There are about 6.8 million Americans with generalised anxiety disorder, a condition that will affect anyone’s routine. If you have chronic anxiety, you probably have fearful thoughts about every aspect of your life. You might need an outlet that will provide clarity.
The best way to deal with the condition is to train your mind to deal with fear and get back to a calm mood. The standard medical treatment is to take pharmaceuticals. However, more people are tuning into the mind-body connection and seeking alternative, holistic treatments that restore a sense of calm without the use of drugs. To address this mind-body holistic approach, we’re going to cover two types of treatment: chiropractic care and meditation.
Chiropractic care
According to research, there’s a mind-body connection whereby our brain controls how the body responds or acts to specific situations. For instance, being emotionally exhausted can lead to physical sickness. These findings point to the increasing relevance of chiropractic care.
It’s been proven that spinal misalignment has a major contribution to anxiety. The central nervous system has the primary purpose of controlling and regulating hormones in the human body. Hormonal imbalance can, therefore, lead to anxiety, depression, and stress.
Chiropractic care can reduce high blood pressure and anxiety. This is achieved through regular adjustments and alignment of the body that restore proper hormone function. You can easily set up a chiropractic appointment even without a doctor’s referral by speaking to professionals such as the team of chiropractors in Peoria IL.
Meditation
One common aspect of anxiety is racing thoughts that won’t stop. Meditation helps with this problem by silencing the overactive mind. Instead of letting fearful thoughts run, you can settle between the silence that exists in your mind.
With regular practice, you’ll realise you are more than the racing thoughts. You can stay away from your feelings. The method involves remaining centered on your thoughts, and if a thought pulls you out of the centre, you can return to the centre again.
Mastering meditation
The ability to centre your thoughts is a skill anyone can master once they have the intention. However, anxiety can cause people to shy away from the practice. They feel like they can’t meditate because they are having too many thoughts or are feeling restless.
With a patient trainer, these issues can be overcome. Anyone can learn meditation, even if the first few sessions need to be guided.
What research says about meditation
A number of studies carried out in recent years have found meditation to be an effective way of treating anxiety. The Psychological Bulletin published a study that combined the theories of 163 different studies. The conclusion was that practising meditation and mindfulness produces results that can benefit people with anxiety disorders. The practices can minimise stress, negative personality traits, and anxiety.
Another study looked at a wide range of anxieties from social anxiety disorder to cancer patients. The study found that meditation was effective in managing anxiety.
The researchers looked at 39 studies involving 1140 participants. They concluded that mindfulness helps with anxiety because one learns how to work under stressful and difficult situations. Patients with anxiety can, therefore, use meditation across a wide range of conditions.
Brain and meditation
Because all mental activity occurs in the brain, there have been studies showing the relationship between the brain and anxiety. Critically anxious people show increased activity in the amygdala. This region of the brain is used in the regulation of human emotions, including fear.
The studies showed that people who practices mindfulness for about two months were able to reduce the activity in the region of the brain. Other researchers from Harvard found out that practising mindfulness can reduce the number of neurons present in the fear-triggering section of the brain.
Final thoughts
With regular chiropractic appointments and meditation sessions, you can tackle the mind-body connection on both fronts. Together, these treatments can help you restore physical, emotional and spiritual balance and help you deal with your anxiety.
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Image credit: Freepik
Peter Wallace has been an advocate for mental health awareness for years. He holds a master’s degree in counselling from the University of Edinburgh.
