How Meditation Can Help Anxiety.

But for an estimated 6.8 million Americans with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), anxiety is a chronic condition they can’t shut off. All of us know people we accept as “born worriers,” but in reality being in a state of chronic anxiety can severely limit their daily activity.

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You probably know already if you worry excessively. Almost nothing is free from worry, in fact, if you have chronic anxiety, even the smallest thing can trigger it. You find yourself with fearful thoughts about finances, family, your health, and what’s happening at work. Some days you’d rather hide under the covers.

The first thing to realize is that reality isn’t what’s actually worrying you, but it’s your fixed habit of mind that is causing you to respond to everything with anxiety. Second, you need to look rationally at the anxiety response and concede that you are not improving it by feeling anxious. This seems obvious to non-worriers, but somewhere inside, many “born worriers” believe they are taking care of situations that others are overlooking, like whether they remembered to lock up the house or turn off the gas stove. Any trigger can provoke worry, so the question is how to prevent this from happening.

Because of the mind-body connection, you should also consider the physical side of anxiety. Even if you have accepted worry as a tolerable trait, it exacts a price in the form of insomnia, easy startle response, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, headaches, inability to relax, trembling, twitching, feeling out of breath, and various stomach and digestive problems. If these persist for more than six months after something bad has happened to you, a diagnosis of GAD may be appropriate. Even if your symptoms are manageable, you shouldn’t have to live this way.  Anticipating the worst, which has become a habit even when no threat is in sight, distorts how you approach work, family, and the world in general.

There are many theories about what causes chronic anxiety, but they are as diverse as explanations for depression. It’s more useful to consider how to retrain your mind so that your worry subsides and is replaced by a normal undisturbed mood. The standard medical advice is to take medication (usually some form of tranquilizer), augmented by talking to a therapist. However, self-care has other tools, such as meditation, diet, sleep, massage, and exercise that you can pursue on your own.

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