Anxiety is a common component to depression. Anxiety comes in three major forms, panic attacks, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Panic attacks are the most severe. They characteristically come on suddenly, some symptoms being rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, dizziness, sweating nausea among others. It leaves you exhausted afterwards. A panic attack is very uncomfortable and scary. (Don’t self-diagnosis however. See your doctor for a thorough examination as these symptoms are also present in heartaches.)

Social anxiety is just what it sounds like. You don’t like walking into a crowd of people. You’re afraid to voice your opinion. You commonly think people don’t like you. You worry you didn’t wear the right clothes. You pretty much know if you suffer from social anxiety.

Then there is generalized anxiety disorder. Pretty much you are always worrying. You take worrying to an extreme. Is this you?

But here’s the thing about anxiety.

Anxiety is only a feeling. What happens when we feel anxious is we feel so awful we can’t imagine we could stop it. It seems to have a life of its own. We make it worse by our fear. We have such physical symptoms that we don’t believe it’s really is just a feeling We don’t believe we can deal with it. It feels like we’re dying.

And while the symptoms are severe, the remedy is simple. Deep breathing. Herbert Benson has written a book that explains it thoroughly and it’s worth the read if you suffer from anxiety.

Briefly explained, it’s a matter of breathing in deeply through your nose from your diaphragm (done right it means your diaphragm will expand outwards (not your stomach) as you inhale. Then you exhale much slower through your mouth. This simple exercise will completely alleviate a panic attack. Do it until your physical symptoms go away.

I used this method many times and still do if I feel anxious.

All anxiety attacks go away and physically you are unharmed. The biggest side effect is the fear of another one. And that’s a real fear.

Tomorrow we will go further with this discussion.

God bless and have a good day.

The post, “Anxiety is only a feeling. Don’t make it worse”, appeared first on the giftofdepression.com.