Five Steps To Go From Surviving to Thriving In A World of Anxiety

Are you stressed or anxious? Is it affecting your day to day life? Would you like to start thriving in your life and not just surviving?

Most of the clients I see in my clinic experience anxiety to some degree, however, prolonged levels of stress hormones in the body can lead to Weight Gain, Panic attacks, Depression, IBS, Insomnia, Addiction and a host of other health concerns.

Anxiety can be a helpful response. Humans may not even exist if it were not for these hard-wired responses to danger and threat. Anxiety provides us with information, it tells us when danger is present and prepares us to act.

However our body can get stuck in inappropriate levels of anxiety, just like your living with the constant threat of a bear being in the room! And we respond to this by going into the flight or fight response.
The fight or flight response refers to a specific biochemical reaction that both humans and animals experience during intense stress or fear. The sympathetic nervous system releases hormones that cause changes to occur throughout the body.

But this instinct designed to help us survive can also literally turn on us and have the opposite effect of what it was created for.

​So how do we change this? How do we stop ourselves from triggering these anxiety symptoms and staying stuck in them so we can begin to thrive and not just survive?

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#1 Learn Meditation, Mindfulness and Breathing techniques

​Sure you have heard it before, but there is a lot of research that confirms the benefits of daily meditation and relaxation.

#2 Exercise and Get out into nature

​Exercise has also been shown to reduce your anxiety levels and getting into nature, breathing fresh air and getting amongst the trees and natural environments.

#3 Hypnotherapy

​Hypnotherapy works directly with the sub-conscious mind to change the triggers to your anxiety, eliminate the negative emotions of anxiety and create a compelling future. It is the fastest way of creating new neuro pathways so you can respond in more appropriate ways to your triggers. Self-hypnosis is also the fastest way to create a meditative and relaxed state.

#4 Find a Health Practitioner

​If your have suffered anxiety for a long time chances are that your Cortisol levels are extremely high, so get them checked and find a good practitioner to assist you. I would recommend a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a Naturopath or Nutritional Medicine Practitioner.

#5 Become Comfortable with Uncomfortable

What do I mean by this? The reality is that it is human nature to want to move from pain to pleasure and let’s face it, anxiety is not very pleasurable. People will use whatever they can to not experience the symptoms of anxiety, it could be drugs, alcohol, food, behaviours or prescription medication, but these things are all band aids and are not treating the cause.
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Take some time, sit with the feeling, notice where in the body you feel it, give it a color, a shape, breathe into it and ask your sub-conscious mind what it is that you need right now, and listen for the answer. Just be ok with not feeling ok, without resistance. I find this technique works very quickly for most people and like anything the more you do it the easier it becomes.

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Remember the only one that is responsible for your health is YOU. Start to take action every day, even when you don’t feel like it, do it anyway. As you start to make these actions part of your everyday, you will begin to take back control of your anxiety and your life!
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Yours In Health
Robyn Pierson