Anxiety Relief Tips & Strategies

Recently, I posted an article about insomnia and it’s relationship to anxiety and depression. It seems that people who suffer from insomnia tend to also have anxiety and/or depression. Despite the obvious connection, researchers can’t determine which comes first – insomnia or anxiety/depression.

Anyone who has had difficulty sleeping – or not gotten enough sleep due to traveling, family issues, health concerns, overwork or other reasons knows what it feels like to lack sleep. We become agitated, out of sorts, uncomfortable and somewhat short on attention span and tolerance. In some cases, we can actually feel nauseous.

We can also become depressed and anxious, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that your entire being feels out of sorts.

Exactly how does lack of sleep affect you?

According to a study done by the University Of Chicago Medical Center, lack of sleep does more than make you cranky. It affects our body’s metabolic functions, such as processing and storing carbohydrates and regulating insulin and hormone secretion.

By altering our metabolic and endocrine system, sleep loss triggers the simulated effects of aging. In fact, the researchers on this project believe it can also affect the severity of age-related illnesses including memory loss, diabetes, and hypertension.

Some sleep-deprived subjects in the study showed altered glucose metabolism that resembled patients with type-2 diabetes. That’s because the glucose uptake in the body is affected by loss of sleep.

Other effects of sleep deprivation include reduced ability to concentrate, remember and learn. Lack of sleep has a significant toll on brain power. It’s proven that people who do not get enough sleep are more likely to have accidents.
If lack of sleep is allowed to continue in a chronic state, it could cause long term adverse health issues.

What can you do?

There are a few things you can try, apart from seeking sleep medications.

• Practice full relaxation before going to bed, or as soon as you get in bed. Turn on your favorite soothing music, turn out the lights, lie comfortably and begin. Start by taking a few very deep breaths, hold each one for about 2-3 seconds and exhale normally. This sends good clean oxygen into your body and into your muscles, helping them to relax. It also helps remove toxins from your blood stream. A body full of toxins that build up normally during the day is constantly working to get rid of them. Deep breathing is an excellent way to begin cleansing the body. In exchange, the body can more readily relax.

• Here’s something I learned many years ago and only by trying it can you tell whether it works for you. The theory is that people’s bodies prefer to lie in a certain juxtaposition to the north pole. In other words, the body generally prefers to face north/south. This is because of the spin of the earth and the magnetic pulls of the poles. By aligning your body with those poles, the body works ‘with’ them, rather than against them.If possible, rearrange your bedroom so you can lie in a north/south direction. It doesn’t seem to matter whether your head is in the north or the south, although some people have said it does make a difference. So try both if one doesn’t work.

• Look into Feng Shui – this is based on an Asian belief that your home and the items in it must be oriented a certain way to maintain balance and equilibrium in your surroundings. This, in turn, will make your body more comfortable and relaxed.

These are just a few of the things you can try.

To Treat Anxiety – Try the highly acclaimed Linden Method and Panic Away - two excellent programs that have treated hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. I’m constantly pushing these two programs for a very good reason… I’ve reviewed them and understand how they work. They contain the same methods that cured me of my anxiety 20+ years ago, so I know they work if you apply the techniques exactly as explained.

Don’t be impatient. As my therapist once told me, it took time for me to get that stressed and anxious. I wasn’t going to be cured overnight. And he was right. It took work, a lot of self-examination and a determined will to turn my life around. I strongly believe that you can, too.