Top 5 Tips For Managing Anxiety

 

Melissa O’Brien, Allcare’s Pharmacy Regulation & Health Services Coordinator, discusses tips on managing anxiety.

 

Anxiety is more than just feeling stressed or worried!

While stress and anxious feelings are a normal and common response to a situation where we feel under pressure, they usually pass once the stressful situation has. Everyone feels anxious from time to time but when anxious feelings don't go away, happen for no particular reason, or make it hard to cope with daily life, it may be the sign of an anxiety condition. Speak to your GP if you feel you need any advice or help.

Tips for managing anxiety:

There are a number of strategies you can try to manage your anxiety. Different strategies will work for different people so it can take time to find which works best for you.

Slow breathing:

  • When you’re anxious, your breathing becomes faster and shallower. Try deliberately slowing down your breathing. Count to three as you breathe in slowly – then count to three as you breathe out slowly.

Progressive muscle relaxation:

  • Find a quiet location. Close your eyes and slowly tense and then relax each of your muscle groups from your toes to your head. Hold the tension for three seconds and then release quickly. This can help reduce the feelings of muscle tension that often comes with anxiety.

Stay in the present moment:

  • Anxiety can make your thoughts live in a terrible future that hasn’t happened yet. Try to bring yourself back to where you are. Practising meditation can help.

Healthy Lifestyle:

  • Keeping active, eating well, going out into nature, spending time with family and friends, reducing stress and doing the activities you enjoy are all effective in reducing anxiety and improving your wellbeing.   

Challenge your ‘self-talk’:

  • How you think affects how you feel. Anxiety can make you overestimate the danger in a situation and underestimate your ability to handle it. Try to think of different ways to handle to a situation that’s making you anxious, rather than jumping to the worst-case scenario. Look at the facts for and against your thought being true.

 

Please remember, if your anxiety is proving difficult to manage, seek support from your Allcare pharmacist, GP or a medical professional.

 

Useful Resources: 

Pieta House: https://www.pieta.ie/contact/

Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/ireland/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

Aware: https://www.aware.ie/support/

Jigsaw (Youth Mental Health support): https://jigsaw.ie/get-support/