While anxiety has severe repercussions on one’s mental and physical health, there are long-lasting holistic solutions to dealing with anxiety that may reduce the need for anti-anxiety medications.
1. Acceptance
To take the first step towards setting yourself free of anxiety, it is important to acknowledge the condition and it’s symptoms. Denial of the issue prolongs the disorder, inviting more harm to the body. Once the person is aware of the problem and its effect on the body it is easier to take corrective course of action.
2. Counseling
Most people struggle with seeking help. This could be either due to preconceived notions about what counseling may or may not achieve for them or it could be from not knowing where or whom to seek help from.
For anxiety counseling, therapists commonly administer CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy). CBT focuses on recognizing, comprehending, and changing thinking patterns consciously. It involves home assignments where patients on completion of tasks record the improvement in their symptoms that puts them in the driver’s seat in treating anxiety disorders. A part of CBT is exposure therapy where patients are exposed to triggers of anxiety or fear and then trained to be less anxious about them. Alternative treatments involving yoga, deep breathing practices and meditation have been found to tremendously complement the success of counseling therapies including CBT.
3. Yoga
Recent studies have found that the practice of yoga can help diminish the symptoms of GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). The main solution that yoga seemed to produce for people dealing with anxiety is that it reduced a person’s irrational habit of worrying, a trigger for anxiety. A regular practice of yoga increases your self-awareness, helps you stay calm and relaxed in the event of stressful situations. This awareness helps you discern the real from the unreal, the truth from the imagined. It enables you to be witness to the symptoms of anxiety in your body and mind, but creates a sense of distance or detachment from the symptoms which then allows you to deal with the symptoms better. A yoga practice integrates asanas (body postures or poses), pranayama (deep breathing tools), meditation, and a deeper understanding of the essence of yoga as a union of mind, body and spirit.
What can yoga do?
Sustained psychological stress can be an important trigger for anxiety to set in. Yoga helps eliminate stress from the body and mind, and as a result, it can have a profound effect on the body’s stress response:
- Regulates cortisol levels (stress hormone that can cause blood pressure and sugar levels to rise)
- Activates the parasympathetic nervous system easing heart rate and aiding digestion
- Stimulates the vagus nerve, which is directly linked to the well-being
- Positively affects the autonomic balance, the balance achieved between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. While the later is active during anxiety causing situation or flight or fight response situation, the former corresponds to body’s resting phase. By affecting the balance, Yoga can at once increase your present moment awareness while allowing deep rest for the body and an eased heart rate. This balance can positively affect mood and memory; activate neurochemical systems linked to attention, wellness and positivity, in other words, the body’s capacity to deal with stress triggers.
- Yoga enables you to be more physically active, which can improve neuroendocrine functions that control hormonal secretions in the body, promotes weight loss, improves sleep, and over all fitness.
- Reduce CVD or cardiovascular risk factors. Research concluded that people with heart diseases are more likely suffer stress induced heart attack. A gift of yoga is it makes you self-aware. This self-awareness is crucial in making healthier lifestyle choices and behavior modification, a major goal of therapies like CBT. Better sleep, stress-free life, improved mood directly work on reducing CVD risk factors. Studies done on patients with heart failure showed yogic breathing worked on the cardiac and respiratory function by pushing more oxygen into arteries and tissues.
The yoga poses below work on the stress centers in the body. Practicing them can bring about calm to the mind and body. A calm mind is better equipped to deal with the same stressful situations that a wavering restless mind may struggle to deal with.
- Dhanurasana (Bow Pose)
- Matsyasana (Fish Pose)
- Janu Shirsasana (One-Legged Forward Bend)
- Setu Bandhasana (Bridge Pose)
- Marjariasana (Cat Stretch)
- Paschimottanasana (Two-Legged Forward Bend)
- Hastapadasana (Standing Forward Bend)
- Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog)
- Sirsasana (Headstand)
- Shavasana (Corpse Pose)
- Pranayama or Deep Breathing Practices
These practices increase your lung capacity, trigger release of happy hormones, help you sleep better, produce a sense of relaxation and immediately calm down the mind. For those who meditate, pranayamas are the best preparation to get into a meditative state. Some of the breathing techniques that can help fight symptoms of anxiety include
- Kapal Bhati Pranayama (Skull-Shining Breathing technique)
- Bhastrika Pranayama
- Nadi Shodhan Pranayama (Alternate Nostril Breathing)
- Bhramari Pranayama (Bee Breath)
4. Sudarshan Kriya Yoga or SKY Meditation
A common problem that patients of anxiety disorder deal with is a mind that is constantly swirling with thoughts.
Meditation is the delicate art of doing nothing and letting go of all the efforts to relax into your true nature which is love, joy and peace. –Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Here, a contemporary practice that has been revolutionary in allowing patients of anxiety to deal with this restlessness and uncontrolled thoughts is the Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) meditation technique. It is a powerful rhythmic breathing technique being practiced by over 4.5 million people all over the world. No matter what the state of mind is and how many thoughts one has or how restless the body is, 10 minutes of SKY breathing instantly calms you down. Cognized by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, global humanitarian and spiritual master who founded the International Association For Human Values and the Art of Living, the practice is concluded with an effortless meditative state where practitioners report clarity of mind, prolonged moments of thoughtlessness, slower and steadier heart rate, and calmness of being. SKY uses specific cyclical, rhythmic patterns of breath to bring the mind and body into a relaxed yet wakeful state.
5. Yoga Nidra or Yogic sleep
Another common side effect of anxiety is sleeplessness. Your body needs proper rest to recuperate from a tiring work day and to be productive the following day. What can help you bridge the gap between the amount of rest you get and the amount of rest your body needs, is yogic sleep. In the afternoon, give yourself a 20-minute break for yoga nidra or yogic sleep. This is a structured power nap, a meditative way of giving yourself deeper rest, where you take restful awareness through different parts of the body, relaxing them one by one until eventually on completion of the guided meditation, you feel rested and re-energized mentally and physically.