12 Ways to Manage Anxiety

Recognize the Reptilian Brain

My therapist friend Elvira Aletta gives a brilliant neuro-psychology lesson in one of her posts where she explains the two parts of our brain: the primitive part containing the amygdala--which is responsible for generating and processing our fear and other primal emotions--and our frontal lobes: the neo-cortex or the newest part of our brain, which is sophisticated, educated, and is able to apply a bit of logic to the message of raw fear that our reptilian brain generates.

Why is this helpful? When I feel that knot in my stomach that comes with a message that I am unloved by the world, I try to envision a Harvard professor, or some intellectual creature whacking a reptile on the head with a book, saying something like "Would you please just evolve, you overly dramatic creature?"

Exaggerate Your Greatest Fear

I know this doesn't seem like a good idea, but truly it works. I learned it from a fellow Beyond Blue reader who explained on a combox: "Tell your fear to someone else and make sure to be as dramatic as possible, with very descriptive words and emotions. Then, when you've told every detail you can think of, start over again. Tell the entire, dramatic story, again with very elaborate descriptions. By the third or fourth time, it becomes a bit silly."

My friend Mike and I do this all the time. He will tell me how he is afraid he has diabetes, and that his leg will have to be amputated, and then he won't be able to drive a car with one leg, and because of that his wife with leave him, and he will be a single, lonely old man with one leg. Funny stuff, right?

Sweat

I have found only one fool-proof, immediate solution to anxiety. And that is exercise.

Bike. Walk. Swim. Run. I don't care what you do, as long as you get that ticker of yours working hard. You don't have to be training for an Ironman to feel the antidepressant effect of exercise. Even picking the weeds and watering the flowers has been shown to boost moods. Aerobic exercise can be as effective at relieving mild and moderate depression as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac and Zoloft).

In his comprehensive book, "The Depression Cure," clinical psychologist Stephen Ilardi writes: "Exercise changes the brain. It increases the activity level of important brain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin.... Exercise also increases the brain's production of a key growth hormone called BDNF. Because levels of this hormone plummet in depression, some parts of the brain start to shrink over time, and learning and memory are impaired. But exercise reverses this trend, protecting the brain in a way nothing else can."