May 9, 2018

Training Your Brain to Avoid Anxiety

Stress is most commonly transferred into anxiety. This crippling diagnosis can change the way that people go about their day to day tasks, and while it can feel consuming at times, there are a few ways that you can train your brain to better process stressful situations and emotions.

 

Meditation

One of the main reasons that the body experiences anxiety and depression is because of the high amount of hormones that your body produces when experiencing stress. This overload of hormones causes the amygdala to get bigger. Though this may not seem like a big problem, the amygdala is the portion of your brain that determines the fight or flight reaction in scenarios.

When too many hormones are sent to this part of your brain, it stresses the brain and the body to feel defeated and react as so. This is the explanation for the crippling feeling that makes social situations, daily tasks, and the rest of a daily routine feel much more intimidating than it is.

By meditating, you are able to shrink the size of your amygdala thus reducing the stress that you’re feeling. Simply spending 30-minutes to an hour meditating, you can calm your mind to really focus in on feeling good throughout a day. Focusing in on your thoughts can help you clear your mind and let the rational part of your brain take over your thoughts.

 

Deep Breathing

Another technique that has always been proven to help reduce anxiety levels is deep breathing. Doing so helps tell your brain that you are safe and can calm down. For just 5 minutes, you can get your mind out of the flight and flight state. Doing these types of things when you’re in a situation that heightens your stress levels or even when you’re feeling an overwhelming flood of these emotions can take a turn on the entire situation in a matter of minutes.

 

Getting Enough Sleep

Rest makes up a good portion of your health, including your mental health. When you aren’t getting enough rest, you are putting stress on your body — and that’s on top of the stresses that you’re already experiencing. When all of these stressors pile up, your body goes into a state where anxiety is the only way of coping.

If you notice that your body starts to give into anxiety, one of the best things that you can do is prioritize the rest that you’re getting. This self-care allows for your body to get the reset that it needs to get back to a healthy place. The suggested number of sleep to get is 8-hours, so try your best to make time for this and allow for your body to rest and get a break from those stressors that are pushing your body.

 

Get Your Exercise

When stresses are pent up in your body, they can turn into anxiety. Though it may seem like a silly suggestion, physically removing these stresses from your body is one of the best ways to avoid anxiety as a whole. By participating in physical activities like sports or exercise, you can reduce the amount of stress that is building up in your body.

Even if you aren’t someone that is very active, taking the time to get in a brisk walk or bike ride is still enough to provide your body with an opportunity to release those emotions and clear some headspace. You will see that this is an addictive way to avoid the chance of anxiety in the future.

 

Neurofeedback Training

One of the best ways to counter the anxieties that your body is feeling is to understand why and how your brain is processing these stressors. Through the various activities that happen during a neurofeedback session, you are able to understand how you can retrain your brain to react in different manners.

Depending on how severe your anxieties are and how difficult it is to retrain your brain, you may need to participate in various neurofeedback sessions. After a few of sessions, you will at the very least have an idea of why anxiety is what your body resorts to when it’s feeling overwhelmed with stress.

 

Recognition & Understanding

This tactic is very close to the neurofeedback training, except for it is the act of perusing and indulging in the knowledge that you receive from the training. Through neurofeedback, you will learn how your brain functions and you will learn what you can do to avoid getting to the point where anxiety kicks in.

Recognizing the types of triggers that induce anxieties and stress is the first step to training your brain that it doesn’t need to give into the anxious feelings. Once you’ve recognized them, understanding that you don’t have to succumb to them and how to overcome them will be the next step to being the one that controls your mind and your emotions.

 

Don’t be a Victim to Anxiety

We’ve only mentioned a few of the ways that you can calm your mind when you’re sensing that stress is turning into anxiety. Not all of these will work for everyone, and there are some that may work extremely well. Continue to look for ways that will help you overcome your anxieties so that you don’t have to worry about being a victim of these emotions any longer.

The Neuro Performance training center located in Denver is known for providing individuals with the answers that they need to gain control over their mind. Whether it’s anxiety, depression or an injury that makes cognitive skills a challenge, we want to help. Reach out to us today to schedule your first session at Neuro Performance, and we can provide you with some additional information to help get you on the right track.

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