Many methods exist to recover from anxiety; what must one absolutely know in order to recover from it?
By now,
if one has been reading very in-depth about anxiety, one may be beginning to realize that there is nearly an infinite amount of information to know and learn about anxiety. This is the case with nearly everything that one can think of earth. It seems to even be true that each anxiety condition considered by itself (social anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic attacks etc...) has a nearly infinite amount of information to be discovered.
Many guides exist that give us a plethora of varying techniques and medications that promise to help. It seems that almost every day some new piece of research is released that either holds that an old technique is no longer effective or that new technique has been found to be more effective than a previous one. This can be overwhelming to the anxiety-sufferer, and it suddenly starts to
flip through one's mind that, “I can't take this any longer! This problem is too complicated for me to understand and address! I give up!”
Take heart, fellow anxiety-sufferers, the process need not be that complicated. A fairly simple plan for recovery can be laid out for each person, and the level of complexity can be increased as one desires.
A good guide that delivers the basics is the Anxiety Bible, which essentially states that the best things for a person to have some basic understanding of are counseling, exercise, diet, medication, biofeedback, outside stressors, risk taking, a supportive social network, and regrouping from burnout (Stelter, 2009). Even this amount, which is a basic road map to recovering from anxiety, can also be fairly overwhelming because many questions will arise about each topic covered.
In fact, while this information is very useful, the most
important thing to know about anxiety is not even covered in the Anxiety Bible. This tidbit not only applies to anxiety, but also to life in general and can get one through any situation, no matter how difficult.
So, now that your curiosity has been aroused, what is it that one needs? The answer is an underlying faith that no matter how dire the situation becomes, one will always be all right, no matter what. This is where spirituality and religion come in and can be very beneficial. If one believes that he or she will be all right no matter what happens, he or she will always try to find a way out of a situation that occurs, no matter how difficult it might be.
A person trapped in a vicious cycle of social anxiety will know that even if the anxiety is difficult now, and even though he or she has no friends, family, job, or anything in life whatsoever, he or she will be just fine because things always turn out well for those who work at them. And, if one observes what really happens in life, this most certainly seems to be the case.
People come and go, catastrophe happens, but for those that take the steps in the right direction, catastrophe eventually disappears and one's life suddenly turns into a very positive situation. Why? Because the worst possible that one could imagine has happened, and even though it did happen and things were difficult for a while, this person was all right.
Truly, it seems that those who have an unshakable faith in the idea that things can and will get better, do eventually end up recovering from even the worst situations in life, including anxiety, or whatever the case may be.
So, for those of us who are going through a trying time, or for those of us who have never had a time of happiness, keep faith that good times will come if one continues to work for them!
References
Stelter, D.J. (2009). The Anxiety Bible. The Anxiety Support Network. Retrieved March 7, 2009 from
http://www.anxietysupportnetwork.com/articles.html
