Release your Anxiety, Natural tips for mind management & Anxiety disorder

Top 10 tips to release Anxiety.

By Craig Finnigan & Liam Watson Founders of Release My Mind

Release MY MIND

Introduction Anxiety. We all feel anxious from time to time, before exams, job interviews or during stressful & testing situations. This can be a good thing. It is your body warning you of potential danger.

This allows you to focus & adopt your fight or flight responses to act & overcome it. After the event passes, for most people, the anxiety will disappear and they can carry on as normal.

Anxiety disorder! As many as 1 in 6 people will experience this at some point in their lives. It can be as a result of family genetics or more commonly as a result of a trauma. This is where the feeling of anxiety does not go away. The panic is constant & the fear is real.

Symptoms of Anxiety disorder: • Restlessness • A sense of dread • Difficulty concentrating • Irritability • Dizziness • Tiredness

• Fast heartbeat (palpitations) • Shortness of breath • Stomach ache/feeling sick • Pins and needles • Difficulty falling or staying asleep (insomnia)

If you can relate to the above & you’re struggling from overwhelming anxiety, this can & will get better if you take the correct & positive steps towards releasing your mind.

However, at any stage, if you feel your symptoms are too much, we recommend seeking advice from your doctor. Don’t be afraid to do so!

Taking action & controlling your anxiety! Using a combination of our own experiences & extensive research we have come up with the top 10 tips to identify, control & release your anxiety! www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk

1

Educate & Understand A big part of the struggle is not understanding why you feel anxious. This can be amplified when you also don’t know how your mind works. We have found that reading (Tip: Try listening to audio books if you can’t concentrate on lots of text) has helped us process & understand the process of our brain. Especially books which explain it in simple terms using easy to follow analogies. For example, the human brain can be split in to 3 parts.

Our favourite book, which explains this, is called the Chimp Paradox. This book divides the brain as follows...

‘The chimp’ (responsible for bad thoughts & is first to react), ‘the human’ (i.e. the rational adult) & finally ‘the computer’ (the unconscious part which manages most of our activities). In order to override your computer, to automatically rid you of anxious thoughts & behaviours, you need to manage your chimp. This requires you to recognise triggers & then replace them with positive actions.

Other books you can read: The Chimp Paradox, Change your brain Change your life, The subtle art of not giving a fu*k

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2

You can’t control everything!

Accept this & do your best.

When you suffer from anxiety you tend to overthink every situation & this allows your problems to snowball & feel a lot worse than they actually might be. If you think about your stress & put it into perspective, is it really as bad as you think? Is that appointment really that scary? Is something which will be over with in 5 minutes worth many days of stress?

Whenever we had experienced bad cases of anxiety, we would let our problems stew, bury our head in the sand & then beat ourselves up. This would lead to us inevitably feeling worse & the anxiety would last for longer. Once we faced the original problem, more often than not, we’d realise two things: 1. It wasn’t as bad as we thought and 2. Actually dealing with the issue made us feel better & much more positive.

Change ‘should’ to ‘could’ Some things are going to happen, no matter what you do. You have to accept that things will never be perfect.

‘I should eat healthy this week’ puts a lot of pressure on yourself & sets you up for a fall. ‘I could eat healthy this week’ allows you the freedom to act on this without the added stress. Try it, you’ll be amazed what a difference this makes! www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk

3

Identify your triggers Triggers can be either physical or emotional. It is important to try & identify these in order to manage your symptoms. Some of your triggers might be easy to spot, such as being in a busy public place or visiting a place where you’ve had a traumatic experience. However, and somewhat frustratingly, a lot of triggers can be hard to spot. We have found that keeping a journal really works to help identify these hidden triggers. Every time you feel anxious, make a note of how you feel & why you feel like this. Here’s some possible triggers to think about: • Public speaking • Death • Financial worries • Appearance • Social situations • Thinking about future plans • Being criticised • Being alone • Failure • Making a mistake • Natural Disasters

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4

Distract yourself Sometimes you need to escape your own mind & distract yourself from your stress & anxiety. This is not the same as forgetting about it or running away from it so don’t panic. By doing simple activities which allow you to focus on something else you can control your anxiety & improve your overall mood. There’s many ways to do this but ultimately this will depend on what you enjoy or what works to relax you. Here’s some suggestions: • Play a sport • Read a book • Complete a puzzle book • Exercise • Socialise • Complete housework (tidy house, tidy mind) There’s a time & a place to reflect & think about your anxiety but it’s important to also allow yourself to clear your head.

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5

Sweat it out Everyone knows that exercising makes you feel better.

Research shows that working out releases the feel good chemical ‘dopamine’ into our brains. However, obsessing over this can have the opposite effect. Going back to the ‘I should workout/I could workout’ scenario, it is important to only do things if you want to. You have to know why you are exercising. In this case, it is to feel good. If you are anxious about going to a gym, go for a walk instead.

If you don’t enjoy gym routines, go for a hike. Explore a new city. You don’t have to become an athlete over night but you could benefit from some of the following: • Going for walk or runs • Going to the gym • Playings sports • Exploring the countryside • Bike rides • Swimming Remember! You don’t have to do anything crazy. Any activity which gets the heart pumping has been shown to increase the chemicals which relieve depression.

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6

Boost your mind with a healthy & balanced diet A lot of people don’t connect anxiety with a poor diet.

However, this can be the first sign that you need to improve or change what you’re putting into your body. If you start putting the wrong oil into a car sooner or later it will underperform or even worse still, breakdown. We are no different to this. We all perform better when we are fueled on a nutritious, super food enriched, diet.

Some of the best superfoods you can use: • Nuts • Blueberries • Spinach • Asparagus • Avocado • Oranges • Salmon Use Multi Vitamins It isn’t always easy to include all of these ingredients in your diet. That’s why we created ‘Release Multi V’ & ‘Release Mood Boost’. This helps us up our intake of all the essential nutrients & fibre your body needs to function properly.

www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk

7

Get enough sleep When you are stressed your body needs more sleep than usual. It is important to get your 8 hours a night & have regular periods of rest throughout the day. However, for most people who suffer from anxiety disorder, lying in bed is when their minds go into overdrive. This is certainly true for us! What we have found is that creating a relaxing routine before bed can help combat this.

Tips to help you relax before bed: • Set aside 45-60 minutes to wind down before you go to bed • Take a hot bath • Drink a hot tea, hot milk or hot chocolate • Exercise • Get intimate • Meditate or sit & relax, breathing slowly for 10mins

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8

Limit alcohol & caffeine Alcohol can seem like a good idea at first. We all know that feeling of relief when you have your first drink & your mind shuts off. The problem is, your body gradually builds up a tolerance & the more you drink the less the alcohol works to de-stress you. This can make your anxiety & stress even harder to cope with.

Caffeine likewise can also have adverse effects. Too much & this can aggrevate your anxiety & trigger panic attacks.

We recommend that you try & drink water instead.

Keeping your body hydrated is just as important as filling it with mind boosting nutrients.

If you struggle to drink enough water you can keep logs of how many glasses you have throughout the day which will encourage you to keep it up. There are plenty of apps you can download on your smartphone which will remind you throughout the day & allow you to up your intake sufficiently.

www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk

9

Relax, time out!

Having time out to reflect can be beneficial to both your mind & body. One aspect of anxiety is those racing thoughts that just won’t go away. We have always been dubious about meditation but once we decided to try it, we really found out how good this can be. Listening to a meditation audio book before bed or in the morning has helped us to feel more relaxed & in touch with out minds.

Why meditation is good for you • Train your brain to focus your attention • Learn to relax • Rid yourself of anxious thoughts • Provides a sense of calm • Reduces stress • Increases energy Meditation Books We recommend: Mindfulness - A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World.

Available as an audio or physical book.

www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk

10

Take action or seek help Now that you’ve read our tips it’s time to take action. It’s time to be positive. You can make a change & you can be happy! It won’t happen overnight but if you follow some of these steps you will start to notice a difference.

Don’t ever be afraid to seek help. We know how annoying it is when people tell you that ‘everyone feels like that’ but we know this is not the case. Speaking about your problems can be a weight of your shoulders & can really help to put you on the road to recovery.

We have tried both therapy & medication. Whilst both did help, without a doubt the best way for us has been making changes ourselves & doing this naturally. This is what spurred us on to start ‘Release My Mind’. Offering an alternative to prescribed medication & creating a community for people to discover & spread their own vital information. We want to share our own experiences & hopefully help to make a difference for many other people too!

www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk

Release Brain Food Raw vegetable, superfood capsules.

Release Mood Boost Golden Root Capsules

Release Greens Spirulina, Chlorella and Barley grass Capsules

Release Anxiety Natural support to the mind & body - Capsules

Release Sleep Valerian & wild lettuce, natural sleep capsules

Release Multi V Multi Vitamins & minerals capsules

Thanks for reading! We hope this has helped & we would love to hear from you.

To find out more about the authors & Release My Mind Visit www.ReleaseMyMind.co.uk