How to Treat General Anxiety Disorder Naturally

Although it has become common to employ medication to treat general anxiety disorder, there are also a number of ways to treat the disorder naturally. The goal of natural treatment is to reduce and manage the symptoms associated with general anxiety disorder and to support your efforts to make positive changes in your lifestyle so as to lessen environmental stresses. This approach may be both more challenging and more rewarding.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Physician
• Therapist

Make Positive Life Changes to Treat General Anxiety Disorder Naturally

1. Use positive activities such as meditation, aerobic exercise, yoga and other holistic therapies to replace anxiety with calm and relaxation in your life.
2. Identify lifestyle changes that will help you stay in control of your life and your emotions. If activities such as alcohol use, overeating, overwork, drug use or gambling trigger your symptoms, get help to avoid these behaviors.
3. Join a self-help group where you share perspectives, experience and hope with others who suffer from general anxiety disorder (GAD) or an associated problem. Over half of those with GAD have another problem such as depression, alcoholism or compulsive gambling, and 12-step programs have been helpful to many of these people.
4. Enlist the help of friends, family, clergy and others and ask them to become informed allies by learning about the disorder and supporting you without enabling negative behavior.
5. Build a lifestyle of abstinence from substances that contribute to stress and anxiety in your life including alcohol, caffeine and other stimulants and drugs.
6. Participate in events and activities to promote public awareness of general anxiety disorder. Going public and working with others on such activities can often be empowering and therapeutic.

Use Talk Psychotherapy to Treat General Anxiety Disorder Naturally

7. Speak with your physician about your desire to treat your general anxiety disorder without medication and ask for a recommendation and referral to one or more therapists who would be suitable for such treatment.
8. Meet with potential therapists to discuss psychotherapy strategies that are built on helping to understand and change the ways in which you respond to stresses in your environment so that daily events will be less likely to trigger anxiety and worry.
9. Select a therapist with whom you communicate well to help treat your general anxiety disorder through effective psychotherapy. Begin treatment.

Tips & Warnings

• Since your preferred treatment approach will not include the need for prescription medication, you do not need to select a psychiatrist as your therapist. Other professionals who are licensed to provide effect psychotherapy may include psychologists, social workers and counselors.
• Don't rule out getting your insurance to cover some of your natural treatment approaches, including such things as a fitness club, yoga or massage therapy and psychotherapy with a licensed professional other than a psychiatrist. Ask your primary care physician for referrals whenever possible.