These days it's rare to find someone who isn't anxious, is it? However, in addition to the tension caused by everyday life, there is chronic anxiety, which can manifest in crises for no apparent reason and harm our personal and professional lives.
If you have a tendency to feel anxious, you need to keep an eye out for some habits that may be no big deal to others but have the potential to spark a crisis in those who suffer from this problem. Meet nine of them and how to avoid them:
1. Crowd your schedule
You may even be feeling over-willing, but it's best not to overdo the commitments you set out to make. Knowing which tasks to prioritize and which to leave later helps to lower anxiety levels.
Our energy level can change overnight, so you need to leave some space on your agenda to relax, focus on your own breathing, and connect your mind and body for a few moments.
2. Overdoing in coffee
Having a cup of coffee in the morning or after lunch gives us that gas we need to do our jobs. However, caffeine is a stimulating substance that can trigger or increase anxiety-related symptoms such as heart rate acceleration, nervousness, dizziness, and sweating.
Read also: 10 Natural Soothing that Help Treat Anxiety, Insomnia, and Even Depression
Therefore, in addition to reducing coffee consumption, it is important not to overdo it with black tea, energy drinks and guarana derivatives, which also contain caffeine and other stimulants.
3. Always be late
Like an excess of caffeine, delays make us tense, speed up our heart rate and make us sweat more than normal. This way, people who are always late end up creating a cycle of anxiety that recurs every day when they realize that they have missed the time of their first appointment.
To avoid this effect, try to be realistic about the time you need to get ready and move to the appointment spot? Try scheduling alarms on your cell phone and getting your things ready in advance for leaving home.
4. Being addicted to social networks
Facebook, Instagram and other social networks do have a positive side and you will hardly abandon them. However, anxiety sufferers need to make an extra effort to reduce the time devoted to these services as they can aggravate this problem in many ways.
By accessing social networks, we are exposed to shocking news that ends our day, extreme opinions that distill hatred and people with a supposedly perfect life. All of this makes us feel helpless and sad about the world and our own lives, increasing anxiety levels.
Read also: Anxiety: How acceptable is it?
5. Consume news all the time
Of course it is important to be well informed, but keep up with all the news and information? Urgent? Is it another anxiety factor? After all, most of this content deals with issues such as violence, corruption, war and other situations that cause us sadness and anger.
The greatest risk is repeatedly watching the same shocking images and eventually developing symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress: even to a lesser degree, they can be a trigger for anxiety attacks.
Consuming this information at a slower speed and without so much exposure to violent scenes is a safer way to know what's going on in the world. You can, for example, read the news after the fact is well established and not play the videos.
6. Be available all the time
If your phone keeps sending you notifications letting you know that you have received messages on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and your inbox, it can be difficult to focus on what you are doing right now, whether you are working, studying or trying chill a bit.
Does being available all the time create a sense of urgency, as if you had to answer all messages on time? and it generates anxiety. Therefore, it is advisable to limit the number of notifications you receive and to schedule times for leaving your phone in night mode.
Read also: 12 Things Only Anxious People Understand
7. Sleep less than necessary
Proper sleep is essential to balance our neurotransmitters and hormones. When we spend several days sleeping less than necessary, our bodies perceive this as a chronic stress factor, which makes us angry, lowers our self-esteem and negatively impacts our ability to cope with anxiety.
To avoid this effect, is it ideal to set sleeping and waking times, to ensure 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night in a dark and quiet environment, and to keep electronic devices out of bed? The light emitted by the screen acts as a stimulant and disturbs the quality of the rest.
8. Don't stop for meals
In addition to the more obvious functions of satisfying hunger and nourishing the body, meals should be moments to pause, chew calmly, and relax. So when we just grab a snack and go out to eat, we lose those minutes of peace.
Still, the habit of eating in a hurry hinders the digestion process, leaving that feeling of "knot in the stomach". ? and this can generate anxiety symptoms.
9. Repeat to yourself that you are anxious
According to some psychologists, the habit of repeating phrases like "I'm so stressed", "I'm very anxious?" I have too many things to do and I won't be able to handle it. They make us even more nervous because the brain understands this as commands and does everything to obey what we are saying.
Also read: 10 Foods That Help End Moodiness
This is not to say that you should pretend that you are not anxious or stressed, but rather to say to yourself phrases like, am I calming down? I have a lot of tasks, but I can do everything.
If you have a chronic anxiety problem and these tips do not help you feel better, it is important to seek professional help. Controlling anxiety allows us to have a better quality of life, increase our productivity and be happier, so it is worth seeking the help of a doctor or psychologist.
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