I am here to show you that anxiety can be cured using 4 very simple, and very FREE… methods.
These 4… very specific “tactics”… will help YOU completely cure anxiety FOREVER.
People have used these 4 tactics since the dawn of time to eliminate anxiety… completely.
These 4 tactics are like the 4 legs of a table… they will hold you up and KEEP you STRONG.
Chop off one leg and you can STILL stand, but you will be VERY wobbly.
Chop down two legs and you will be teetering on the edge, bound to fall eventually.
Take away 3 legs and you will fall FOR SURE.
Take away ALL 4 legs and you no longer even HAVE a table… because you have no base on which to even stand.
To STAY standing, the 4 legs of a table must ALWAYS be strong.
For YOU to ALWAYS be strong, you must concentrate on these 4 legs on which you will stand strong.
The GOOD news is that these 4 tactics WORK for ALL people.
Follow these methods religiously and you will NEVER experience anxiety ever again.
The 4 ways to cure anxiety completely FOREVER are:
EAT MORE
SLEEP MORE
WALK MORE
BREATHE MORE
Nothing else cures anxiety.
Not pills, not potions, not hypnosis, not diets, not doctors, not therapy.
To cure anxiety… your sleep, food, breathing, and exercise MUST be optimized.
1) EAT MORE (How Eating Food Cures Anxiety)
It is impossible to feel anxious after eating a good meal.
Did Santa Claus ever have anxiety?
Heck no.
I am NOT saying you need to get fat, but I am saying you need to eat regular meals and eat until you are actually full.
Aim for 3 meals per day starting with breakfast first thing in the morning.
It is impossible to be anxious AFTER eating a nice fulfilling meal so always start your day with a nice fulfilling meal.
The longer you go without proper nutrition the more anxious that you will probably become.
Many people do not even realize just how much anxiety is produced by hunger.
Think about it like you were a caveman.
If you were hungry it meant you had no food to eat, no food before the era of agriculture would produce anxiety about when and how to get food.
Anxiety when not fed is ingrained in humans.
Eat and the anxiety will immediately go away.
Even science links your mood to your food.
“One of the most famous calorie-restriction studies was done on conscientious objectors during World War II by Dr. Ancel Keys.
36 healthy young men who had been excused from armed service for ethical objections agreed to a year long diet of sorts. It would include 3 months of preparation, 6 months of semi-starvation (designed to make the men lose 25% of their body weight), and then 3 months of refeeding.
The purpose of the study was to determine how people would react under such conditions, and also to learn how to safely and successfully refeed starving populations. The men were highly motivated for the study, as their purpose was to help their country and the men fighting overseas who might face starving conditions themselves.
The young men lived in a dorm at the University of Minnesota, and in addition to their restricted diet, they were required to walk 22 miles a week. All their food was prepared in a dormitory kitchen, and once the starvation began, each man’s calories were adjusted every Friday to meet a weight loss goal of 2.5 lbs (1.1 kg) per week.
Their average daily calories during the semistarvation period was about 1600 calories a day (they ate approximately 3200 calories daily before the study). Their food consisted of what might have been available in war-torn Europe at the time – potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, dark bread, macaroni, small glasses of milk, chicken, toast with a small smear of jam, those kinds of things.
What was it like for them? Well, horrible. They described lethargy, irritability, anxiety that approached each time they were to learn how much they were allowed to eat the following week.
Only 32 of the original 36 completed the semistarvation period. One man who broke diet admitted to stealing scrapings from the garbage cans, stealing and eating raw rutabagas, and stopping at shops to eat sundaes.
Two of the men suffered severe psychological stress – one became suicidal, and another cut off three of his fingers in an act of self-mutilation. Both men were taken to a psychiatric hospital.”
Yikes.
It sounds far fetched to think that people would willingly starve themselves until you realize that millions of people are following some fad diet and starving themselves in the process.
It is highly important for your mood, happiness, and sanity to eat until you are actually fulfilled.
(That means eat until you are full, it does not mean compulsively and chronically overeat.)
Make sure you eat real whole food.
Real whole food is the only food that is actually fulfilling.
Snack food, junk food, fast food, and especially DIET FOOD will never fulfill you, they will cause you to be starving even while you are shoveling food into your face.
What is natural food?
Before you eat something, ask yourself this question: If factories went away tomorrow, could I still eat this food?
- Scrambled eggs? Yes
- A bag of potato chips? No
- Bread and butter? Yes
- Little Debbie snack cakes? No
- Rice and beans? Yes
- Sugary breakfast cereal? No
- All fruits, vegetables, meats? Yes
- Hot dogs? No
Eat real, whole food 3 times per day and watch the anxiety immediately fade away.
I didn’t say anything about “eating clean”, I said eat natural foods that don’t come from a factory.
After that there are no limits, eat what you like.
If you can binge on it, then it is NOT a REAL actual natural food.
All natural foods have a built in “satisfaction” mechanism that tells you to stop eating when full.
The only foods you can binge on are foods that are unnatural and have had all of their true nutrition removed.
This is why you can keep eating snack cakes, cookies, or potato chips and never become satisfied.
It is also why you cannot binge eat scrambled eggs with toasted bread and butter; you will get full and stop eating.
Be sure to include protein with your meals and a little fat (not too much fat, a little fat goes a long way).
“A 15-year-old female presented concerns of generalized anxiety disorder and hypoglycemia symptoms. Her diet consisted primarily of refined carbohydrates. The addition of protein, fat, and fiber to her diet resulted in a substantial decrease in anxiety symptoms as well as a decrease in the frequency and severity of hypoglycemia symptoms. A brief return to her previous diet caused a return of her anxiety symptoms, followed by improvement when she restarted the prescribed diet.”
A well balanced diet should include protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
Do NOT exclude any macro-nutrient if you want to completely cure anxiety.
You can NEVER truly be fulfilled if you totally cut out carbohydrates, or fats, or proteins. You need literally ALL of them.
Do exclude foods in a box and foods with sugar heavily added. In a nutshell, eat food and don’t eat “foodstuffs.”
Be sure to eat your carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are the KEY food for anti-anxiety.
Carbohydrates are comfort foods.
They release serotonin in the brain, a chemical mood lifter that is considered a natural anti-depressant.
2) SLEEP MORE (How Sleeping Cures Anxiety)
Lack of sleep is probably the #1 BIGGEST cause of anxiety.
People in our world are chronically sleep deprived.
What do anxious depressed people ALWAYS say?
“I’m so tired.”
They already KNOW what the actual problem is but tell them to sleep and what do they do?
They make excuses for why they CANNOT sleep.
Excuses are bullshit and your body definitely needs sleep.
This is your life and to be at your absolute BEST you have to have enough rest.
It is NOT just anxiety that is caused by sleep deprivation.
Depression is almost always caused by a lack of sleep as well.
That is why depressed people ALWAYS spend time sleeping, they are making up for being sleep deprived for so long.
“Depression” is a natural reaction to spending a large amount of energy.
Depression ensures that you stay in bed and actually get your rest.
Life is always full of ups and downs and the downtime is there because you NEED to rest AFTER doing something BIG.
Think of depression as DEEP REST.
“Sleep debt can cause anxiety even in those that do not experience anxiety regularly.
Studies have shown that those that are sleep deprived often have significant brain “dysfunctions” that can cause further anxiety. In fact, extreme sleep deprivation can cause the brain to start hallucinating, and experiencing many symptoms (both mental and emotional) that mimic paranoid schizophrenia.
During sleep the brain regenerates neurons that affect various areas of thought, emotion, and health. When you don’t sleep, these neurons do not regenerate, and in some cases stop firing altogether. Scientists found that some areas of the brain like the entire temporal lobe simply turn off when the brain doesn’t receive enough sleep.
Sleep also affects hormonal levels. Your body is able to regulate hormones both during sleep and when your body is healthiest (which occurs only after you experience enough sleep), and when you become more sleep deprived you increase the risk of developing unbalanced hormones, which in turn affect your overall anxiety levels.
One common issue for those with sleep debt is stress over the fact that they’re not getting enough sleep. Often people will stay awake at night angry at themselves or stressed over their lack of sleep, and since anxiety is cumulative, any added stress can lead to further issues dealing with anxiety even if it is self-inflicted.
Scientists have shown that those with sleep debt often have chronically elevated levels of adrenaline. That means that when you don’t get enough sleep, adrenaline starts to course through your veins more often. For those without anxiety this may not be too big a problem, but those with anxiety are likely to interpret the adrenaline poorly, and thus experience an increase in overall anxiety levels.”
Get your sleep and do NOT worry about what others say.
This is your life, it is up to you to live it and living with anxiety and depression is no LIFE at all.
Especially when the fix is so damn easy, ALWAYS get your sleep.
Try for 8-10 hours per night until you are actually fully rested.
3) WALK MORE (How Walking Cures Anxiety)
Imagine walking by an apartment door hearing a dog scratch the door endlessly.
Do you think that dog needs:
a) an anxiety pill or
b) a VERY long walk?
If you said a long walk you were right and what is right for the dog is what is right for you.
A stressed body is a body that is NOT currently being used.
A sedentary body is a body full of pent-up, un-used energy. It is this un-used energy, which has nowhere to go, that causes anxiety.
“Studies have shown a very strong correlation between a lack of physical activity and the development of anxiety disorders.
- Unused Energy One of the most frequently cited reasons for anxiety is unused energy. Your body was made to move, and unfortunately when it doesn’t move it creates tension. We see this actually with dogs often – dogs that don’t get their daily walks often become anxious and high strung, because if they don’t work out their energy, that energy turns first into physical tension, and then into mental tension.
- Increased Stress Hormone When you feel stress, your body releases a hormone known as cortisol. There’s evidence that movement is what depletes cortisol, bringing it back to normal levels. This makes sense, because anxiety itself is the “fight or flight” system. When your body experiences it, it expects you to fight or flight. Inactivity is essentially doing nothing, and that may cause your body to start misfiring your stress and anxiety hormones.
- Immune System Malfunction Exercise is also necessary for a regulated immune system, as well as maintaining a healthy hormone balance. There’s reason to believe that inactivity prevents these important things from occurring.
Those that are often inactive are also often enjoying less experiences, and positive experiences are good for anxiety. Those that aren’t working to improve their health may develop small problems that create anxiety on their own.
Whether inactivity caused your anxiety or not, there is also reason to believe that exercise alone can be one of the best ways to manage it.
Anxiety management is about performing behaviors that fight anxiety, and exercise – of all possible behaviors – is potentially one of the best anxiety cures.
- Preventing Inactivity Exercise is the opposite of inactivity. If you’re exercising, then the effects of inactivity on anxiety will no longer be present. Even if inactivity didn’t cause your anxiety, it often makes it worse. Exercise reduces the likelihood that inactivity related anxiety affects you.
- Releasing “Relaxation” Neurotransmitters Still, the primary reason that exercise works as en effective anxiety management solution is because exercise actually has some of the same effects as some anxiety medications. Exercise releases endorphins in your brain, which are your body’s natural painkillers. They’re technically released to prevent exercise from causing pain, but they also play a role in regulating mood and relaxing the mind.
- Burning Cortisol Nearly everyone living with anxiety likely has an excess of cortisol in their body, as a result of the stress that anxiety places on them. Exercise depletes that cortisol, preventing many of the symptoms that lead to further anxiety, such as concentration problems and fatigue.
- Improved Sleep Exercise also tires the body enough that it becomes easier to sleep with anxiety – something that many anxiety sufferers struggle with. Sleep is crucial for anxiety management, to the ability for exercise to improve sleep is incredibly valuable.
- Healthy Activity Finally, exercise represents a healthy coping tool in general. Coping is about making sure that you’re spending time in ways that are good for your mental health, and exercise is most certainly a way to do that.
Exercise improves confidence. It ensures that your body is healthy, and good health is important for every mental health issue. It also helps your body run more efficiently, and prevent any “misfiring” that may be causing persistent anxiety.”
You don’t have to lift weights every day, you don’t have to ride your bike up a mountain, you don’t have to jog 12 miles.
Exercise is as simple as walking!
Use the bodies energy and walk the stress away.
Humans are built to walk, when you do not walk stress and anxiety accumulate in your body.
Walk it out.
Any time you feel anxiety about to hit, you can simply go for a long walk and prevent it.
Exercise works BETTER than any medicine because exercise can PREVENT anxiety rather than simply putting a band-aid on it.
If you’re BRAND NEW to exercise, aim for ten minutes per day and add time each week.
Your ultimate goal is two hours of dedicated physical activity per day.
After two hours of physical activity per day, you will be too tired to ever become anxious.
Exercise can be accomplished in many ways including walking, power-walking, hiking, lifting weights, swimming, riding a bicycle, yoga, gardening, and MANY others.
Any physical activity is a good cure for anxiety.
4) BREATHE MORE (How Deep Breathing Cures Anxiety)
Breathing deeply and SLOWLY is the best way to breathe to combat anxiety.
In fact, anxiety can be caused by what is known as shallow breathing.
“Shallow breathing is defined as small, short breaths. When caused by anxiety, they are almost never dangerous and rarely indicate an underlying health problem (although obesity may increase the risk of shallow breathing). However, this little anxiety symptom can cause a cascade of reactions that have wreaked havoc on millions of people with anxiety.
The reason anxiety causes shallow breathing is because anxiety is the activation of your fight or flight system. It’s an evolutionary adaptation designed to keep you safe from harm. When faced with danger, your heartbeat speeds up and you breathe faster in order to get more oxygen for fighting or fleeing.
Those with anxiety aren’t facing any fears, but their body reacts as though they are. That’s what creates an anxiety disorder. The body is constantly releasing adrenaline and reacting as though the person is in a fearful situation, even though they are not.
As your fight or flight system activates and your breathing speeds up, you start shallow breathing throughout the day. This means that those with anxiety are shallow breathing for minutes and hours on end, and this creates another problem: hyperventilation.
Shallow breathing doesn’t mean you need more oxygen. It actually means that you’re over-breathing – you’re breathing out carbon dioxide too quickly, before your body has a chance to make more. Oxygen fills your lungs right when you breathe, but carbon dioxide takes time to develop, and when you shallow breathe, each expulsion of breath takes out more Co2 than your body has created.
If you do this for too long, you hyperventilate. The problem is that hyperventilation makes your body feel like you’re not getting enough oxygen. Essentially, it makes you feel like you need to take deeper breaths and take in as much air as possible. This makes all of the symptoms of hyperventilation worse.”
Any time during the day if I notice I am NOT breathing deeply, I make it a habit to do so right then and there.
I always try and breathe slowly and rhythmically as well.
If you are new to “deep breathing” you may have a tendency to breathe much faster than you need to.
This will cause symptoms of anxiety, like the above text says you will be breathing too quickly to get enough oxygen in.
Make your breathing circular, make it rhythmic like the waves of the ocean.
Breathe deep, take it slow, and if you feel you are not getting enough oxygen, exhale forcefully.
I say exhale forcefully because many times when people are not breathing, or not breathing deeply, what they are actually doing is holding their breathe and not exhaling.
Attention should be given to both the inhalation and the exhalation.
Eat more, sleep more, walk more, breathe more – the 4 ways to combat, control and cure anxiety FOREVER.
To cure anxiety you have to put in the time.
You want a simple way out and THIS is the simplest: breathe, walk, eat, sleep, repeat.
(Let me make it clear that I am talking about general anxiety, NOT social anxiety.)
It is impossible to feel anxious AFTER you have exercised for two hours and had a big, satisfying meal and 8-10 hours of sleep.
“But Elijah, that’s too much time to exercise and sleep! What about pills?!?!”
If you aren’t prepared to SPEND TIME to fix your problems… you can simply live with your anxiety and shut up about it.
Take all the anti-anxiety pills you want and watch the problem get MUCH steadily worse.
What do you think a pill will do for you?
A pill is a bandage, it hides the problem while the problem does NOTHING but fester.
Don’t you even know what the song says?
“The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse.”
I’m afraid the REAL medicine for anxiety is exercise, food, breathing, and sleeping.
After you try those 4 and if you STILL have mild anxiety, try this…
CURE ANXIETY BONUS TIPS!
Put down the coffee, it isn’t helping you.
When it comes to anxiety, coffee is the worst food or drink you can have.
Coffee puts you in a fight or flight mode, a constant state of adrenaline, and it definitely inhibits your sleep.
Coffee (caffeine) is a HUGE cause of anxiety.
If you are a coffee drinker who experiences anxiety, chances are if you stop drinking coffee your anxiety will probably just instantly vanish, or at least reduce by 75%-90%.
Stop drinking coffee until you are fully rested and anxiety free.
Personally, I love the stimulating benefits coffee gives me but I drink coffee very sparingly.
When you give up coffee you will understand just how anxious it makes you actually feel.
If you drink it daily you will be in a constant state of anxiety and NEVER really understand WHY.
The coffee is why.
Use it as necessary but if you abuse it you will pay the consequences and those consequences are anxiety and insomnia (lack of sleep causes anxiety, remember?).
Coffee is a VERY powerful drug so don’t play with it like it is NOTHING but candy.
“Enough caffeine can even create symptoms of anxiety in a healthy person that are indistinguishable from those experienced by anxiety disorder sufferers.
Caffeine affects the body much like stress, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of stress hormones. Caffeine consumption can more than double your blood levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine.
Caffeine achieves many of its effects by blocking the activity of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that makes us tired and sleepy. By increasing the brain chemicals dopamine and acetylcholine, caffeine gives us the feelings we desire — increased motivation, productivity, and brain power. But for those with anxiety, there is a downside.
Caffeine also inhibits the calming neurotransmitter GABA. GABA puts the brakes on brain activity when needed and has been characterized as “nature’s Valium.” It’s essential for feeling happy and relaxed, so it’s not surprising that a low GABA level is associated with anxiety and panic attacks.
One of the most common side effects of both anxiety and caffeine consumption is insomnia. In fact, caffeine-induced sleep disorder is a recognized psychiatric disorder. If anxious thoughts make you restless at night, caffeine can compound the problem.
Enough caffeine can even create symptoms of anxiety in a healthy person that are indistinguishable from those experienced by anxiety disorder sufferers.”
I follow what is called caffeine cycling.
I drink coffee only in cycles and I spend long stretches of time drinking absolutely NO caffeine at all.
For example I might spend one month drinking coffee and four months NOT drinking ANY caffeine at all.
When you stay off caffeine for a LONG TIME you realize just how STRONG coffee REALLY actually is.
Caffeine is absolutely a drug, I cannot say it any clearer than that, and you already KNOW how I feel about drugs (they don’t work, they just make you flat out MUCH worse).
Be around people.
Being alone is bad for your mental health, very few people can tolerate it.
I don’t suggest trying, I suggest forming a close group and sticking with them (what people in a previous generation called a “family”).
Be a lone wolf, yes, but DON’T ever be alone.
There is a big difference and the difference will show itself in your mental health.
To get out of your head, be around OTHER people.
“We all need to “de-stress” once in a while. Spending some time by yourself can help give you a bit of a “recharge” after a long day. But there is a limit to how long that alone time is useful. After a while, you may find yourself spending more and more time alone.
The reality though is that being alone is the exact opposite of what you need to do to overcome anxiety. That’s because when you have anxiety, your thought processes change, and you become far more internalized (inside of your head). Anxiety causes negative thoughts, and anxiety puts you inside of your head and experiencing those negative thoughts.
Curing anxiety requires distractions. It requires you to stop overthinking and live life. It’s something that is much, much harder to do when you’re alone with your thoughts. As much as it may seem like you can overcome your anxiety by yourself – and sometimes you can – the truth is that, in general, when you’re alone and isolated, you tend to have more negative thoughts for a longer period.”
Don’t rush so much.
Rushing does NOTHING but causes you stress.
Stress is an obvious cause of anxiety.
To cure anxiety, kill the stress.
If you live in a crowded city that is always in a rush, take a trip out to the countryside where life is a little slower.
Over-stimulation has the EXACT same effect as rushing.
Over-stimulation is caused by a busy lifestyle or a busy internet addiction.
Have more fun.
An accepted definition of anxiety is: desire to do something, typically accompanied by unease.
AKA boredom.
If you THINK that you have anxiety, you might actually just be bored.
Fill up your days with activity, and it is really hard to be anxious.
Sit around doing NOTHING and it is REALLY easy to be anxious.
Both over-stimulation and boredom can cause anxiety.
You MUST find the happy perfect balance.
Understand that anxiety is a part of business life.
When you don’t KNOW what the future will hold, it is perfectly normal to feel anxious about it.
Now when you’re big in business, it increases the chances for anxiety… because your chances for big successes and even bigger failures are much more than an average person’s.
You’ll have to learn to deal with anxiety if you want to stay in business.
Like RGH Siu said, anxiety is the paradoxical twin to modern prosperity.
Use the tactics described in this article to effectively conquer anxiety… once and for all.
If you STILL have anxiety after reading this article it is because you WANT to have anxiety.
The 4 things which effectively cure anxiety are: walking, eating, breathing, and sleeping.
It is NOT difficult to cure anxiety and if you didn’t cure your anxiety it is because you skipped one of the above items.
If your eyes glazed over the words exercise, or diet, or sleep, or breathing it is because you did not WANT to actually see it.
You have decided that you do NOT want to cure your anxiety and that is why your eyes glazed over EXACTLY how to cure anxiety.
Since you DON’T want to cure anxiety, just simply deal with it and come back to this article when you actually do WANT TO cure your anxiety.
However, if you actually do WANT TO cure anxiety NOW you know EXACTLY how to.
It’s NOT a pill or a quick-fix, but if you follow the plan, it lasts for a LIFETIME and it is also 100% free.
What MORE could you actually ask for?
Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
Elijah “The Realist” said…
Let eating, sleeping, walking, and breathing be your actual medicine.
If you want to live while your actually living, take your medicine every single day.
Until next time.
Your man,
-Elijah “The Realist”