Five Reasons Attorneys with Anxiety Do Better Without Medication

Anxiety and depression among attorneys in Washington, DC are nothing new. People have carried some version of worry and dread for as long as we have been around, and you can spot the same jittery response in animals. Think back to the days before pharmacies stocked shelves of pills for it. How were people helped then? Treating anxiety without a prescription has a track record that stretches back centuries, and a lot of what worked then still works now. Below are a few approaches worth trying before you reach for a bottle.

Start with what you eat, and start with the morning. Caffeine is one of the biggest culprits behind that wired, uneasy feeling, so pay attention to how much you take in. Each extra cup pushes your anxiety up a notch and drives your heart harder than it needs to work. Keep a running tally of the coffee and soda you go through in a day. On the mornings you would normally grab coffee, a cold glass of orange juice does the job without the jolt.

Building a regular exercise habit is the next step. Daily movement gets you in shape and shifts how you feel about yourself at the same time. Shedding a little weight tends to lift self-esteem, and a steadier sense of self takes the edge off anxiety. Already working out and still tense? Swap in something different. Kickboxing, for instance, gives you a place to burn off the pressure you have been carrying.

Smokers, consider tossing the pack you just bought. A clear head and a healthy body make it far easier to manage anxiety on your own, and that gets complicated when harsh chemicals are fogging up your thinking. Quitting all at once is hard for most people, so if that is you, cut back one cigarette at a time until the habit loosens its grip.

Be careful about who you keep close. Some people do little besides drag you down, and the ones who make you feel worse about your choices or your situation will feed your anxiety rather than ease it. That is a fair reason to put some distance between yourself and certain friends or family while you work on getting better. Most of them, if they understood the effect they had on you, would either ease up or at least accept why you have stopped calling as often.

The final reason to skip the medication is the simplest: doing the work makes you a better version of yourself. Plenty of prescriptions out there can leave you feeling worse instead of lifting your mood. Becoming the person you want to be means being honest about what you dislike in yourself and chipping away at it. Take it in small pieces. Trying to fix everything in one go rarely lasts.

What most people really want is a solution to their problems. That can be a tall order, because sustaining executive attention, steadying your emotional state, and dropping into deep relaxation or hitting peak energy on command all depend on psychological skills you may not have built yet. That is why learning about mindfulness, meditation, and neuro-training is where we point people who are serious about the change.