10 keys to help someone with anxiety

  • Apr 02, 2023
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How to help someone with anxiety

Some ways to help someone with anxiety include encouraging a healthy lifestyle, providing emotional support, and offering professional treatment options, such as cognitive behavioral therapy or, in severe cases, medication prescribed. We live in a world loaded with tensions and permanent demands in which the ideals that are presented to us can be difficult to achieve depending on the circumstances we are going through. Sometimes, personal problems filter into the development of our daily lives and that can cause us unfavorable consequences.

In this sense, there may be people who have greater difficulties in coping with situations that imply certain obstacles for themselves. In this Psychology-Online article we will provide you with information about how to help someone with anxiety.

You may also like: What to say and what not to say to someone with anxiety

Index

  1. Give you a space to talk
  2. Accompany her in physical activity
  3. Inform her about relaxation techniques
  4. encourage her to write
  5. Help her identify situations
  6. Suggest going to psychological therapy
  7. Help her accept situations
  8. Talk to him about sleep regulation and eating
  9. Encourage her to spend leisure time
  10. Help her question her thoughts

Give him a space to talk.

On many occasions, anxiety appears when the person has not been able to express any concern, anger and / or disgust that they have had at some point in their lives. In this way, behaviors linked to irritability are often manifested due to something that has not been said.

In this sense, provide people with anxiety a space so that they can talk about what is happening to them can bring reliefand decreased bodily sensations that arise with anxiety. In the following article you will find information about Types of anxiety and their symptoms.

How to help someone with anxiety - Give them a space to talk

Accompany her in physical activity.

As we have said before, anxiety is felt in the body since it is common to feel muscle tension. For this reason, it is important to have some type of tool that allows to reduce the characteristic rigidity. One of the most effective ways to do this is to be physically active.

This kind of activities reduce stress levels because serotonin, better known as the happiness hormone, is released. Therefore, one of the tips on how to help someone with anxiety is to accompany them when doing some physical activity.

Inform her about relaxation techniques.

Sometimes anxiety is linked to difficulties related to the past or the future. Relaxation techniques are primarily intended to achieve a state of tranquility both physical and mental that aims to be in the present moment.

In other words, the objective consists of focusing on the moment in which one is living, leaving aside the concerns of both previous moments and hypothetical situations linked to the future. There are effective techniques such as mindfulness, which consists of a guided meditation in which emphasis is placed on breathing and the visualization of more comforting situations.

Encourage her to write.

First of all, when a person has anxiety, they usually get involved in situations that cause them discomfort. A form ofchannel worries in a more efficient way lies in writing somewhere about those circumstances that cause concern, anger, anguish and/or sadness.

When we write something personal, we try to deposit our internal feelings somewhere external. In other words, writing is synonymous with putting out internal aspects. Therefore, if you want to help a person with anxiety, you can try to encourage them to do this very therapeutic activity.

Consult in this post the therapeutic writing exercises more effective.

How to help someone with anxiety - Encourage her to write

Help her identify situations.

Another way to know how to help someone with anxiety and depression can be to help them identify situations. This is because anxiety can lead to behaviors that have a negative impact on a person's life. However, when we become aware of situations that are the source of nervousness and anxiety, this may allow other decisions to be made at certain times. In this way, it is possible to reduce anxiety by identifying the situations that generate it.

Suggest going to psychological therapy.

Psychological therapy is one of the most effective ways to help people with anxiety to cope with the symptoms caused by this disorder and situations that cause anxiety in a way more enjoyable Furthermore, in the psychological therapy they contribute tools to deal with situations starting from the analysis of behaviors, emotions and own thoughts.

However, it is important to emphasize the fact that therapy is not imposed as an obligation, since there must be the will or intention to want to reduce anxiety. Otherwise, this can lead to a greater degree of anxiety on the part of the person.

Help her accept situations.

If you wonder how you can help a person with anxiety, you can help them accept certain situations. And it is that, when a person is anxious, there is a tendency to deny situations. In this way, anxiety frequently arises as a mechanism of action for not accepting certain situations of the past, present, and future.

However, when the person can accept the reality implied by various events, this results in a decreased anxiety levels and it is possible to face situations with another intention.

How to help someone with anxiety - Help her accept situations

Talk to him about the regulation of sleep and eating.

Anxiety has a direct relationship with certain hormones that manifest in the body. This means that it cannot be ignored that anxiety has a physical connotation beyond the psychological aspects at stake. Both sleep and eating represent a fundamental role in stress levels and/or anxiety that a person experiences in their daily life.

At a general level, it usually happens that there is a dysregulation in these areas when anxiety is present. Due to these circumstances, establishing routines for eating and sleeping allows some stabilization. Here we explain What to do when you can't sleep.

Encourage her to spend leisure time.

To help a person with anxiety, it is essential to know that moments of distraction are essential for the person to be able to perform well in the different activities that makes. If someone experiences moments of intense anxiety, an efficient alternative is to have leisure time that allows them to get distracted from those worries anxiety generating.

In general, this provides beneficial effects for both physical and mental health, since the tension that is triggered by anxiety is reduced.

Help her question her thoughts.

As we have already said, one of the modes of appearance of anxiety is produced through the thoughts. In this sense, questioning the ideas that feed anxiety can lower their intensity since the meaning of the thoughts begins to decline.

Given this, asking questions about the anxiety that is suffered allows to reduce tensions involved since various solutions may arise to the problems that arise.

This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to help someone with anxiety, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

Bibliography

  • Navas Orozco, W., Vargas Baldares, M.J. (2012). Anxiety disorders: directed review for primary care. Medical Journal of Costa Rica and Central America, 59 (604), 497-507.
  • Sierra, J.C., Ortega, V., Zubeidat, I. (2003). Anxiety, anguish and stress: three concepts to differentiate. Mal-estar E Subjectividade Magazine, 3 (1), 10-59.
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