TIPS which may help you to overcome anxiety:

• Avoid stimulants such as coffee, tea and cola drinks.
• Learn some basic relaxation techniques – perhaps buy a relaxation CD and use it regularly so that your body ‘remembers’ how to do it when you want to summon up feeling relaxed at challenging times like when you feel anxious.
• Rather than avoiding thinking about the anxiety you experience, or dulling it with perhaps alcohol or nicotine, try to face it, get to know it: what triggers it? Accept that you have a problem which you can learn to resolve and resolve to do just that.  In this way you will feel like less of a victim of the anxiety and more like someone who has a temporary difficulty which you can overcome.
• Make life changes which will reduce the chances of you feeling overwhelmed, for example by work or too many demands on your time.
• Take time to organize yourself, to prioritise and to plan and build in time for yourself to do the things you enjoy and which will encourage feelings of relaxation. Again, you will feel more resourceful and in balance.
• Ask for help!!  Get support and don’t try to ‘go it alone’.
• If you have significant life issues which are contributing to the feelings of anxiety, address them.  For example, if you have financial difficulties, get free debt advice and support.  If you have concerns about a medical condition, act now and see your GP. Positive action generates a feeling that you can build resourcefulness and this is calming in itself.
• Learning to control your breathing will have a strong effect on levels of anxiety. Experiment with breathing slowly and deeply.
• Challenge the thoughts which cause and perpetuate anxiety.  It is common to over generalise, for example, and imagine that one experience of something will repeat in all similar ones: ‘I felt anxious driving in rush hour traffic so I’ll always feel anxious when the roads are busy’ for example.

These tips can begin the process of you starting to feel more in control of the anxiety you feel and helping you reduce it.  They are not an exhaustive list but they CAN help.