Tag Archives: Anxiety

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Ways to Reduce Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about everyday situations, especially about something with an uncertain outcome.

It’s a normal response to stress, but if it becomes overwhelming or interferes with daily life, it’s important to find ways to manage it. 

Best Ways to Reduce Anxiety

Here are some effective strategies for reducing anxiety:

Deep Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing exercises are a simple and effective way to reduce anxiety. Your breathing may become shallow and rapid when you’re feeling anxious. By taking deep, slow breaths, you can help calm your mind and body. To do this, find a quiet place to sit or lie down and take a deep breath through your nose, filling your lungs with air. Then hold your breath for a few seconds and exhale slowly through your mouth. Repeat this process a few more times until you feel more relaxed.

Meditation

Meditation involves focusing your attention on the present moment, which can help reduce anxiety. Mindfulness meditation is a type of meditation that involves paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment. Guided meditations or meditation apps can help you get started with a regular meditation practice. Meditation can help you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings, which can help you better manage them.

Exercise

Regular exercise is an effective way to reduce anxiety. Exercise releases endorphins, which are natural mood boosters. Exercise can also help you feel more confident and reduce stress, even if it’s a short walk or yoga session.

Practice Self-Care

It’s important to take care of yourself if you want to manage anxiety. This includes getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, and engaging in activities that you enjoy. You’ll feel more relaxed and less stressed if you take time for yourself, such as by taking a bubble bath, reading a book, or going for a walk. However, make sure you find activities that can help you feel calm and relaxed and make time for them regularly.

Seek Support

Talking to a trusted friend, family member, or therapist can provide emotional support and help you manage your anxiety. Therapy can help you learn coping strategies for managing anxiety and other mental health issues. Support groups can also provide a sense of community and help you feel less alone in your struggles. Don’t be afraid to reach out and seek help when you need it.

In conclusion, there are many effective ways to reduce anxiety, including deep breathing exercises, meditation, exercise, self-care, and seeking support. But remember to be patient and persistent as you find what works best for you as you try out some of these strategies.

How CCHC Can Help

The Center for Connection, Healing, and Change takes an interdisciplinary approach, interweaving psychotherapy and neuroscience with the timeless wisdom of mindfulness and meditation.

We promote connection, healing, and change in the following areas: couple and family relationships, substance use and processing addictions, depression and/or anxiety, self-worth and identity, sexual life, baby bonding and communication, attachment, experiences of trauma, abuse, and PTSD, childhood experiences and family of origin work, chronic pain and physical illness, military life, parenting, stress management and resilience building, emotional regulation and wellbeing, anger management, spiritual life, behavioral issues, and sexuality.

Our therapists work with couples, children, teens, families, and adults—all from a systemic and holistic perspective. 

We are particularly committed to providing services grounded in trauma-informed care, somatic and body-based approaches, and attachment-focused ways of working. 

Schedule a free consultation with us today, or visit our offices in Woodbridge or Fairfax.

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The Best Things to Help with Anxiety

Anxiety is among the leading causes of mental health issues, affecting more than 19% of adults in the U.S. alone. Oftentimes, these individuals face some anxiety symptoms, namely agitation, a racing heart, chest pain, nervousness, and tension.

The good news, however, is that these symptoms can be treated with some natural remedies.

5 Things to Help with Anxiety

Here are the five best things to help with anxiety:

Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy is the use of some natural plant extracts and essential oils to improve your mood and promote the health and wellbeing of your mind, body, and spirit. It can reduce anxiety because it helps you relax and sleep, boosts your mood, and lowers your heart rate and blood pressure. The essential oils can be inhaled directly or added to a diffuser or warm bath. Some of these essential oils include bergamot, lavender, clary sage, grapefruit, and ylang ylang.

Deep Breathing

Deep breathing can also help you deal with anxiety. By practicing deep breathing, you can learn to control your breathing and possibly prevent hyperventilation in the event of anxiety. To practice deep breathing, you need to sit down with your back straight, breathe deeply to try to get as much air as possible into your lungs, and then slowly exhale through your mouth once your lungs are full.

Journaling

Journaling means keeping a personal journal where you enter or record your thoughts, experiences, etc. on a daily basis. Journaling is a way of reducing anxiety. Beyond that, it can also help you achieve your goals, track progress and growth, gain self-confidence, find inspiration, strengthen your memory, and improve your communication skills. You can start journaling and all you need to get started is to find techniques that work for you, let go of judgments, write about whatever comes to mind, use journal prompts, and get a bit creative.

Meditation

Meditation is a mental exercise that involves concentrating or repeating a mantra to help you reach a high level of spiritual awareness. With meditation, you can focus your mind on a particular activity, object, or thought in order to train your attention and awareness and achieve a calm and stable state. This helps you to better understand the source of your anxiety, relax your body, and deal with the anxiety. Meditation can also improve the quality of your sleep, thus reducing anxiety. You can practice meditation by sitting in a quiet place, focusing only on breathing deeply, and acknowledging and letting go of any thought that tries to enter your mind.

Yoga

Yoga is an ancient spiritual and ascetic discipline of the Hindu people that is practiced for health and relaxation. It usually involves breath control, meditation, and the adoption of some bodily postures. It’s an age-old practice that can help reduce anxiety as well as stress and depression. 

In a nutshell, the five best things to help with anxiety are aromatherapy, deep breathing, journaling, meditation, and yoga.

How CCHC Can Help

The Center for Connection, Healing, and Change takes an interdisciplinary approach, interweaving psychotherapy and neuroscience with the timeless wisdom of mindfulness and meditation.

We promote connection, healing, and change in the following areas: couple and family relationships, substance use and processing addictions, depression and/or anxiety, self-worth and identity, sexual life, baby bonding and communication, attachment, experiences of trauma, abuse, and PTSD, childhood experiences and family of origin work, chronic pain and physical illness, military life, parenting, stress management and resilience building, emotional regulation and wellbeing, anger management, spiritual life, behavioral issues, and sexuality.

Our therapists work with couples, children, teens, families, and adults—all from a systemic and holistic perspective. We are particularly committed to providing services grounded in trauma-informed care, somatic and body-based approaches, and attachment-focused ways of working. 

Schedule a free consultation with us today, or visit our offices in Woodbridge or Fairfax.

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How to Get Rid of Your Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of fear or worry caused by a combination of factors such as genetics, the environment, and brain chemistry. Common symptoms include an increased heart rate, rapid breathing, restlessness, and trouble concentrating.

 Anxiety may not be bad on its own since it can be a typical part of our lives in an ever-busy world. It helps you become aware of danger, stay organized, be prepared, and calculate risks.

 However, anxiety becomes bad if it recurs daily. If that’s the case, then you need to watch out before it gets worse. Hence, you need to know how to get rid of your anxiety before it becomes too late.

Top 5 Tips on How to Get Rid of Your Anxiety

Follow these five tips if you want to get rid of your anxiety:

Get a Good Night’s Rest

Make getting a good night’s rest your top priority. If you’re currently getting less than six hours of sleep every night, then you need to change and ensure that you get about seven to nine hours of sleep every night. A good night’s sleep will do you a lot more favors than you could ever imagine. You’ll get sick less often, stay at a healthy weight, lower your risk for serious health problems like diabetes and heart disease, reduce stress and improve your mood, think more clearly and do better in school and at work, and get along better with people.

Practice Meditation and Mindfulness 

Practicing meditation reduces stress and anxiety because it makes you fully aware of the present moment and helps you notice your thoughts in a nonjudgmental way. This enhances your ability to tolerate all thoughts and feelings mindfully and gives you a sense of calm and contentment. Then, to practice mindfulness, you need to close your eyes, breathe deeply, and observe your thoughts as they pass through your mind without judging or becoming involved with them but simply taking note of any patterns.

Stay Active

Make regular exercise part of your daily routine if you want to take care of your mental health as well as your physical health. Exercise can divert your attention from whatever is making you anxious and change your brain chemistry to create more space for anti-anxiety neurochemicals such as serotonin, endocannabinoids, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Exercise also enhances your concentration and willpower and better protects you from developing symptoms of anxiety.

Eat a Balanced Diet 

Dehydration, low blood sugar levels, chemicals in processed foods and preservatives, as well as artificial flavorings and colors, can cause mood swings in some people, but eating a balanced diet can reduce anxiety. A balanced diet is usually rich in complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, and processed foods. 

Practice Deep Breathing

Anxiety is often associated with shallow, fast breathing. This can increase your heart rate, make you feel dizzy and lightheaded, or even cause a panic attack. However, practicing deep breathing exercises by taking slow, deep breaths can restore your normal breathing patterns and reduce your anxiety.

 

In simple terms, here’s how to get rid of your anxiety if you have one: Get a good night’s rest, practice meditation and mindfulness, stay active, eat a balanced diet, and practice deep breathing.

How CCHC Can Help

The Center for Connection, Healing, and Change is always there for you to help you overcome anxiety so you can enjoy a healthier, longer, and happier life.

 Our therapists are skilled and experienced in anxiety therapy. Schedule a free consultation with us today or call us at (703) 878-3290. You can also visit our offices at 12751 Marblestone Drive, Suite 200, Woodbridge, VA 22192, or at 10640 Page Avenue, Suite 230, Fairfax, VA 22030, if you’re in Virginia and need help starting a healthy anxiety treatment.

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Ways to Deal with Anxiety from COVID-19

Dealing with anxiety from COVID-19 may not be an easy task, especially when the pandemic has shattered the dreams of many people and changed their lives in a way.

However, a lot of things can still be done to help people who are feeling anxious and worried about COVID-19 to get back on their feet and live a normal life again.

6 Tips on How to Deal with Anxiety from COVID-19

Follow the six tips below to improve your mental health and well-being if you’re worried about COVID-19:

Stay Connected with Family and Friends

Maintain healthy relationships with family and friends and reconnect with old friends. You can do this by visiting them in person, connecting with them on social media or keeping a close contact with them through voice and video calls. Connecting with family and friends during the pandemic will help your mental well-being since everyone needs to feel connected at all times.

Unburden Your Heart

Tell people you trust about how you feel if you’re worried about COVID-19. Sharing your problems with others will also help to improve your mental well-being. Apart from that, it makes it easier for you to get help when it’s needed most.

Take Care of Yourself

To take good care of yourself, it’s important for you to eat a balanced diet, drink plenty of water, do regular exercise, avoid drugs or tobacco and don’t overindulge in alcohol. Exercises don’t need to be strenuous. You can just take a walk, run or do simple workouts at home.

Do Things You Enjoy

Doing things you love will help you relax if you’re worried or anxious about COVID-19. You can try out new things if you don’t have any hobbies at the moment.

Get the Facts

Find credible sources of information about COVID-19 and stick to the facts. This is because there’s a lot of misinformation about coronavirus and these pieces of information can be overwhelming and conflicting sometimes.

Seek Help

If you feel anxious due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after a diagnosis or due to concerns about family members catching the virus, then it makes sense for you to look for help from mental health professionals.

 

COVID-19 has brought untold hardships to the world, killing people, destroying businesses and means of livelihoods, impacting global economies, affecting education and overwhelming the healthcare system.

But all hope is not lost. You can still salvage the situation.

How CCHC Can Help

The Center for Connection, Healing and Change is always there for you to help you get back to a normal life if you’re dealing with anxiety from COVID-19.

The Center for Connection, Healing and Change offers a deeper dive into your relationship with anxiety and how it plays out in your life, utilizing evidence-based therapy models and offering a tried-and-tested approach to treating anxiety.

Schedule a free consultation with us today, or visit our offices in Woodbridge or Fairfax if you’re in Virginia and need to be treated for your COVID-19 anxiety.

 

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How to Deal with Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is a feeling of discomfort or fear in a social situation where one may be judged or evaluated by others.

Social anxiety is sometimes called social phobia or social anxiety disorder.

If you begin to have anxiety in social situations more frequently that cause you distress and stop you from doing things you ought to do, then you might start looking at it as a disorder.

A social anxiety disorder causes anxiety, discomfort or panic in social situations. This makes people with it tend to avoid such situations or go into them with lots of distress.

5 Ways to Deal with Social Anxiety

If you’re currently living with a social anxiety disorder, follow these five simple steps to control it:

Control Your Breathing

When you’re anxious, you may begin to breathe very fast and shallowly. This can make you uncomfortable. 

However, you can slow your breathing and control your anxiety if you sit in a comfortable position, relax your shoulders, put one hand on your belly and place the other one on your chest, breathe in slowly through the nose and hold your breath briefly.

You can repeat the process several times until you feel relaxed.

Exercise

Physical activities like jogging can help control your anxiety. 

The same thing applies to progressive muscle relaxation, which involves flexing and releasing muscles in your body and focusing on the feeling of the release.

Apart from these two, yoga has also been found to be helpful, especially certain types involving deep breathing.

Get Prepared

Always be prepared for such situations that make you nervous when you’re in the midst of people instead of trying to avoid them.

If you want to go to a party or work function that causes you anxiety, engage in some relaxation or breathing exercises before leaving the house. This will help calm you down.

If it’s going for a first date, read newspapers and magazines for topic ideas to discuss when you meet.

Shift Your Focus

Pay attention to what is happening around you rather than what is going on in your head. 

Listen to conversations or constantly remind yourself that others won’t know you’re anxious by simply looking at you. 

Use Your Senses

Make use of your senses, including the senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste, as they can help calm you down in moments of anxiety.

To do this, you may listen to your favorite song, chew your most flavorful gum, snuggle with your best pet, look at your favorite photograph or smell your favorite scent.

Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder

While being nervous in social situations might seem a bit normal, a social anxiety disorder makes daily living a challenge. It makes you feel self-conscious and scared when you’re in the midst of people and lowers your self-esteem.

If you’re currently living with a social anxiety disorder, please don’t think that all hope is lost as the Center for Connection, Healing and Change is always there for you. 

The Center for Connection, Healing and Change offers a deeper dive into your relationship with anxiety and how it plays out in your life, utilizing evidence-based therapy models and offering a tried-and-tested approach to treating anxiety.

Schedule a free consultation with us today, or visit our offices in Woodbridge or Fairfax if you’re in Virginia and need to be treated for your social anxiety disorder.