to think about.

For example, you may come across some birds as you walk. Or some fish if your walk takes you to where fish are. As you watch them, your mind will get something different to process.

Getting your mind away from the thoughts causing you anxiety will help you a great deal. If the symptoms were caused by a situation, you will be able to more calmly think about it later.

This is why many people often postpone thinking about stressful situation. They instead do something exciting so as to arouse the creative and solution-driven side of them.

9. Talk it Out

When you are anxious, you tend to withdraw from people. You pull away intending to think about the issue in an effort to come up with a solution.

At other times, you may isolate yourself thinking that nobody understands you or wants to be with you.

These feelings might reduce slightly upon isolation but not because the withdrawal is the solution. It is just a case of your secondary fears being stilled.

Your primary fears are however still strong. And those are the ones you need to deal with.

An easy way of reducing the weight of the symptoms you are experiencing is by talking to someone. If you live alone, find a friend or a support group you can interact with.

If you live with someone, make an effort of talking to him about the situation.

Open up to them. Tell them the fears you are facing. Discuss the challenge which lies ahead and try to consider their opinion.

In most cases, they will listen to you, hoping they are good listeners, then reason out the situation with you.

Show yourself some love by committing to trying to see the situation from the other person’s perspective.

10. Stop Catastophizing

If you have anxiety symptoms, you will find that you easily drift towards the negative.

And when things get worse, you take the negative to the extreme.

This is called catastophizing. It is when you see nothing but catastrophes all around you.

If you maintain this mindset, those catastrophes may as well start chasing you down the hallway.

And if they catch up with you, you might suffer depression.

The thing with catastophizing is that it is subtle. It starts small.

In any case, everything starts small but grows exponentially mainly due to your response.

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” Roy T. Bennett

When you experience a challenge, it is your response that determines how big it will be.

Entrepreneurs are known to turn challenges into opportunities when others see them as huge problems.

How do they do it?

It starts with the mindset. How you perceive the situation determines your response and the eventual success or failure. The same applies to you.

Develop a mindset of a winner. Stop seeing challenges as problems.

Regardless of how big they are, decide to believe that you can overcome them.

Your mind is a powerful tool and the more credit you give it, the more results it gives you. And the good thing about it is that you don’t have to have any solution.

Just believing that you can tackle it is enough.

You can try severally and fail but keep the belief. Talk to someone and ask for help and before you know it, you will have your breakthrough. It is just a matter of choice.

Choose to maintain the right attitude.

CONCLUSION

Use these simple remedies to help you deal with anxiety symptoms.

You will easily contain the situation and prevent worse conditions like depression.

10 Trusted Home Remedies for Natural Anxiety Relief

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