5 Techniques that May Aid Self-Care for Anxiety

The term “self-care” has taken a winding path in recent years due to its popularity in wellness communities. But self-care for anxiety is different. Evidence shows that it employs specific skill-based techniques to help reduce anxiety levels in those who suffer from generalized social anxiety.

More than a bubble bath or pedicure, self-care for anxiety is based on proven research supported by clinical trials. For example, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been tested alongside medication-based treatment, and its findings in one study show that it offers comparable results to a specific, commonly prescribed medication for generalized anxiety disorder.

While one study doesn’t negate the use of medicine to treat anxiety, it does show that there’s hope in a layered treatment plan that includes a wide range of self-care for anxiety treatment.

Why MBSR Works in Self-Care for Anxiety

Much of the literature that has recently been released points to the efficacy of mindfulness intervention because it uses small, doable techniques that are simple to apply in the midst of everyday life. As opposed to a long-awaited rest-filled vacation or a specific self-care day of the week, MBSR gives a person practical ways to fuel calm throughout their week.

Another reason MBSR is often successful is that it can integrate multiple emotional regulation interventions that are interchangeable. Other benefits are that it has a high patient satisfaction rating, high levels of compliance, and, in some studies, even though MBSR can be used to treat other diagnoses, patients reported decreased anxiety levels.

Five Self-Care for Anxiety Techniques

One thing to keep in mind with each of these techniques is that self-care for anxiety is not a one-and-done treatment plan. In fact, incorporating each of these techniques into your everyday life is what fuels the reduction in anxiety levels. Trying a few breathing exercises once or twice, for example, will only help you in that particular moment.

However, if you’re incorporating breathing exercises multiple days each week, you may find that the exercises help you pay attention to your body and emotions throughout the day – one of the goals of mindfulness practices as a whole. Treating something you don’t see coming is much more difficult than treating something you can name, recognize, and have experience with.

You gain confidence that these techniques will work when you apply them in your everyday life, whether at work, at home, or at school.

Breathing: Many people recognize the benefits of deep breathing, but it has been proven to decrease anxiety in peer-reviewed studies by several reputable research companies.

Some options for breathing exercises include diaphragmatic breathing, paced slow breathing, breathing with biofeedback, and alternate-nostril breathing (ANB).

Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: LICBT is a form of therapy that involves meeting with a practitioner on a short-term basis. You’ll receive tools to help you learn about stress management and anxiety-reducing practices.

LICBT is a type of therapy that allows for a cost-effective way to treat anxiety, particularly when someone has low to moderate generalized anxiety. It’s a series of tools that can be offered with practitioners and some without, particularly internet-based CBT.

For patients with cost barriers, online CBT can provide tools to help you learn more about the causes and treatments for anxiety. These can be delivered in the form of educational materials; apps that help you track your feelings, mood, and behaviors related to anxiety; and journals that help you assess situational anxiety.

However, any therapy available through an app will likely treat generalized anxiety. If you suffer from a different form of anxiety or you want more personalized attention, seeing a licensed therapist is preferable. This way, you can work one-on-one in a safe setting where you’re able to get regular feedback from a trained counselor about the anxiety you’re learning how to process.

Emotional Regulation Flexibility: Regulating emotions is a key component of anxiety reduction because it helps a person distinguish between their present reality and what they feel about their present reality – two different things.

ER flexibility has been shown to impact people suffering from anxiety because it teaches them how to integrate multiple tools – switching between them – to help lower their anxiety in various situations. Some of these tools include reframing your thoughts (discussed below) and acceptance.

Acceptance requires allowing your emotions, recognizing their triggers, and then deciding which strategy is best to employ. Instead of trying to avoid your emotions or distract yourself from them, this tool can be helpful when an outcome is out of your hands.

Sometimes called ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), this tool recognizes why you’re feeling anxious, helps you admit that you are feeling anxious about something that’s outside your control (such as a test result), and then gives you enough pause to choose another strategy – such as disengaging from your anxiety because you know the mental spiral you’re in will not change anything.

Reframing: Also known as reappraisal, this practice involves challenging fearful beliefs related to situations that cause anxiety and transitioning fixed mindset processes to growth-oriented thinking.

Reframing can be incorporated into cognitive therapy, and it can help people who suffer from anxiety because it integrates new thought processes into everyday life. Applied regularly, reframing can help someone avoid rumination or looping thoughts that don’t lead to the abatement of their stress. In fact, spiraling thoughts can exacerbate cognitive stalling.

An example of reframing is when someone is in a social situation and they fear others’ unspoken responses. If you’re giving a speech, for instance, and you see a room filled with blank faces staring back at you, the anxious thought may be that they’re all bored, and you start to panic and lose your place. However, reframing would involve telling yourself, “They’re likely just concentrating on what I’m saying.”

Another example is when faced with an unknown, you start to feel your heart racing and your temperature rise. Physical cues could trigger anxious thoughts that convince you you’re not going to escape the situation. A reframed thought might be, “This is just how my body responds to stress, and while unknowns are challenging, they are to be expected in life. It’s okay to feel this, and these feelings will pass soon.”

Exposure Therapy: Exposure therapy involves addressing fears based on a scale, from lowest to highest, without safety mechanisms to run to.

In the presence of a licensed therapist, exposure therapy can gradually help someone address what causes their anxiety, slowly making the stimuli no longer elicit stress responses and therefore lowering their overall anxiety level.

A practitioner helps you rate what causes your anxiety from the greatest anxiety to the least, and you gradually address the anxiety-causing stimuli over time. By the end, you come to disassociate the fearful stimuli that once caused anxiety from stress. Instead, you associate it with a safe environment.

Self-care for anxiety can involve a variety of self-imposed tools and therapeutic tools, depending on your budget, how severe your anxiety is, and whether you’re comfortable meeting with a licensed therapist. If you’ve been fearful of meeting with a counselor about your anxiety, call one of our offices.

A caring staff member will walk you through what to expect at your first session, and you’ll be matched with a counselor who specializes in anxiety disorders.

Anxiety isn’t anything to feel ashamed of or be embarrassed by, as many people suffer from it in various forms. In fact, learning how to manage it through self-care for anxiety techniques is often helpful for anyone – teaching emotional regulation skills, how to think about what you’re thinking, asking if your thoughts are true, and learning to recognize anxiety triggers.

Many people gain such powerful life skills from learning about anxiety and how it has shaped them that they’re able to grow in their ability to manage setbacks, disappointments, and unexpected life circumstances throughout their lifetime. Learning how to manage anxiety is a skill that benefits your family, too.

Family members struggling with anxiety may struggle to interact with family members or attend family events related to their anxiety. Sometimes after a person has met with a counselor to address their anxiety, it’s helpful to attend family counseling so that their family members can help them with things like reframing and emotional regulation flexibility.

Of course, this depends on the family and how much siblings and parents have been impacted. But it can give them tools and language to help you and others impacted by this mental health condition.

To meet with a counselor and learn more about these self-care techniques, contact our office today and speak to a representative.