How To Stop Feeling Anxious and Nervous

Anxiety has a way of arriving uninvited. No warning, no obvious cause, and suddenly you feel tense, agitated, restless. Other times the source is easy to name: money, your kids, a marriage, a job that won't leave your head alone. And then there are the stretches where nothing is wrong on paper and you still feel edgy, on pins and needles, worried about something you can't quite put your finger on. You know you're nervous. You just can't say why.

A certain amount of nervousness is a sign that your body is working the way it should. It keeps you alert to shifts in a situation, in the world around you, in the people you deal with. Fear exists to keep you safe, flagging danger so you know when to stand your ground or get out. In that sense nervousness is a built-in alarm. Strip it away and you'd have no signal telling you a situation calls for fight or flight.

The problem is when that alarm never switches off. Plenty of people carry a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, where the nervousness is constant and serves no purpose at all. It simply ruins the day, then does it again tomorrow. When that's the pattern, you may be dealing with a form of clinical anxiety, and that deserves medical attention.

The body often speaks up before anything else does. Chronic nervousness tends to make it hard to focus or hold a thought in place, among other physical signals that something is off.

There's a stubborn quirk worth understanding here. Psychological research has repeatedly shown that you can't simply order yourself to stop thinking about something. Some studies suggest the effort backfires: the more you try not to think about a thing, the more you have to keep reminding yourself not to, and each reminder drags the memory right back up.

So what actually helps? Start with a journal. Writing down the things that rattle you, or the loop of thoughts that won't stop circling, tends to loosen anxiety's grip. Naming the problem on paper can make it feel identified, maybe even solvable, like you've sketched the beginnings of a plan. As the writer put it, moving a thought out of your head and onto paper gives it a permanent place to live, which quiets the part of your mind that keeps nagging you to remember it.

Move your body. Physical exercise releases neurotransmitters that lift mood and bring anxiety down a notch. Distraction has its place too. Put on a movie, turn up some music, run a load of laundry, call a friend over. Pouring your mental energy into a task leaves less of it free to spin.

Relaxation practices are worth a real try. Research has found that mindful meditation works about as well as medication for many people with anxiety, and there are several styles of relaxation exercise to choose from.

If it goes deeper, see a professional. Therapists are trained to help you make sense of your anxiety and to build the skills to manage it, including cognitive behavioral techniques. You aren't alone in this, and a good therapist comes with resources and options, whether that's one-on-one work or a group setting. Picking up those coping skills can change how your days feel. - Kim B. M.S.

One of the contributors to this piece spoke from the inside of it. As an anxious person myself, I recognize nearly every symptom described here. Most of them are familiar, except the nausea, though even that shows up now and then. There are days my own growth feels stalled, when living with anxiety starts to resemble living with a chronic illness. Good days, bad days. I don't want to be the person anxiety turns me into. I want to be hopeful, optimistic, the kind of person people like having around, my family most of all. I'd settle for being myself without the nervousness riding along.

I'm a people-pleaser, and I know it. I want the people in my life happy with who I am and with how I look after them, and a lot of my own strength has come from helping others. But it cuts both ways. Pleasing everyone else can turn into a weight, because I'm rarely pleasing myself. I'd say I have a servant's heart. Not a slave's, but I genuinely enjoy caring for my family and for whoever else comes into our lives. It took me years to understand a simple thing: I can't serve anyone well if I'm not well myself. Body, mind, and spirit all have to be in decent shape for me to keep moving forward, and that's a tall order when almost everything around you winds you too tight to function.

What I want is to be a solid husband, father, friend, and colleague, a useful member of society, in the game instead of watching from the sideline. How do you get there? If I had the full answer I'd be teaching personal growth, not clawing my way through it. In years of counseling other people, I kept coming back to one suggestion: put your thoughts and worries on paper. I'm a firm believer in journaling. Not the version Hollywood sells, with the leather-bound book and the perfect handwriting. Grab a fifty-cent spiral notebook. What ends up on those pages is for you, and for anyone you decide to show it to, nobody else. Journaling lets you empty your mind and your heart, washing out the negativity and the snags that keep you from moving forward. It clears the thoughts that hold you in place and lets you set the load down before it gets too heavy to carry. It's no miracle cure, but it has never done anyone harm. - Bergen

Reference: Feeling Nervous From Anxiety. (n.d.). Retrieved January 8, 2015, from calmclinic.com.