[readolog_dropcap ]H[/readolog_dropcap]ow to get rid of anxiety was a question that I often asked myself when I was a teenager, and when meeting new people in my early twenties, and even now! I used to be plagued with crippling anxiety attacks and mental neurosis on a daily basis, but my struggles with anxiety have taught me how to get rid of anxiety and become more confident. I still sometimes occasionally get a bit surprised by how far I have come, in my mind the old me would never have done some of the things that I do daily now. So here are my tips for getting rid of anxiety for good, or rather managing it.

Getting rid of anxiety means developing courage. Period.

If that statement scares you just a little bit, well, it should. Courage is the only tool and character trait that will ultimately see you through the crippling anxiety you may experience in a given situation. Courage is acting in the face of fear, and disregarding it completely, even though the fear remains you still take action.

Courageous people feel fear just like everyone else; the difference is that they decide to act in the face of it. The great thing about courage is that as soon as you decide to ACT, you will find that what you fear so much does not really exist. You see, anxiety is mostly a mental pattern, a fear-based and mind controlled physiological reaction to perceived danger or negative beliefs in any given situation.   Action is movement based, action requires the body and mind to focus and act together, action and movement is transformation and change, this results in diminished fear and quieting of the mind, which is often the cause of our worries and anxiety.

When I was in High School I would end up sitting next to pretty girls that I was attracted to, I would just think about talking to them or flirting and get severe anxiety attacks. My heart would beat fast, I would start sweating, I would get light-headed, and if I actually struck up a conversation I was crippled with fear. My entire body was in the clutches of the anxiety attack.

After High School I consciously decided that I needed to improve my social skills so I went out and started meeting people, and talking to girls. The first girl I ever introduced myself to my hands were shaking, I was sweating, and my heart almost exploded. She ended up rejecting me. But I felt absolutely amazing. I was facing my fear, and I was building courage.

Repeated exposure to what we fear is the only way to stop fearing it.

I knew that I needed to put myself in socially awkward positions. I had no social skills whatsoever, girls were not attracted to me, and I could not make many friends.

•  No one could like me
• I could not date pretty girls
• What if they reject me
• I cannot do something like that
• What if I get laughed at
• What if I get arrested
• I look ugly today
• My nose is too big
• I suck in bed
• People do not like me
• Why would anyone want to hangout with ME

These are all thoughts that ran through my head on a daily basis. As you can see I was, and still am, quite neurotic. But the thing about courage is the second you decide to act, none of these matter! These are all just negative thought patterns and beliefs that got ingrained in me somehow. The first step is recognizing them, and the second step, which is the hard part, is absolutely forcing yourself to take action.

Action trains your mind and body to start perceiving reality and building more positive subconscious connections and associations. The associations that your mind makes and the negative beliefs you developed will take a long time to overpower; you do this by building even stronger connections through action and courage.

The quickest way to build a powerful new pattern mentally is to shock your entire body and nervous system by facing your fears head on. You will always be able to overpower your fear once you do it even just ONE TIME. This is because subconsciously you realize that you are facing your fears, you recognize that you are growing stronger. This pattern will always win and be able to conquer your negative thought patterns and beliefs.

Once you face the fear head on a couple of dozen times, you knock that pattern down much farther in importance than the new pattern you are developing in your brain and nervous system.   I eventually walked up and introduced myself to hundreds of people over a few months. Sure, I still get anxiety even to this day when I meet new people, but who cares, I know I can do it and be good at it. It takes a LONG TIME to rewire your mind and body, but if you stick with it, repeated exposure will ensure that whatever anxiety you experience will be conquered.

 Repeated exposure leads to building stronger experiences, neurological connections, beliefs, and most importantly: courage.

 Always face your fears head on. This is the best advice that anyone could give you. The problem is that most people are afraid to. How could someone who suppresses his or her own fears and growth opportunities tell you to challenge yours? Stop delaying your growth, build your courage up, and find a way to not only expose yourself to your fears, but also do it repeatedly.

•  Public speaking makes you want to die? Go join Toastmasters.
•  Maybe you cannot perform under pressure or in sports, join a league where you will be FORCED to compete.
•  Have trouble finding a date? Go walk up to strangers you find attractive until you get one.
•  Do you fear intimacy? Go and find people to hug.
•  Do you perform badly in job interviews? Schedule as many of them as you can.
• Afraid of speaking up and having your voice be heard? Join a choir.

 Now that you are ready to go and face your anxiety head on, here is how you can control it during these situations and begin to conquer it.

 I say it all the time to my clients, friends, family, myself, and in a bunch of my articles. Breathe. One of the things that really helped me to manage my anxiety was when I read somewhere that if you observe your breathing when an anxiety attack is coming on it will always be short, forced, and tension filled.

The tension cripples you, seizes you, and limits blood flow and oxygen to the brain. The tension you experience could be physical in nature, but most of the time the mind causes this from excessive worry and lack or proper breathing.

Take forced and really deep breaths deep down into your belly. It is really important that you take deep belly breaths, and also that you try to slow your breathing down as much as possible. Slow and deep breaths will help to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, and combat the over-activity of your mind and body in stressful situations.

I found that the best thing to do when you feel an anxiety attack coming on is to stop and count at least three extremely slow and deep breaths in your head, do not even try to re-engage in what you are doing until you have taken these breaths. Try to keep a bit of your conscious attention on your breathing even when you start trying to tackle the problem again.

A few months ago I was working in a restaurant that I served at for a while, I loved being a server and interacting with people, but it was not always the easiest job. On this particular night, I had just trained clients all morning and was completely wiped. I had a big party of 12 older people who were celebrating a birthday. I was in the restaurant’s party room with one other server. All of a sudden the room got packed, not only did I have the party to attend to, but I also had multiple other tables now.

So I brought the party their drinks and started handing them out. I routinely went to hand someone his or her drink, when as I was leaning over the tray I was holding tipped over sideways. I ended up sending three drinks flying into a gentleman’s nice dry-cleaned suit. Most of the drinks I inadvertently threw at this guy ended up being red wine. Needless to say they were not thrilled.

I had a full on panic-attack, and they were upset. The first thing I did was start cleaning up, but my entire body was in shock and for a minute I contemplated just walking out and saying F it. I knew that I needed to control my physiology, which is the most important part of managing a panic attack. I forced deep and slow breaths for the next 30 minutes, I was still shaking, but I was alive. I reaffirmed that the night would in-fact eventually come to end, I told myself I was going along for the ride at this point, and I just kept breathing.   When I got the chance I would go into the bathroom and sit with my head between my legs and just breathe.

I look back on that experience now and can enjoy a good hearty laugh. At the end of the night I ended up taking care of the party, they all thanked me, and I did in fact survive. This is what you must learn how to do in stressful situations, even ones that are just perceived to be stressful, control your body with your conscious energy, focus everything you have on your breathing and keep moving forward. It will eventually come to an end, and when it does you can reflect back and make sure you perform better next time.

 The next thing you should do in situations that give you anxiety is to avoid standing still or becoming stagnant. Always move in some way.

 Movement is everything to me. Movement keeps my body and mind sharp, and prevents me from over-thinking little things, which is just how my mind and nervous system happens to be wired. When I would meet new people, if I ended up sitting in one spot for too long, or not just facing my fear early on in the night or outing, I would often end up going home feeling drained and defeated.

However, when I forced movement, when I walked up to someone and introduced myself very quickly, I often got the momentum to continue pushing through and feeling confident and stronger as a result. Stagnation and inactivity is where compulsive thinking, anxiety, and fear, all thrive. Movement and expression is where you can begin to control your body and transform your results.

Movement can consist of walking, talking, physical expression, talking loudly, chanting, singing, exercise, sitting up straight, breathing, or physically dancing and shaking tension out of your body.

Lets say that you have an important interview or business meeting and you are prone to anxiety in these situations. A few minutes before the meeting, or even going into it, do a few calve raises, jump around, shake your head from side to side, make funny sounds, bang on your chest, shake it off.

Nervous tension causes most anxiety, physically shaking it out puts you in touch with this tension and releases the grasp it has on your mind/body, even if it is just temporarily, you can use this temporary window to build your skills and become more confident.

 Always assess your physiology to make sure that you are not indirectly causing excessive anxiety.

 Are you getting enough sleep?

 If you have a tendency of staying up late, not getting outside often, or suffer from a lack of sleep in general, you are doomed before you start. There is no way to sugarcoat this; you need to be getting proper sleep. Sleep is so critically important for our physiological functions that I would not even try to go and work on your anxiety when you are lacking in it. You need all of the extra energy you can get to channel into building your courage and growing, you must take your rest seriously when attempting to conquer your fears.

Are you abusing caffeine?

 Some people just do not do well with caffeine whatsoever, I have blown many good opportunities and interactions simply because I drank too much coffee beforehand. If your nervous system is overexcited and sympathetic dominant, which may be causing your anxiety and crippling physical reaction, than caffeine will do you no good. It is the most widely abused stimulant for a reason, and someone suffering from anxiety needs the complete opposite of even more stimulation.

Sometimes caffeine can give the drinker a rush that temporarily results in improved performance, this will only lead to dependence, I recommend that if you are working on your anxiety to cut out the caffeine and green tea completely. Drink more calming and soothing herbal teas, such as chamomile and licorice.

Could processed sugar or diet be a culprit?

 If you eat processed foods, mainly sugar or flour, or a dirty diet in general, you could be throwing your brain out of whack. The foods may not be the cause of the negative beliefs or anxiety, but they will certainly not help, and you will most likely not make much significant progress until you are eating clean. Some mental disorders and anxiety can be caused from chemicals and neurons firing all out of whack from a toxic diet, simply eliminating unhealthy foods could potentially alleviate all symptoms experienced in many cases.

At the very least, eating high quality and organic will result in improved and sustainable energy to use when you need it the most.

Stay hydrated.

 Always stay hydrated to ensure that you flow well, carry some water on you at all times.

Could you have any deficiencies, such as Vitamin D, B vitamins, or essential fatty acids?

 Vitamin D is the most overlooked nutrient deficiency that people suffer from; your chances of depression and anxiety rise astronomically when you are deficient in Vitamin D. Make sure to get plenty of exposure to natural sunlight or consider supplementing if necessary.

Make sure that you eat plenty of diverse plant-based foods and high-quality and organic meat, this will make sure that you do not become deficient in one or more essential vitamins or minerals.

Make sure to eat plenty of healthy fats. This would include coconut oil, olive oil, hemp seeds, organic dairy products, and organic meat and fish. The brain is mostly fat and consuming healthy fat has been shown to be a potential treatment for depression and essential for peak brain function.

Make sure to exercise.

 Exercise has been shown to improve cognitive performance on all levels. If you do not follow a plan right now, than start walking 3 miles every single day. Try incorporating some Yoga or hire a Personal Trainer to help you begin lifting weights.   Exercise is not difficult and can cost you absolutely nothing. The health benefits of simply walking daily will reduce negative thoughts and tension exponentially, it is one of the best forms of absolutely free medicine.

Also recognize that you may be suffering from a ton of pent up energy. This energy could be aggression, sadness, embarrassment, a lack of confidence, or whatever it may be. Whatever this energy is, it is important that you do not judge it, but you may need a more powerful outlet. I would recommend some intense and vigorous hikes, or an intense weight-training program such as circuit training. Do not burn yourself out doing these activities, simply use them as a powerful outlet to begin releasing this negative energy.

Start meditating to begin seeing your anxiety melt away within weeks.

 Meditating is considered to be more nutritious than food in some cultures (in the sense of emotional and spiritual well-being). It balances your life force and your physiology. Meditating gives us a chance to focus all of our energy on our body, and it may even give you a chance to consciously observe your negative thoughts. Observing your fears is the first step in rising above them. I highly recommend starting a silent meditation practice on a daily basis. Meditate before facing your anxiety and afterwards, this will balance your energy and restore balance within your emotions and physiology.

When you are facing your anxieties you may be forced to confront emotional traumas from the past, anger, resentment, or an untapped potential inside of you. To streamline the process of release and healing, meditating is absolutely necessary. It allows all of your conscious energy to go into connection with your own being. This is highly restorative and will help you to engage your body when you are in a stressful situation such as speaking to a crowd. You are essentially training your body to remain under your control and relaxed.

Just be mindful that if you are not willing to clean up your diet and rid yourself from toxins and addictions, meditation may not do you much good alone, you must pro-actively seek to balance all aspects of your being.

Are you suffering from an excess amount of physical tension?

 If you happen to sit all day long, or beat the crap out of your body with intense exercise, you may be suffering from excess tension. Specific areas that get a ton of tension tend to be the hips, neck, jaw, and back. Consider getting a massage, foam rolling, or having someone massage your neck if you have excess tension. Having physical tension can result in a mind that functions poorly as well. Yoga is another great physical practice to get rid of physical and emotional tension.

 It sounds corny, but at the end of the day everything in life comes down to attitude. Once you have your physiology and breathing under control, it all comes down to how you perceive the world to be.

 Do you see asking a pretty girl for a date as something that can only go terribly wrong, something that you will socially ostracized for? Or could you perhaps view it as a learning experience, a potential to work on your fears, build your courage, and make a new connection.

Earl Nightingale used a great example of perception in one of his programs of viewing the problems of life as projects. He went on to describe how Poleo was once viewed as a terrible disease to be feared and be afraid of, but to the doctor who cured it, it was simply a problem to be solved, or a project to work on.

How many of life’s problems and fears could be worked on productively by just adapting this shift in one’s attitude? It sounds lame to just say: “hey, change your attitude!” In reality, different attitudes are really just different forms of perception.

How you perceive life determines how you react. This is the only thing in life that is in your direct control. How YOU and you alone perceive reality. What everyone else thinks really does not matter at all.   Chances are people react to you a certain way simply because your perception of them and reality is flawed.

Of course people will be wary of you and a bit anxious if that is the energy that you project. But if you simply alter your vibrational energy to a more relaxed and connective projection, people will respond accordingly.

The world is your mirror; so many times the way others perceive us is simply a result of our own subconscious actions. So change your attitude for the better.

 Start combating all of the negative thought patterns and physical tension caused by anxiety by using confidence boosting affirmations and adopting better attitudes.

•  I have very bad social skills, it sure will be a fun experience to master conversation and fight my own body’s reactions!
•  I have to speak in front of a crowd of 500 of my peers; this sure will be one great opportunity to see what I am made of.
•  If I simply face my anxiety and fear I will be growing into a stronger person.
•  Failure is just a part of becoming a stronger human being.
•  Everyone who is successful failed multiple times, I need to go and wrack up some of my own failures!
•  If 100 people reject me when I ask them out on a date, one of them is bound to say yes! And I could learn a lot from it.
•  I am addicted to coffee and eat crap; this sure will be a challenge to eat clean.
•  I am strong enough to do anything that I set my mind to.
•  I am strong, healthy, confident, and capable of anything.
•  People love me; I am sexy, attractive, and confident.
•  I am a hard worker with my own unique talents; I will eventually succeed if I keep at it long enough.
•  Who cares about the results, I want to go on a journey.

The last one I find particularly important for cultivating a better attitude towards life, it is not about the direct results that you may want right now. It is about the experience itself, the building of courage, and the vanquishing of your fear.

This is what results in becoming a stronger and more confident human being.

 Conclusion:

 Getting rid of anxiety and panic attacks comes down to facing your fears head on. There is no way around fear except to develop and practice the skill of courage. Courage is not about not having fear, courageous people also experience fear, and courage is simply choosing to act in the face of it.

Recognize that repeated exposure to your anxiety and fears through experience is absolutely essential to build stronger and more functional patterns within your mind and body. Do not expect to rid yourself of anxiety after doing something just once or twice; dozens of times of repeated exposure will be necessary.

Confidence is the result of familiarity with a certain circumstance, and by knowing that you can adapt and function well within that circumstance. Adapting to experiences and challenging circumstances means understanding your body. Start observing your negative thoughts to rise above them, be mindful of your chest, jaw, and belly. Do not hold on to excessive tension and always remember to breathe.

Start meditating to develop control of your mind and body and to send some love to yourself on a daily basis. Quite and mindfulness can ease the mind more than any doctor or medicine. Start eating the right foods for your body, and manage any addictions you may have.

And lastly, start brainwashing yourself with new and more positive beliefs and attitudes. Couple these affirmations such as, “I am strong,” “I am confident,” with challenging experiences, and you will begin to overpower your anxiety and develop true confidence. After a prolonged period of time your subconscious will adapt your new attitudes and they will become a reality. The experiences you attract and your worldview will match and function harmoniously.

Getting your vibrational frequency matched with your dreams and ideal lifestyle takes time, hard work, and determination. It requires connection to not just your mind, but also to your body and emotions. Experiences and affirmations are a powerful way to become an emotionally stronger human being.

Good luck in facing your fears and developing courage, it is a skill that I never regret forcing myself to learn! Remember that anxiety CAN be conquered it just takes a good attitude and perseverance, much like anything else.

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“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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