How do I help my anxiety?

There are different ways to help with anxiety. One in particular is very easy and very effective. In fact, war veterans from Iraq with PTSD have gotten a week of this and it took their anxiety down to normal, with good results a year later.

The treatment was nothing but slow breathing. This is used for panic disorder and a number of anxiety problems.

I'll tell you how to do this and other things. First I'd like to say what I think has happened with you. Understanding this will probably help.

My guess is that you had a bad day and started worrying about the fact that you were worried, and one thing led to another. It's called snowballing - think of the way a ball of snow gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down a hill. The fact that you were anxious made you more anxious, which made you even more anxious. You've been psyching yourself out with negativity - gloom and doom thinking about a problem that's not that bad.

I'll show you a video in which psychiatrist Patricia Gerbarg demonstrates a slow breathing exercise. She tells the "patient" (her husband, psychiatrist Richard Brown) to breathe *gently.* The patient doesn't have to fill his lungs completely. It's a smooth transition from inhale to exhale without pauses in-between. The breathing rate is about 5 breaths a minute, which research has shown is healthy in a number of ways - hormones, blood pressure, and brain activity. It's also the rate that requires the least effort. It's natural - you were born with it.

Brown and Gerbarg, one of the research teams that have shown that slow breathing helps people with PTSD, say that 10 to 20 min of slow breathing is a good exercise, and they recommend 20 min twice a day for people suffering from anxiety. They also recommend responding to moments of stress by slowing your breathing rate. Breathing with the belly muscle is healthy - always sit so you can breathe freely and wear comfortable clothing.

Another simple way to deal with anxiety is just to slow down.

For people who suffer from anxiety, rushing around when you don't have to and doing things carelessly is bad for the nerves and makes for mistakes and accidents. Carefulness is a form of mindfulness. Slow movement is your friend. It prevents serious accidents, and your actual safety is good for your peace of mind.

You can learn relaxing tai chi exercise from one or two beginners' videos on YouTube.

About mindfulness, this isn't quite as easy to learn but if you're interested, you can click on my name and read my recent answers. It might be something you could get into later.

About therapy, maybe this would be a good idea, and it's not just talking about things that bother you. It's been tested many, many times and there's good evidence for it.

Here's an example of something people learn in therapy for anxiety. If you have a habit of flying off the handle in stressful situations, you can learn to calm down by breathing slowly and thinking about the situation instead of just reacting. Using the thinking part of your brain gets control of the emotional part of your brain. This lets you come up with intelligent responses instead of panicking.

Knowing how to slow down, get calm and think carefully is important for anybody with suicidal feelings.

There's a lot of overlap with depression and anxiety treatments. This answer tells you about CBT and 3 CBT self-help treatments, under DEPRESSION TREATMENTS.

These are things you can talk about with your parents a doctor or therapist.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_yxzNGE7g&t=6s

Exposure therapy might work, increased exposure to the stimulus causing the problem behavior

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28, KJV).

You have raging hormones!! Get on a supplement to control your mental outbursts of emotions. Therapy can help but only if you have an open positive approach, which doesn't sound like you do.