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According to recent studies, 18.1% of Americans over the age of 18 suffer from anxiety. However, only 36.9% of them get treatment.
What one individual finds effective in managing their anxiety may not be as useful for another. Nevertheless, some situations tend to have a similar positive or negative impact on most people's anxiety level.
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What Should You Avoid If You Have Anxiety?
With there being such a stigma surrounding anxiety and mental health, it can be intimidating to ask other people about their coping methods. That can unwittingly exacerbate your anxiety while doing something you believe would improve it.
On that note, here are six things to avoid if you have anxiety:
1) Substance Use
Self-medicating is a common problem among people with anxiety disorders. It’s widely done but certainly not effective or long-lasting.
Another problem with self-medicating is that, in a relatively short time, you can develop an addiction on top of your anxiety disorder. Before you know it, you’ve got two very real and very dangerous conditions.
Drugs and alcohol might give you a moment’s relief from anxiety, but in the end these substances are detrimental to your well-being and certainly not worth it.
2) Having Excess Sugar
As sugar is there in many foods we enjoy eating, such as fruit, it's impossible to completely avoid it. However, extra sugar contributes to anxiety. Having sweets sends your blood sugar on a rollercoaster trip of spikes and falls, causing your energy to fluctuate. When your blood sugar level drops, your mood goes down. and anxiety may increase.
To regulate blood sugar level and help the body absorb extra glucose, insulin is released. However, a sugar rush makes the body work too hard to return to normal, resulting in highs and lows. Thus, consuming a lot of processed sugar can make you feel anxious, irritable, and depressed.
Every break-up movie promises that a pint of ice cream can solve all your problems. Although that may be delicious, consuming a large quantity of sugar can lead you to feeling worried, irritable, and sad.
3) Negativity
Humans are social creatures, who have a propensity to observe others' activities. Spending time with people that add stress and strain to your life is one of the worst things you can do when you need to feel joyful and stress free.
Spending a lot of your leisure time with unpleasant or stressed-out individuals can frequently make you feel stressed out. The best way to improve your mental health is ideally to spend time with happier people who add happiness to your life.
4) Irregular Sleep Schedule
It can be difficult to sleep while anxious. Tension frequently keeps you awake, and while there are ways to assist you in falling asleep (such as journaling your thoughts), there are instances when you can be helpless against insomnia.
However, there can be nothing worse than skipping sleep for those who suffer from anxiety. Sleep debt makes it much more difficult to control anxiety, exacerbates anxiety symptoms and can result in physical and mental problems that can lead to future anxiety-related issues.
Make sure you are doing everything in your power to have a good night's sleep, and never intentionally try to stay up late to avoid going to bed.
5) Inactivity
Everyone talks about the importance of exercise to live longer and stay fit. Lack of exercise can cause anxiety, and exercise can help you cope with that.
Unfortunately, anxiety can make you feel fatigued and cause an overall lack of interest in exercise - often even more than you were previously. It can be a big mistake to skip exercise or any form of physical activity hoping that anxiety will go away on its own.
When we exercise, the body releases happy hormones that help us feel and live better. Exercise should be one of the first things you should do to fight anxiety, no matter how little you have exercised in the past.
6) Excess Screen Time and Online Connections
Maintaining all of your social relationships online may not improve anxiety. Although phone calls and social media have their utility, nothing compares to the stress-relieving and mood-enhancing benefits of spending quality face-to-face time with others.
You still need the company of others to feel and operate at your best, regardless of how much time you invest in enhancing your mental and emotional health. Humans are social beings with powerful emotional requirements for relationships. Make the effort to have face-to-face time with friends even if you're not doing much at all.
Takeaway
While there are a few things that can exacerbate anxiety, small positive shifts in habits can also help reduce it. The good news is that noticing your habits and how they contribute to your anxiety level can help lower anxiety, making a few simple changes.
Janvi Kapur is a counselor with a Master's degree in applied psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology.
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