How do you decrease anxiety in your life? Everyone join in !! :)

Everyone has experienced anxiety or stress in their life at sometime or another. For many people anxiety symptoms are very fleeting and are not that bothersome, but for other people they can be overwhelming and debilitating. Overwhelming anxiety can be overcome, and sufferers do not have to sit in silence. Anxiety is treatable, and there are many ways to cope if you have high anxiety levels.

So let us start this exercise and everyone add on what works for them:

How do you decrease anxiety in your life?

I will call a friend. When I am having  trouble dealing with my  anxieties and anxiety symptoms I pick up the phone and call a friend. Just by talking with the voice of reason even though my friend may be on the west coast it  helps to lower my anxiety levels.

What works for you?

Hugs

Kitt

Definitely call a friend, go for a fast walk, deep breathe, watch something funny on tv, listen to calming music.

Since my business started having trouble I have slacked off big time, but I'll tell you what helped me vault from being a pretty neurotic person to a somewhat normal person.

Creativity. It's my belief -- and it's not necessarily correct or universal -- that anxiety disorder preys on the right brain. Think about it. Your brain is where everything's going on, right? If you have anxiety it starts there, and your brain could even make you feel ill at your stomach or make your chest hurt or whatever. It is creating physical manifestations of anxiety. To keep it from doing that, you have to give the creative mind something to do. My weapons of choice are a guitar and a camera. Yours may be a paintbrush or pen.

Creativity is a lot more than just what people think of as "artistic". Any kind of problem solving uses the right brain. Engineers designing a bridge rely just as much on their left brain as they do their right. Figuring out how to fix your cabinets or whatever may be wrong in your home is a left-brain activity in large part. Writing anything is, too. You have to formulate your thoughts, then assemble your vocabulary and sentence structure in such a way that your thoughts are read well. It doesn't have to be a novel. It could be a short paper describing how to warm up a microwave pizza. The more detailed you make it, the better. Even proofreading or revising what you've already written is a good creative exercise.

So those are my thoughts on it. I also take Klonopin and it helps quite a bit.

I like to take a walk or read. . . And always love to visit with others as well :)

For the most extreme anxiety and stress absolutely NOTHING worked in the clinches of the beast, I just had to ride the tidal wave until it was over. When your heart is pounding and your mind is in overdrive its hard to even sit still and watch tv. But, once the peak has dropped I love painting, or gardening.
I generally tried not to talk about my problems as it sometimes made things worse.