There are several common chronic anxiety treatments that one might consider when dealing with anything from a particularly stressful day to a full-blown anxiety disorder. The degree of severity is certainly one of the most important factors to take into consideration when reviewing your options. After all, if a few relaxation exercises are all you really need to feel better, there’s no need to go to the time and expense of trying some of the more drastic alternatives. On the other hand, if your stress level is beginning to seriously affect your daily life and mental health, then it’s a good idea to examine some of the common anxiety treatments to determine what might be beneficial to you.
Simple Steps to Take
Stress seems to have become a major part of everyday life for many of us, so it makes sense that some stress-relief exercises should also play a role. Many people don’t realize that something as simple as taking a few deep breaths each day can have a positive effect on both mental and physical health. As little as a minute here and a minute there throughout the course of the day can drastically lower your stress level.
Try these common chronic anxiety “treatments” throughout the day, and you’ll likely find you feel more invigorated.
- While sitting at your desk or driving in your car, take a few minutes to pay attention to your breathing. Inhale deeply to a count of five and then exhale the breath to the count of ten. Do this three to five times to increase oxygen flow to your muscles and organs.
- Set your email client’s alarm to give you an hourly reminder to stand up and walk around. Just doing a quick circuit around your office or ambling down to the water cooler is enough to get a little blood flowing and decrease muscle tension, eye strain, and fatigue.
There are plenty of other suggestions for things you can do to relieve the regular stress of everyday life, and most of us know them by heart: get more sleep, drink more water, eat healthier food.
These things may almost seem cliché, but they do have a huge effect on anxiety levels.
When Things Get More Complicated
Of course, many people doing research on the most common anxiety treatments are looking for relief from something more than the regular stresses of daily life. Instead, they are seeking help in dealing with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, PTSD, phobias, panic disorder, and other manifestations of anxiety.
The two main routes for treating chronic anxiety disorders tend to be therapy and medication, although there are also complementary/alternative treatments that can be considered. It seems that most people are familiar with the wide variety of anti-depressant drugs and other pharmacological approaches to treatment, and in a fast-paced culture where time is so valuable, taking a pill for an “ailment” often seems the most efficient way of dealing with it. These medical interventions do have some great outcomes, so it’s definitely something that can be considered when checking into the most common anxiety treatments.
Many people are finding, however, that the most effective approach to treating different anxiety disorders is through therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy, especially, has been shown to have a good rate of success. Many patients are seeing changes in their thinking and behavior patterns in about 12 to 16 weeks. Because of this outcome and the fact that more people are becoming familiar with CBT, it has become a more common anxiety treatment than in the past.
Exposure therapy can be viewed as an extension of cognitive behavioral therapy. During this process, patients are gradually exposed to the objects or situations that cause them great anxiety in order to learn that their fear responses are not only disproportionate but also more manageable than they previously thought.
There are certainly many other types of therapeutic approaches, including acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. A skilled practitioner can help patients wade through the most common chronic anxiety treatments to find those that are likely to have the highest success rates for a specific situation.
