Category: Anxiety

Phobias are irrational fears that induce an intense emotion when a certain situation or object is encountered.

A phobia is an irrational fear of something that is unlikely to be dangerous.

People with phobias experience an intense fear when they encounter a certain situation or object.

Naturally, people with phobias do their best to avoid situations in which they might come into contact with the object of their phobia.

Some of the most common phobias are of heights, public speaking and snakes (see below for a long list of phobias).

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder, which are extremely common, affecting almost one-third of people at some point in their lives.

Types of phobias

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders puts phobias into three broad categories:

1. Agoraphobia: A generalised fear of leaving a safe, comforting place, such as home, while fearing contamination, embarrassment or other trauma while out of doors.
2. Social phobia: fearing the judgment of others in social situations.
3. Specific phobias: fear of a specific situation or object that results in anxiety and can lead to a panic attack.

Psychiatrists and psychologists typically put specific phobias in to these general categories:

• fears related to animals (dogs, spiders, insects)
• fears related to the natural environment (darkness, heights, thunder)
• fears related to blood, injury, or medical issues (broken bones, injections, falls)
• fears related to specific situations (driving, flying, riding an elevator)
• other (drowning, choking, loud noises)

The most common phobias

Heights, snakes and public speaking top the list of things of which people are most afraid.

That is according to a survey of 2,088 British people who were given a list of 13 phobias and asked how fear-inducing each one is (YouGov, 2014).

It was women who were more afraid of each item on the list than men — or perhaps men just won’t admit to their fears.

The widest gender gap was seen for spiders, which scared 52 percent of women but only 33 percent of men (or so they said).

Here is the full list of phobias and the percentage of people that said they were “very” or “a little” afraid of them:

Age also played a role in what people were afraid of.

Younger people were more petrified of public speaking than older people:

• 59% of those between 18-24 said they were afraid of public speaking.
• 32% of people over 60 said they were afraid of public speaking.

Older people meanwhile, were more afraid of heights and snakes.

Unsurprisingly there’s no place on the list for one of the most common fears which most people have never heard of: the fear of holes.

Technically it’s called trypophobia and, according to a recent study, it may result from the visual features of certain poisonous creatures (Cole & Wilkins, 2013).

The study found that around 1 in 7 had some trypophobic reactions.

Like all the fears on the list, arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, varies a lot between people, with some just being ‘scared’ of spiders to others being so terrified they can’t even look at a picture of one.

Of course people in this survey could only respond to the thirteen phobias they were asked about, they might have had other ones.

Here are a few personal favourites:

1. Nomophobia: fear of being out of phone contact (no–mobile-phobia: it’s bad Latin, but easy to spell compared with the others…)
2. Omphalophobia: fear of bellybuttons; of having one’s own bellybutton touched or pulled or seeing another person’s bellybutton.
3. Lipophobia: fear of fat in foods.
4. Oikophobia: fear of the home and/or household appliances.
5. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: fear of the number 666.
6. Sesquipedalophobia: fear of long words (oh, the tremendous weight of irony).
7. Panphobia: fear of everything (Woody Allen has this).

The most common phobia you’ve never heard of is…

…the fear of holes.

Technically it’s called trypophobia and, according to a study, it may result from the visual features of certain poisonous creatures (Cole & Wilkins, 2013).

The study found that around 1 in 7 had some trypophobic reactions.

The lead author Dr Geoff Cole explained:

“We think that everyone has trypophobic tendencies even though they may not be aware of it.

We found that people who don’t have the phobia still rate trypophobic images as less comfortable to look at than other images.

It backs up the theory that we are set-up to be fearful of things which hurt us in our evolutionary past.

We have an innate predisposition to be wary of things that can harm us.”

Should your fear of holes be getting the better of you, then use a classic psychological technique: desensitisation.

That means looking at lots of pictures of holes.

Apparently it worked for Dr Cole.

Longer list of phobias (A-Z)

A

• Achluophobia – Fear of darkness
• Acrophobia – Fear of heights
• Aerophobia – Fear of flying
• Agoraphobia – Fear of open spaces or crowds
• Aichmophobia – Fear of needles or pointed objects
• Amaxophobia – Fear of riding in a car
• Androphobia – Fear of men
• Anthrophobia – Fear of flowers
• Anthropophobia – Fear of people or society
• Aphenphosmphobia – Fear of being touched
• Arachibutyrophobia – Fear of peanut butter
• Arachnophobia – Fear of spiders
• Astraphobia – Fear of thunder and lightning
• Autophobia – Fear of being alone

B

• Bacteriophobia – Fear of bacteria
• Bathmophobia – Fear of stairs or steep slopes
• Bibliophobia – Fear of books
• Botanophobia – Fear of plants

C

• Chionophobia – Fear of snow
• Chronophobia – Fear of Time
• Claustrophobia – Fear of confined spaces
• Coulrophobia – Fear of clowns
• Cyberphobia – Fear of computers
• Cynophobia – Fear of dogs

D

• Dendrophobia – Fear of trees
• Dentophobia – Fear of dentists

E

• Elurophobia – Fear of cats
• Entomophobia – Fear of insects
• Equinophobia – Fear of horses

G

• Gamophobia – Fear of marriage
• Genuphobia – Fear of knees
• Glossophobia – Fear of speaking in public

H

• Haphephobia – Fear of touch
• Hemophobia – Fear of blood
• Hypochondria – Fear of illness

I

• Iatrophobia – Fear of doctors

K

• Koumpounophobia – Fear of buttons

L

• Lockiophobia – Fear of childbirth

M

• Mageirocophobia – Fear of cooking
• Microphobia – Fear of small things
• Mysophobia – Fear of dirt and germs

N

• Necrophobia – Fear of death or dead things
• Noctiphobia – Fear of the night
• Nyctophobia – Fear of the dark

O

• Octophobia – Fear of the figure 8
• Ophidiophobia – Fear of snakes
• Ornithophobia – Fear of birds

P

• Pathophobia – Fear of disease
• Pedophobia – Fear of children
• Philematophobia – Fear of Kissing
• Philophobia – Fear of love
• Phobophobia – Fear of phobias
• Pteromerhanophobia – Fear of flying
• Pyrophobia – Fear of fire

S

• Scolionophobia – Fear of school
• Sociophobia – Fear of social evaluation
• Somniphobia – Fear of sleep

T

• Technophobia – Fear of technology
• Trypanophobia – Fear of needles/injections
• Trypophobia – Fear of Holes

V-Z

• Verminophobia – Fear of germs
• Wiccaphobia – Fear of witches and witchcraft
• Xenophobia – Fear of strangers or foreigners
• Zoophobia – Fear of animals

.

1. Green, black and oolong tea may help fight Alzheimer’s

Drinking tea is linked to a dramatic reduction in the risk of cognitive impairment in older people (Feng et al., 2016).

A single daily cup of tea reduces cognitive decline in those over 55 by 50 percent, the Chinese study found.

Among those with a genetic susceptibility to Alzheimer’s, though, this risk reduction increased to 86percent.

It did not matter which type of tea people consumed: green, black or oolong.

Scientists have also found that a natural component of green tea may eventually provide a way of curing Alzheimer’s disease (Rushworth et al., 2013).

Early-stage research has found that a component of green tea — epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) — can disrupt the build up of plaques in the brain, which is what causes the cells to die.

Eventually this may help lead to a cure for the crippling disease.

2. Tea benefits older brains

While we’ll have to wait for the Alzheimer’s research to progress, tea has been shown to have more immediate effects.

A study of 2,031 people aged between 70 and 74 found that those who drank tea — which contain micronutrient polyphenols, like EGCG — had better cognitive performance (Nurk et al., 2009).

Polyphenols are also contained in red wine, cocoa and coffee.

3. Matcha tea benefits anxiety

A type of green tea called matcha benefits anxiety, research finds (Kurauchi et al., 2019).

Matcha green tea, which has a long history of medicinal use in Japan, has a calming effect, the mouse study shows.

The tea has an active ingredient that stimulates both dopamine and serotonin receptors — both of which are linked to anxious behaviour.

Matcha comes in the form of a finely ground powder derived from the same small tree that all teas come from: camellia sinensis.

4. Black tea benefits creativity

Drinking hot tea instantly increases a kind of creativity called ‘divergent thinking’, a study has found (Huang et al., 2018).

Divergent creativity refers to creating lots of potential answers to a problem.

For example, try to think of as many uses as you can for a brick.

Building a house is the obvious one, but you might also list sitting on it, using it to smash open a coconut, or painting a face on it and using it as a puppet (admittedly not a very expressive puppet!).

The more you can come up with, the more divergent creativity you display.

5.Black, green and oolong tea benefit brain efficiency

People who habitually drink tea have more efficient brains, research concludes (Li et al., 2019).

The study found that people who drank tea more than three or four times a week have better organised brains.

Drinking tea has previously been linked to better mood, reduced mortality and protection against cognitive decline.

These benefits included all kinds of teas, such as oolong, black and green tea.

The results showed that people who drank tea had better functional connectivity within a circuit in the brain called the default mode network.

6. Many teas benefit cognition

You hardly need me to tell you that tea makes you feel alert, but it’s down to more than just the caffeine…

Many different teas, including green tea, matcha tea, black tea and oolong tea, also contain high levels of theanine, a psychoactive amino acid almost unique to tea.

Although we know much less about the effects of theanine than we do caffeine, there are multiple studies connecting it with enhanced cognitive performance (Einother & Martens, 2013).

7. Green tea improves working memory

For one thing, we know that green tea extract can improve working memory (Schmidt et al., 2014).

Working memory is vital to holding pieces of visual, verbal or other information in your mind while you manipulate them.

Better working memory has been linked to improved learning, attention and other vital outcomes.

Not only did people in the study do better on the tests after ingesting the green tea, but that it enhanced the connections between the frontal and parietal regions of the brain.

8. Chamomile tea calms while peppermint tea excites

Both chamomile tea and peppermint tea affect mood and memory.

Peppermint tea can improve alertness while chamomile does indeed provide a calming effect, a study finds.

Dr Mark Moss, one of the study’s authors, explained:

“Peppermint has a reputation for being psychologically or mentally alerting.

It picks you up and makes you feel a little bit brighter, so we endeavoured to test this out by giving people peppermint tea, or chamomile tea, which is a more calming drink and then put them through some computerised tests.

We found that those people who had drunk the peppermint tea had better long-term memory.

They were able to remember more words and pictures that they had seen.

9. Theanine linked to calming effect of tea

The famous calming effect of chamomile tea and many other types partly comes from theanine.

When theanine is given to people, their brains exhibit more α-waves, which are indicative of relaxation without drowsiness (Juneja et al., 1999).

10. Green tea benefits memory

Theanine, along with EGCG, has also been implicated in improvements to memory.

Korean research by Chung et al. (2011) has found that green tea extract and L-theanine can produce memory improvements in people suffering from mild cognitive impairments.

Mouse studies on EGCG suggest that it helps memory by increasing the production of new brain cells (Wang et al., 2012).

11. Black tea and green tea benefit mental health

All the benefits of drinking tea mean it could be a factor in improved overall mental health.

Hozawa et al. (2009) tested this in a population study of 42,093 Japanese.

This study found that drinking green tea was associated with less psychological distress.

The same positive effect of drinking tea has been found in 1,058 elderly Japanese people (Niu et al., 2009).

Theanine has even been tested in the treatment of schizophrenia with some success in reducing anxiety and other symptoms (Ritsner et al., 2011).

Raising a cup of tea

Of course, tea is a relatively benign substance and most of the effects described here are small.

But when you add these potential benefits to its other pleasures, tea becomes just that little bit more enjoyable.

And, as Henry James said:

“…there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”

I’ll raise a cup to that.

.

It can be difficult to calm down: we worry about work, money, our health, our partners, children…the list goes on.

And let’s face it, there are plenty of things to worry about, and that’s even before you’ve turned on the news.

This means that when the mind is given an idle moment, often what it seems to fill it with is worrying rather than calming down.

Worry can be useful if it’s aimed at solving problems but less useful when it’s just making us unhappy or interfering with our daily lives and making it difficult to calm down.

The standard psychological methods for calming down pretty simple.

But, just because they’re simple and relatively well-known doesn’t mean we don’t need reminding to use them from time-to-time.

So here is a five-step plan to calm down called “The Peaceful Mind” that was developed by psychologists specifically for people with dementia (Paukert et al., 2013).

Because of this it has a strong focus on the behavioural aspects of relaxation and less on the cognitive.

That suits our purposes here as the cognitive stuff (what you are worrying about) can be quite individual, whereas the behavioural things, everyone can do.

1. The first step to calming down is awareness

When trying to calm down, this is the step most people skip.

Why?

Because it feels like we already know the answer.

You probably already think you know what makes you anxious.

But sometimes the situations, physical signs and emotions that accompany anxiety aren’t as obvious as you might think.

So try keeping a kind of ‘anxiety journal’, whether real or virtual.

When do you feel anxious and what are the physical signs of anxiety?

Sometimes this stage on its own is enough to help people with their anxiety.

As I never tire of saying, especially in the area of habits, self-awareness is the first step to change.

2. Calm down your breathing

The mind and body naturally each feed back to the other.

For example, standing confidently makes people feel more confident.

Mind doesn’t just affect body, body also affects mind.

It’s the same with anxiety: taking conscious control of breathing sends a message back to the mind to calm down.

So, when you’re anxious, which is often accompanied by shallow, quick breathing, try changing it to relaxed breathing, which is usually slower and deeper.

You can count slowly while breathing in and out and try putting your hand on your stomach and feeling the breath moving in and out.

In addition, adopt whatever bodily positions you associate with being relaxed.

Typically these are things like relaxing muscles, adopting an open stance to the world (unfold arms, hint of a smile).

It will do wonders to help you calm down from anxiety or anger.

3. Prepare calming thoughts to fight anxiety

The injunction to ‘think calming thoughts’ is very trite, but no less true for that.

Here’s the problem: it’s all very well saying: “Think calming thoughts”, but who can think of any calming thoughts when stressful situations are approaching and the heart is pumping?

The key is to get your calming thoughts ready in advance.

They could be as simple as “calm down!” but they need to be things that you personally believe in for them to be most effective.

It’s about finding what form of words or thoughts is right for you to calm down from anxiety or anger.

4. Increase activity to calm down

It might seem strange to say that the answer to calming down from anxiety or anger is more activities, as we tend to think the answer is relaxation and that involves doing less.

But, when unoccupied, the mind wanders, often to anxieties; whereas when engaged with an activity we enjoy, we feel better, so it is easier to calm down.

Even neutral or somewhat wearing activities, like household admin, can be better than sitting around worrying.

The problem with feeling anxious is that it makes you less likely to want to engage with distracting activities.

You see the problem.

One answer is to have a list of activities that you find enjoyable ready in advance.

When anxiety hits at an inactive moment, you can go off and do something to occupy your mind.

Try to have things on your list that you know you will enjoy and are easy to get started on.

For example, ‘invent a time machine’ may be biting off a tiny bit more than you can chew, but ‘a walk around the block’ is do-able.

5. Self-compassion can calm you down

Most people can benefit from a little more self-acceptance — especially the anxious and angry.

One way to achieve that is through self-compassion exercises, which have been shown to make people feel relaxed and safe (Kirschner et al., 2019).

Being more accepting of the self helps lower the heart-rate and turns off the body’s threat response — both keys to calming down.

One exercise entails thinking about yourself and a loved one with kindness and soothing thoughts.

Another exercise is a “compassionate body scan”, which involves paying attention to different parts of the body with an attitude of loving kindness.

First author of the study, Dr Hans Kirschner, said:

“These findings suggest that being kind to oneself switches off the threat response and puts the body in a state of safety and relaxation that is important for regeneration and healing.”

6. Learn calming sleep skills

Often when people are anxious and find it difficult to calm down they have problems sleeping.

Sometimes when you feel anxious there’s nothing worse than lying in bed, in the dark, with only your own thoughts to occupy your attention.

And lack of sleep leads to anxiety about sleeping which can lead, paradoxically, to worse sleep.

Breaking out of this loop can be hard, but practising ‘sleep hygiene’ can help — it is all about getting into good sleeping habits.

This is covered in How To Fall Asleep Fast: 6 Science-Backed Steps, so check out that article for the details.

.

Stress and anxiety are normal parts of everyday life.

It is not normal for people to feel relaxed and calm at all times — stress and anxiety are part of everyday life.

However, stress and anxiety can play a positive role in our lives, if they are approached in the right way.

So says psychologist Dr Lisa Damour during a presentation at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

People tend to feel stressed, she says, when they are working at the edge of their abilities.

Although stress is a given, working through it can increase people’s resilience.

Similarly, anxiety, while also common in everyday life, can be protective.

Being aware that anxiety can motivate positive behaviours helps people make good use of it.

For example, anxiety can stop procrastination or help people take protective measures against threats.

Unfortunately, many find that the very idea of stress makes them feel stressed, said Dr Damour:

“Many Americans now feel stressed about being stressed and anxious about being anxious.

Unfortunately, by the time someone reaches out to a professional for help, stress and anxiety have already built to unhealthy levels.”

Anxiety has a vital, positive function, explains Dr Damour:

“Anxiety is an internal alarm system, likely handed down by evolution, that alerts us to threats both external — such as a driver swerving in a nearby lane — and internal — such as when we’ve procrastinated too long and it’s time to get started on our work.”

Naturally, stress and anxiety can be harmful if they reach chronic levels, says Dr Damour:

“Stress causes harm when it exceeds any level that a person can reasonably absorb or use to build psychological strength,.

Likewise, anxiety becomes unhealthy when its alarm makes no sense.

Sometimes, people feel routinely anxious for no reason at all.

At other times, the alarm is totally out of proportion to the threat, such as when a student has a panic attack over a minor quiz.”

Stress and anxiety levels that are too high, and remain untreated, can lead to psychological and medical problems:

“Anyone feeling overwhelmed by stress should, if possible, take measures to reduce his or her stress and/or seek help from a trained professional to learn stress management strategies.

For the management of anxiety, some people find relief through workbooks that help them to evaluate and challenge their own irrational thoughts.

If that approach isn’t successful, or preferred, a trained professional should be consulted.

In recent years, mindfulness techniques have also emerged as an effective approach to addressing both stress and anxiety.”

The research was presented at annual convention of the American Psychological Association (Damour, 2019).

Deal with anxiety and stress using ten techniques that psychological research has shown to be highly effective.

The best way to deal with anxiety and stress is, of course, to identify the source and get rid of it.

If only this were possible.

You can try to avoid people who stress you out, say ‘no’ to things you know will cause you anxiety and stress, and generally do less stuff.

Unfortunately, this is often out of the question or you would have already done it.

So, here are 19 techniques you can use to deal with anxiety and stress that you can’t avoid.

1. Develop awareness to deal with anxiety

This is the step most people skip.

Why? Because it feels like we already know the answer.

But sometimes the situations, physical signs and emotions that accompany anxiety aren’t as obvious in the moment.

Here are a few common symptoms of stress and anxiety:

• excessive sweating.
• dizziness.
• tension and muscle aches.
• tiredness.
• insomnia.
• trembling or shaking.
• a dry mouth.
• headaches.

So, try keeping a kind of ‘anxiety and stress journal’, whether real or virtual.

When do you feel anxious and stressed and what are those physical signs of anxiety?

When you can identify what’s stressing you out and how you react, you’ll know when to use the techniques below to deal with anxiety and stress.

2. Breathe to cope with anxiety

The mind and the body each feed back to the other.

Taking conscious control of breathing sends a message back to the mind and helps you deal with anxiety and stress.

So, when you’re anxious or stressed, which is often accompanied by shallow, quick breathing, try consciously changing it to relaxed breathing, which is usually slower and deeper.

You can count slowly while breathing in and out and try putting your hand on your stomach and feeling the breath moving in and out.

Research has shown that deep breathing helps people deal with anxiety and stress.

Diaphragmatic breathing — colloquially known as deep breathing — involves contracting the muscles underneath the lungs.

Sometimes it is called ‘belly breathing’ because it feels like breathing from the belly.

In contrast, ‘chest breathing’ — using the muscles around the upper body — is less efficient.

This sort of shallow breathing is linked to anxiety, fatigue and muscle tension.

Belly breathing is best done by breathing in steadily for four seconds from the diaphragm, then exhaling for six seconds.

3. Avoid venting emotions

Some of the ways we react to stress are built on false conceptions of how the mind works.

‘Venting’ — letting your emotions out in an angry, tearful and emotional rush — is a good example.

It’s commonly thought that emotions have to be ‘let out’ in order to reduce them.

This simply isn’t true and is not a good way to deal with anxiety or stress.

Venting emotions can actually cause them to become more powerful, rather than allowing them to subside or reduce.

None of this is to say that you shouldn’t talk to others about what is happening, it’s just that the form it takes shouldn’t be a blast of raw emotion.

4. Think differently to cope with anxiety

One way to deal with anxiety and stress is to change the way you think about stressors.

You can do this by reframing the stressful tasks you have to do.

For example, giving a presentation is stressful but, on the other hand, it’s a chance to demonstrate your expertise to others and to network.

One study on how to beat stress had bankers watching a ‘stress-is-enhancing’ video which suggested that some people do their best work under pressure.

For example, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger landed his stricken airliner on the Hudson River and Winston Churchill successfully led Britain through WWII.

Those who’d seen the ‘stress-is-enhancing’ video did develop a more positive stress mindset.

This led to them reporting better performance at work and fewer psychological problems over the subsequent two weeks.

In addition, thinking that stress is enhancing was associated with lower levels of cortisol, a hormone closely associated with the stress response.

In other words, people’s physiological reaction to stress and anxiety was better when they endorsed the idea that stress is enhancing.

5. Accept anxiety to deal with it

Sometimes, though, trying to find the upside of a stressful situation can be hard.

Some situations are what they are and there are no ways to fool yourself into thinking about them differently.

In that case it’s better just to accept the situation to cope with anxiety and stress, rather than fighting it.

Acceptance doesn’t mean it’s right, that you’re happy about it or that you ignore it.

It also doesn’t mean that you give up.

Rather it’s acceptance that something can’t be changed and it is wasted effort trying to work out how it can be changed, or how it could have been different.

6. Keep busy to handle anxiety

The problem with feeling anxious and stressed is that it makes you feel less motivated to engage with distracting activities.

When unoccupied, the mind tends to wander, often to anxieties.

One answer is to have a list of activities that you find enjoyable ready in advance.

When anxiety hits at an inactive moment, you can go off and do something to occupy your mind.

Try to have things on your list that you know you will enjoy and are easy to get started on.

(A word of caution: being too busy is not a good idea, you want to be occupied, but not creating even more anxiety and stress for yourself.)

7. Dealing with intrusive thoughts

Much of the everyday anxiety and stress we face results from unwanted intrusive thoughts going around in our heads.

They could run from things as simple as “Did I turn off the cooker?” up to persistent worries about the future.

There are a number of techniques to get rid of intrusive thoughts, here are a few:

• The worry period. Researchers have tried asking those with persistent anxious thoughts to postpone their worrying until a designated 30-minute ‘worry period’. Save up all your worrying for this time and it may ease your mind the rest of the time.
• Write about it. Writing about your deepest thoughts and feelings may help to reduce recurrent unwanted thoughts.

There are six more in this article on intrusive thoughts.

8. Muscle relaxation technique

The most common type of relaxation therapy which psychologist teach may be familiar to you.

It involves mentally going around the muscle groups in your body, first tensing then relaxing each one. It’s as simple as that.

And, with practice, it becomes easier to spot when you are becoming anxious and the muscles are becoming tense.

The next stage is to cut out the tensing phase and move straight to relaxing each muscle.

Next, you learn to associate a certain cue, say thinking ‘be calm’ with a relaxed state.

You then learn to relax really quickly.

Finally you practise your relaxation technique in real-world anxiety-provoking situations.

Read more about relaxation techniques for anxiety.

9. Exercise to cope with anxiety

One of the best ways to deal with anxiety and stress is to exercise.

Studies on mice, for example, have shown that exercise reorganises the brain so that it is more resistant to stress (Schoenfeld et al., 2013).

It does this by stopping the neurons firing in the regions of the brain thought to be important in the stress response (the ventral hippocampus).

Studies in humans show that exercise has a relatively long-lasting protective effect against anxiety (Smith, 2013).

Both low and medium intensity exercise have been shown to reduce anxiety.

However, those doing high intensity exercise are likely to experience the greatest reduction in anxiety, especially among women (Cox et al., 2004).

Exercise can reduce anxiety symptoms by 20 percent compared with those who do not exercise (Herring et al., 2010).

As little as 20 minutes can make you feel calmer right now — and it works on just about everybody.

More than around 30 minutes of exercise, though, seems to provide the best dose for anxiety.

Up to 80 percent of people experiencing depression say exercise improves their mood and anxiety most of the time, another study has found.

10. Sleep to combat anxiety

Stress and anxiety can lead to lost sleep.

So learn the most successful single intervention psychologists use to help people sleep well.

It is called Stimulus Control Therapy (Morin et al., 2006).

You’ll be happy to hear it consists of six very straightforward steps.

If you follow these, it should improve your sleep which, in turn, should help you deal with anxiety and stress.

Here they are: how to fall asleep fast.

11. Reframe anxiety-provoking situations

One of the best ways to deal with anxiety and stress is to think about situations differently.

Most situations can be re-framed and studies show that people who do this naturally — as opposed to trying to suppress their anxiety — feel less anxious in stressful social situations.

For example:

• It is not a scary presentation; it is a little chat with a few colleagues.
• It is not a job interview; it is a chance to meet some new people.

Reappraisal can be beneficial when anxiety becomes persistent and gets in the way of everyday life.

12. Safety signals to deal with anxiety

Using safety signals helps people to deal with anxiety and stress.

Safety signals can be anything from a picture linked to relaxing thoughts, to a piece of music or a place.

When in a situation that provokes anxiety, thinking about these safety signals can help.

Safety signals access a totally different network in the brain to those usually targeted by therapy or medication.

Therefore, they may help people who do not respond to other methods of treatment.

13. Lavender reduces anxiety

The smell of lavender can be effective to deal with anxiety and stress.

Lavender also has practically no side-effects in comparison to drugs like benzodiazepines and SSRI antidepressants.

Benzodiazepines, in particular, can cause headache, dizziness and an effect like being drunk.

Lavender, meanwhile, has a relatively quick relaxing influence and no other side-effects.

14. Improve gut bacteria

Improving gut bacteria decreases anxiety and helps people deal with anxiety and stress.

Both a balanced diet and using probiotics can help improve gut bacteria.

Foods that may help to improve gut bacteria include those high in fibre, such as vegetables, beans and legumes.

A diverse range of foods can also help many different types of ‘good’ bacteria grow in the gut.

It is better to avoid sugar, alcohol and artificial sweeteners as these can be detrimental to gut bacteria.

Prebiotics also improve gut bacteria.

15. Fruits and vegetables

Eating more fruits and vegetables lowers the risk of anxiety by almost one-quarter.

The study also found that anxiety disorders are more common in women, in those with low household income and those with other health problems.

Higher amounts of body fat were also linked to anxiety, Mr Jose Mora-Almanza, study co-author, said:

“This may also partly explain the findings associated with body composition measures.

As levels of total body fat increased beyond 36%, the likelihood of anxiety disorder was increased by more than 70%.”

16. Personality change

Two different types of psychotherapy for anxiety disorders can change people’s anxious personalities dramatically which helps them deal with anxiety.

The study included 60 patients with generalised anxiety disorder who received either cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) or metacognitive therapy.

Metacognitive therapy involves targeting basic thinking processes, in contrast to CBT which concentrates on the content of thoughts.

A simple example of metacognition is realising one is prone to repetitive thinking of depressive thoughts — what psychologists call rumination.

The results showed that just 12 sessions of psychotherapy was enough for people to make large changes to their personalities and improve their ability to deal with anxiety and stress.

17. Yoga to cope with anxiety

Yoga is an effective complementary way to deal with anxiety.

Yoga and breathing exercises reduce the symptoms of anxiety in both the short and long-term.

In fact, the more yoga practice people in the study did, the more their depression and anxiety improved.

Another study has also shown that practising yoga reduces the symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder.

18. Matcha tea

A type of green tea called matcha reduces anxiety.

Matcha green tea, which has a long history of medicinal use in Japan, has a calming effect, a mouse study has shown.

The tea has an active ingredient that stimulates both dopamine and serotonin receptors — both of which are linked to anxious behaviour.

Matcha comes in the form of a finely ground powder derived from the same small tree that all teas come from: camellia sinensis.

19. Therapy to deal with anxiety

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is currently the best treatment for anxiety.

It is better than just taking drugs and better than taking drugs as well as having therapy.

Cognitive therapy results in either a cure or significant improvement in 85% of patients and online CBT is also effective.

It is probably the ultimate way to deal with anxiety.

Anxiety disorders are more common in women.

Eating more fruits and vegetables is linked to lowering the risk of anxiety by almost one-quarter, research finds.

The study also found that anxiety disorders are more common in women, in those with low household income and those with other health problems.

The study included 26,991 people who were part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Dr Karen Davison, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“For those who consumed less than 3 sources of fruits and vegetables daily, there was at least at 24% higher odds of anxiety disorder diagnosis.”

Higher amounts of body fat were also linked to anxiety, Mr Jose Mora-Almanza, study co-author, said:

“This may also partly explain the findings associated with body composition measures.

As levels of total body fat increased beyond 36%, the likelihood of anxiety disorder was increased by more than 70%.”

Scientists have linked anxiety, as well as other mental health problems with bodily inflammation, said Dr Davison:

“Increased body fat may be linked to greater inflammation. Emerging research suggests that some anxiety disorders can be linked to inflammation.”

One-in-nine women had an anxiety disorder compared with one-in-fifteen men, the study found.

Those with household incomes below $20,000 per year had double the incidence of anxiety.

Dr Hongmei Tong, study co-author, said:

“We were not surprised to find that those in poverty had such a high prevalence of anxiety disorders; struggling to afford basics such as food and housing causes relentless stress and is inherently anxiety inducing.”

Having three or more health conditions increased the risk of anxiety by five-fold.

Mr Shen Lin, study co-author, said:

“Chronic pain and multiple health conditions make life very unpredictable and can be anxiety producing.

One never knows whether health problems will interfere with work or family responsibilities and many activities become more challenging and time consuming.”

Dr Davison said:

“It is estimated that 10% of the global population will suffer from anxiety disorders which are a leading cause of disability.

Our findings suggest that comprehensive approaches that target health behaviors, including diet, as well as social factors, such as economic status, may help to minimize the burden of anxiety disorders among middle-aged and older adults, including immigrants.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (Davison et al., 2020).

The anxiety-provoking effects of the sweetener continued across two generations.

The common sweetener aspartame, used in many foods and drinks, is linked to anxiety, research finds.

The study on mice found that the anxiety-inducing effects of the artificial sweetener were passed down over two generations, despite subsequent mice not being exposed to aspartame.

Aspartame, which has been controversially linked to a range of problems, is used in almost 5,000 foods and drinks that are promoted as ‘diet’.

The drug was approved by the FDA in 1981, but there are limits on how much can be used.

Aspartame and anxiety

For the study, mice were fed the equivalent of 15 percent of the maximum daily intake of aspartame each day over 12 weeks — roughly equivalent to six to eight cans of diet soda for humans.

The results showed that the mice began behaving anxiously.

But it was not just the mice originally exposed to aspartame, it was also their children and their grandchildren that continued to display anxious behaviours.

However, when treated with diazepam, a drug marketed as Valium and used to treat anxiety in humans, their anxious behaviours disappeared.

Ms Sara Jones, the study’s first author, explained:

“It was such a robust anxiety-like trait that I don’t think any of us were anticipating we would see.

It was completely unexpected.

Usually you see subtle changes.”

The transgenerational effects of aspartame are striking, said Professor Pradeep Bhide, study co-author:

“What this study is showing is we need to look back at the environmental factors, because what we see today is not only what’s happening today, but what happened two generations ago and maybe even longer.”

The  study was inspired by previous research that found that nicotine had transgenerational effects on mice.

The negative effects of smoking have been found to carry on down the generations, causing asthma and chronic lung disease in people who never smoked.

Professor Bhide said:

“We were working on the effects of nicotine on the same type of model.

The father smokes.

What happened to the children?”

Aspartame has also been tentatively linked to depression, weight gain and behavioural problems in children.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Jones et al., 2022).