Post-traumatic Stress Disorder results in the prevalence of unusual and intensive episodes of anxiety. Sometimes the condition is unbearable, and a person is hardly left with any control over such a situation as these anxiety episodes are more frequent, so it adversely affects health and routine life activities.
Why Is It Important To Deal With PTSD?
Quite a large number of people all across the globe deal with post-traumatic stress disorder in life. It is essential to learn useful techniques which allow a person to get more control over him during such anxiety episodes.
Moreover, many times people use the wrong coping mechanisms to deal with it, such as drug and alcohol abuse. This adds more to the actual problem and makes a person untamable.
PTSD And Alcohol Abuse
Many people experience extreme stress and anxiety as a result of Post-traumatic stress. They find alcohol and drug an easy escape from all the troubles of life. This is even more dangerous and may lead to serious consequences such as depression and other health-related complications.
It is essential to immediately seek professional assistance that helps to get rid of addiction and also teach some useful techniques to deal with PTSD. Ask your health expert about the treatment program that meets your needs. One can seek an insurance-covered recovery program through a number of individual health plans in almost every State.
Healthy Coping Ways To Deal With PTSD
In order to live a more balanced and healthier life, it is crucial to learn some coping techniques that allow us to deal with traumatic stress in a more organized way. Let us go through some effective means to deal with traumatic stress and anxiety.
1. Deep Breathing
Deliberate deep breathing will help to move away from your attention during stress and anxiety. Studies support the role of deep breathing in reducing stress and anxiety level in the body. During stress and anxiety, people are more inclined to shallow and fast breathing, which can make anxiety worse.
Make sure to make attempts to breathe deeply deliberately. This will promote oxygen supply in the body and allow us to cope with stress appropriately. Moving out in an open and calm place and practicing deep breathing exercises will bring you more benefits.
2. Progressive Muscle Relaxation
It is a set of exercises that involve alternating tensing and relaxing body muscles. The progressive relaxation of muscles is an effective technique that allows a person to relax during the anxiety phase. Constantly tensing and relaxing muscles also signals the brain to relax, and ultimately the stress and anxiety level in the body is also reduced.
3. Mindfulness
It is a technique often used by professional psychologists to address the problems of anxiety and stress. Mindfulness is a very effective and useful technique. The technique allows one to establish a strong connection with a person’s present or current moment.
A focus on current situation helps in loosening up the connection of the mind with past memories, troubling thoughts, and negative emotions. Mindfulness is now extensively used to treat many psychological issues.
4. Self-Monitoring
Many times a tendency of unawareness of surroundings and circumstances makes a person clueless and anxious. This can lead to more frequent episodes of stress and anxiety. Unawareness about the things going on in the surroundings makes it hard to manage and control emotions.
Self-monitoring allows a person to observe action and reaction phenomena in various situations keenly. It also provides a person with more detailed information about the trigger situations and circumstances that result in anxiety and stress. Self-monitoring will allow us to cope with stress and anxiety better.
5. Join A Support Group
As we have discussed earlier, there are many like you out there. Find a support group and join it. Finding people who relate more with you will make you more comfortable. Sharing your experience, pain, and suffering from others will make it easy to let go of such harsh experiences. Furthermore, you might hear stories of others and how they are dealing with the situation.
This will re-energize you to make much-needed changes and move ahead in life. Support groups also provide a vital opportunity to find someone you can talk to and ask for help at any time. Such a support system also allows dealing with stress and anxiety.
6. Expressive Writing
Journaling or expressive writing is another effective coping methodology to deal with stress and anxiety. It is about writing down your experiences, emotions, and feelings. Experts support the role of expressive writing in overcoming anxiety.
Expressive writing is not only an effective coping technique, but it is also a very effective means of boosting positivity. It allows a person to move ahead in life with good hopes positively.
7. Distraction Techniques
During the time and periods of anxiety and stress, using distraction techniques will allow you to divert your attention away from strong stressful emotions successfully. It could be anything that works for you, and there could be many variations in distraction techniques as it may vary from one person to another. Distraction shifts the focus to other things and may decrease the intensity of stress.
8. Behavioral Activation
Keeping yourself active is another way to get rid of stressful thoughts. Engaging yourself in activities that are positive and rewarding promotes positivity on the one hand and also allows you to overcome symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Avoidance behavior might not work for a longer duration, and thus a focus on behavioral activation will produce more noticeable and improved results.
9. Self-Soothing
Practicing self-soothing techniques is another effective way to cope with signs of anxiety and stress. A person can look for activities that he enjoys. Getting yourself indulged in such self-soothing techniques will help in ensuring a good mood.
Take Away
Post-traumatic stress disorder requires positive efforts by a person to cope with anxiety and stress. There are some healthy coping techniques that help to keep away anxiety and promote positivity and wellness simultaneously.
