How To Stop Feeling Anxious and Nervous

Feelings of anxiety can come out of the blue and without a clear reason as to why, how, or where it came from.  You may feel tense, agitated, and restless or nervous. Sometimes you know what you are anxious about, where you may be anxious about something specific like money, children, marriage, your job, and so on.   However, sometimes you may feel that even though nothing is happening, you are tense, edgy, and concerned. You're nervous about something in your life, but perhaps you don't know what it is. Maybe you're not even sure why you're nervous, but you can tell that you're on pins and needles anyway.

Being nervous about certain situations is a sign of good health.  Nervous feelings can help to keep us aware of change in situations, the world around us, or people.  Fear can keep us safe by making us aware of danger, so nervousness is an inherent tool that your body uses to notify you that you should be afraid, and without it you'd have no idea that you need to fight or flee any given situation.

However, many people have a mental health diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, where nervousness is persistent and obviously not useful - It just seems to wreck your day, every day.  If this is the case, you may have a form of clinical anxiety, which requires medical attention.

Signs of Anxiety and Chronic Nervousness

Physical symptoms are often the first sign that you have developed an anxiety disorder. Chronic nervousness tends to cause:

• Rapid heartbeat
  
• Severe muscle tension

• Weakness or lethargy

• Difficulty focusing or concentrating

• Nausea or feelings of illness

• Racing thoughts
  

Some have even suggested that “Numerous psychological studies have confirmed that it's impossible to force yourself not to think about something. In fact, some studies have shown that trying not to think about something may make you more likely to think about it, because you'll have to keep reminding yourself not to think about it, thus triggering the memory.”

How To Stop Anxiety and Chronic Nervousness

Journal:  Writing down the things that make you nervous or thoughts that keep going through your mind can help to decrease anxiety.  Writing down the thoughts can help you to feel that you have identified the issue(s) and potentially set up a plan.  The author suggests, “By writing out your thought on a piece of paper or journal, you'll essentially be taking the information out of your brain and putting it in a permanent place. That should reduce your mind's need to make you remember it.”

Exercise: Physical exercise helps to relieve positive neurotransmitters in your brain that help to elevate mood and decrease anxiety.   –

Mental Distractions:  Watch TV, a movie, listen to music, do a load of laundry, see a friend.  All of these activities can help you to focus your mental energy on a task.

Relaxation Exercises:  Research has shown that mindful meditation is as effective as medications to many who suffer from anxiety,  there are several types of relaxation exercises:   

• Mantra Meditation
  
• Deep Breathing
  
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation
  
• Visualization
  
• Yoga
  

See a Professional 

Therapists are trained to help you understand your anxiety and help you develop skills to cope, including cognitive behavioral techniques.  You are not alone and a therapist can help give you resources.  Therapy can be individual therapy or group therapy.  Learning skills to help you cope can be an invaluable experience. 

- Kim B. M.S.

Insightful Comments

Being an anxious person, I seem to often show a great deal of nervousness, so I can relate closely to the symptoms of anxiety presented in this article. I frequently suffer from most of these symptoms except for the feeling of being ill or nauseous, but that also occasionally creeps in. I feel as though my personal growth has all but stopped because of my anxiety, and I sometimes liken my daily existence to that of someone with a chronic physical disease. I have my good days and my bad days. 

I do not want to be the person that I feel like I am - I want to be a person of hope and optimism. I want to be a positive person. I want be a person that everyone else would like to be around, especially my family. In essence, I would like to just be me without anxiety and nervousness issues. Now, I am a person who like to please other people, and of course that makes me a ‘people-pleaser’. I want other people to be happy not only with who I am, but also with how I treat them or how I can take care of them, and I think that my strength and personal growth blossoms through helping others. However, it can become as much a burden as a blessing because I am not always pleasing myself.

I like to think that I have a servant’s heart. I am not a slave, but I do enjoy taking care of my family and others that enter our lives. However, it has taken me a long time to realize that I cannot effectively serve others if I am unhealthy. I must be healthy in body, mind, and spirit to continue making progress in my life.  This is not an easy task when almost everything around you makes you too anxious and/or too nervous to function properly. 

I desire to be a strong husband, father, friend, and professional colleague, and I want to be a productive citizen and member of society. I prefer to be on the field in the game rather than watching life from the sidelines. How do I achieve this? If I truly had the answer, I would be teaching on personal growth rather struggling to achieve it.

In my many years of counseling others for a variety of reasons, I often suggested that they write down their thoughts and concerns on paper. I am a huge proponent of journaling. Not the journaling that we see on television and in movies. Journaling has nothing to do with a fancy, leather-bound volume. Use a fifty-cent wire bound notebook, because at the end of the day what is written down is for you and those you may decide to share it with, if you so choose.

I believe journaling allows the writer to flush their mind and their heart, cleansing the negativity and the struggles that impede their personal growth and advancement. It can clear out the thoughts that hold us back. It can allow someone to almost literally lay the burdens down so that they do not become so heavy. It is not a wonder drug to cure what ails us, but it certainly cannot hurt.

- Bergen

References

Feeling Nervous From Anxiety. (n.d.). Retrieved January 8, 2015, from http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/nervous