Mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness.

Your mind and body are interconnected, so neither can be neglected.

It’s no coincidence that the rate of mental illness raises as the obesity rate increases.

Of all the mental illnesses Anxiety is one fastest growing mental health diagnosis in recent history.

It’s safe to say, there is a plague of anxiety crippling people world wide. The issue is especially prevalent here in America.

The fact is that more people are on anxiety medications than ever before. Sales of anxiety self-help books are at an all time high.

But why?

There are many theories as to why anxiety has become a major public health concern.

But, the truth is that most people have anxiety because their priorities are messed up.

Basically, people suffer anxiety when they focus on the wrong things. Anxiety is complex, but I’ve found that my anxiety was simply caused by focusing on the wrong stuff.

For a long time, my focus was on the wrong stuff: Partying, video games, and various bad habits.

As a result, I had terrible anxiety. It was so bad I dreaded going to work, hated being around new people, and I had to drug myself to sleep.

After I changed focus to things the helped me grow and become better, my anxiety dissipated.

My anxiety didn’t disappear overnight. It slowly reduced over time. Now it’s to the point where anxiety is a non-factor in my life.

In this post I share my best tips that helped me reduce my anxiety significantly.

What Causes Anxiety?

I have found that most anxiety is self induced.

Your thinking habits, fitness habits, work habits, social habits, and eating habits all contribute to either increase or reduce anxiety.

Maybe you’re not living up to your life standards. Does your current situation in life match your expectations? Do your thoughts and actions align with your true self? Do you know your true self?

If your answer to those questions is “No”, then your anxiety is self induced. Humans are the only animal that gets anxiety in situations where there is no physical danger.

The only reason you should feel stress, real fight-or-flight stress, is if you are in danger of losing life or limb.

So, why then do people get so anxious they can barely perform day-to-day activities?

Answer: They are conditioned to be anxious. Not intentionally, but consciously or subconsciously.

I’m sure if you think back far enough to when your anxiety started, you’ll find it was a slow build up and your anxiety got worse over time.

Maybe it was an insecurity you never dealt with. Whatever it was, your perception of it snowballed this made up thing into something bigger and bigger, until eventually it became a ‘disorder’.

Whatever the trigger is, what ever the reinforcement is, I believe you can grow out of anxiety, just like you grow into it.

I’m a perfect example of someone who suffered from anxiety. I would freeze up and couldn’t focus on even the most basic conversations. It’s like I put a huge amount of pressure on myself for some unknown reason.

I share a lot of information here. You can incorporate it into your life as you see fit. If you do, I am confident that you will reduce your anxiety overtime.

For me, beating anxiety wasn’t doing one thing and fixing it. Everything is interconnected. Taking one step at a time and building confidence each day is how it’s done.

What really causes anxiety is misunderstanding, incorrect perception, and the influence of chemicals (hormones, toxins, substances).

Just like building up anxiety is a process, reducing anxiety is a process.

Beating Anxiety Takes Work

Everything takes work. Anything that requires ENERGY is work. including the conscious effort required to beat anxiety.

Fixing your problems takes work. That’s why most people don’t solve their problems. It takes work.

It’s much easier to distract yourself from the problem with booze, drugs, video games, facebook, or porn.

These things make anxiety worse because they waste precious time and energy.

If anxiety has a hold of you it’s your job to break free. Ultimately, no one else can save you from yourself. You must be your own Hero. If you have harmful thoughts you should see a licenses medical professional.

Realize that it’s your JOB to fix your anxiety.

One day it dawned on me that I am anxious for my own reasons. The pills my doctor prescribed were not helping one bit.  All they did was dull me.

I realized the pills were ‘bad’ when I took them before bed and I wouldn’t dream.

I always dream while sleeping. I have epic and vivid dreams very often.

Whenever I took the anti-anxiety pills before bed, I never dreamt. It was just blackness. Something was very unnerving about the darkness.

After experiencing this a few times, I quit the pills completely and flushed them down the toilet.

It was at that point I realized it was my job to fix it. Talking to the doctors, although they were well meaning, could never truly know my deepest thoughts and feelings without being me. So how could they unravel my knots without seeing all the string?

That’s when it clicked. I realized I am one of a kind and it was up to ME to fix MY problems.

That day I turned the tables in my favor.

How I Reduced My Anxiety Naturally

Reducing my anxiety happened over time. it was a daily battle and I slowly, but surely, gained ground.

The formula I used to conquer my anxiety was:

Fitness+ clean eating + learning + daily motivation + relaxation techniques + goal setting + hard work.

Which all boils down to Self improvement and Self control.

After reading this article you will have an arsenal of strategies and tactics to help you reduce anxiety naturally.

We’ll start with the ‘easy’ stuff.

Take Your Physical Fitness Seriously

A healthy body is a healthy mind. That’s a fact. People with healthy bodies are much more likely to be mentally healthy as well.

A workout routine works wonders for managing anxiety.

I workout every day first thing in the morning. This puts me in a great mood. I feel good, primed, and ready to attack the day.

Everything seems easier after lifting a few hundred pounds.

Working out burns off nervous energy, balances my hormones, and gets me out of my head and in touch with my body. It’s a meditative effect.

As an added bonus, daily workouts get you in great shape making you leaner, stronger, sexier, healthier, and more confident.

Your confidence will bloom into an impenetrable aura of positivity.

Physiologically, working out with weights gets me blood pumping. It fills every cell of my body with oxygen, and the sweat detoxes  my body, eliciting free radicals and flushing out inflammation.

Both of which are huge contributors to anxiety.

Anxiety Triggers: Inflammation and Oxidative Stress

Two major causes of anxiety are inflammation and oxidative stress.

Both inflammation and oxidative stress can be kept in check with healthy diet and daily exercise.

How to Reduce Inflammation

A poor diet leads to inflammation.

Inflammation is when a part of your body becomes swollen or painful.

Swollen ankles, painful joints, etc. are all examples of pain caused by inflammation.

What causes inflammation?

Inflammation is your body’s natural response to injury or infection. For example, you get a cut on your finger and skin around the cut becomes, red and swollen.

Eat processed and refined foods can also trigger inflammation.

Processed and refined foods contained artificial ingredients that your body sees as an invader.

Inflammation is essentially a stress response to an outside threat. Eat enough processed food and these artificial ingredients buildup in your system.

The accumulation of artificial ingredients and their toxic byproducts causes your body and brain to send stress signals, resulting in feelings of anxiety.

The result is a buildup of toxin within the body. These toxins slowly deteriorate your body tissue, causing more and more stress.

The body and mind are interconnected. What effects the body effects the mind and vise verse.

Bottom line: Eat like shit and you feel anxious. Eat clean and you feel less anxious.

Foods that Reduce Inflammation

The best foods to reduce inflammation are leafy greens, nuts (like almonds, cashews, and walnuts), and fish like salmon and sardines. Sardines in olive oil are the best.

Fish oil supplements can help reduce inflammation.

You must also stop eating foods that cause inflammation in the first place. Give your body a chance to clear out the fake ingredients.

How to Reduce Oxidative Stress

Oxidative stress is essentially a chemical/energy imbalance. Typically caused by the introduction of foreign chemicals into the body.

Eating processed foods, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and environmental toxins all cause oxidative stress.

In scientific terms, oxidization is electron loss. Electrons are particles that bond atoms together. Your body is made of atoms that form molecules, and molecules makes the chemicals and materials that are…well, You.

When you eat poorly, or don’t detox your body through fasting or sweating, you suffer from oxidative stress.

Oxygen atoms are typically found in pairs in nature. Due to food engineering, and chemical processing, there are single oxygen atoms flying around your body stealing electrons from otherwise healthy particles.

These ‘free radicals’ fly around your body like banshees and punch through healthy molecules, breaking them down and stealing their electrons.

Remember, these electrons are the glue that binds you together. So, losing electrons literally means YOU BEGIN TO DETERIORATE.

Oxidative stress literally steals your Energy. You as a living being are energy. The less energy you have, the closer death is and the quality of life degrades.

How to Reduce Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Three Steps

1. Eat wholesome foods
2. Avoid processed foods
3. Exercises, and sweat, every day

The Anti-Anxiety Diet

Reducing or eliminating carbohydrates from my diet helped me reduce my anxiety.

Specifically processed carbs in snacks and sweets. But I also reduced the amount of grains and starches I eat.

I found that whenever I eat bread, or pasta, or other carbs I have a hard time concentrating. My mind gets cloudy and my thoughts get jumbled.

For this reason, I do not eat any carbs during working hours.

I think this is due to the fact that we are chemical beings. The chemicals our bodies produce are influenced by what we put into our bodies.

Therefore, if you eat processed food, your body sees these artificial preservatives and artificial flavors as intruders. You will not be able to digest these ingredients properly and your body is going to become inflamed.

Your body thinks it’s under attack by foreign intruder, causing inflammation.

Eliminate all processed foods for a week and watch how much more mental clarity you have.

I have had much success eating a ketogenic diet to reduce anxiety.

Tips to Reduce Anxiety

There are other tips and tricks I use to reduce anxiety. Some are part of my daily routine.

These tips have help me, and help many others, reduce general anxiety.

Breathe Better

Breathing techniques can help reduce anxiety.

Learn how to breathe deep into your stomach and fill your lungs with each breath.

Part of the reason I love working out is that it causes you to breath deeply. It builds lung capacity and makes your body more efficient at using oxygen.

A hard workout leaves you gasping for air to meet the demand you’re placing on your body. When you have recovered, your lungs are conditioned to bring in a lot of air, keeping you focused and energized.

Without enough oxygen in your bloodstream your body goes into a mild panic, it’s like you’re suffocating.

So, yes, if you aren’t getting enough oxygen into your bloodstream, you are going to be anxious. It’s a natural panic response.

The combination of lack of exercise, being excessively fat, and having bad posture accumulate to make this condition worse overtime.

Heat Therapy

I love to sit in the sauna after a workout.

I crank up the heat in the sauna high very high to get a good sweat going.

As the heat rises, so does my heart rate. My mind panics a little. That little voice inside tells me to “get out now!”

The survival mechanism in your brain thinks you’re being cooked alive. You know better than that. You will be fine.

The trick is to clear your mind by focusing on your breathing. Breathe deeply and breathe slowly. Take it a step further and hold a stretch to improve your flexibility and release body tension simultaneously.

Focus on your breathing rhythm or focus on your heat beat.

You’ll notice your heartbeat begin to slow down.

Practice this often enough and when you are out in the real world and feel yourself getting anxious, you will be able to control your thoughts and stay in the moment.

This is a powerful technique I use successfully to bring myself back to center whenever I feel myself getting anxious.

Lack of oxygen in the blood stream is a huge cause of anxiety. Breathing deeply without interruption guarantees a steady flow of oxygen.

The second benefit of heat therapy is sweating. You will ‘burn’ off the toxic buildup in your system.

You’ll loosen tight muscles, clean your skin and be rejuvenated with a healthy glow after a great sauna session.

Cold Therapy

Cold therapy is similar to heat therapy. Except you use cold water instead of heat.

I take a cold shower every morning to wake me up and get focused.

The cold water shocks my system. It makes me breath deeply filling my lungs to the brim with oxygen.

You have to override your body’s panic response which tries to avoid to could. Hang in there and focus on breathing deeply.

The cold begins to disappear as you breath slowly and deliberately.

Brainwash Yourself with Motivation

Listen to motivational material every day.

I wake up and turn on a motivational audiobook or stream a motivational video or podcast and listen to it while I workout every morning.

If you don’t workout in the morning, listen to motivation while you get ready for work.

I listen to motivational tapes everyday to program my mind with positively.

After a few months of doing this you will begin to transform. You start to think, act, and speak in new ways that improve your life.

There’s no feelings of anxiety while a constant stream of positivity is flowing through you.

You will feel empowered by new ideas and new perspectives.

These new ideas and perspectives will spill over into your everyday life making your job, relationships, and day-to-day life better.

It’s magic. Try it.

Write Your Goals Every Day

Write down your goals every morning.

Your mind is a homing device that will achieve any goal you direct it to.

Writing your goals down first thing in the morning programs them into you psyche.

Your mind goes to work on achieving those goals while you go through your day. You’ll begin to recognize opportunities relevant to you achieving your goals that you may not have noticed before.

For added effect, write you goals down again before bed. This allows your subconscious mind to figure it out while you sleep.

Writing and re-writing your goals everyday keeps you focused on what you really want to achieve.

Having goals gives you a purpose. Having a purpose gives you energy and focus.

While you’re focusing on obtaining your goals, anxiety seems to fade away because you’re so focused on planning, problem solving, and making meaningful progress.

Work like a Damn Dog

Really pour it on each day. Give your all to everything you are doing.

If you give your best and accomplish everything you can, your anxiety gives way to fulfillment and a sense of pride.

Giving your all means you know you’ve done everything in your power that can be done. You left no room for anything else, so anxiety dies.

Do More!

That’s right. Do more.

People think they are stressed because they have too much to do. This is false.

They are stressed because they are wasting time on the wrong stuff. Accomplishing meaningful tasks banishes anxiety.

The more you do, the more you accomplish.

The more you accomplish the more valuable you are. The more valuable you are the more wealthy and confident you become.

The more you do, the more you can do.

You build yourself up and up and up. Eventually you choke out your anxiety.

You have no time to think about negative things because you are acting in the moment going from one thing to the next.

Responsibilities and commitments will channel your focus on important things.

One thing I’ve found is that the more productive I am, the less anxiety I experience. The more results I get the more confident I become. The more confident I become the more willing I am to take on larger projects.

It’s a self re-enforcing process that continually makes you stronger.

Commit to Something

Find something you want to be good at.

It doesn’t matter what it is as long as being good at it makes you feel good and you can help others be good at it.

Commit to your job, commit to getting in the best shape of your life, or commit to being the best parent you can be.

Whatever it is, commit to being the best you can be. You will become a better person.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a nanny or a business owner, doing you absolute best will open new doors and provide opportunities.

Commit to Excellence then Work Your Ass Off

Next tip is pretty straight forward:

Work your fucking ass off.

Work your ass of at your job no matter what is is. Work your ass off on your business. Spend every waking moment working at your job or building your business.

Do the best job that you possibly can. Take tons of action and follow through with your commitments.

Make a plan to achieve your goals and commit to reach those goals no matter what happens.

Have a dead-end job?

No job is dead end. Every job is a front end.

Work your ass off at a ‘dead end’ job and eventually you will level up.

Work hard and you will set yourself apart from others. Do you job so well and people will notice you.

Use your job as a tool to improve yourself. That’s the real Key.

I committed to kicking ass at my old ‘dead-end’ job and I tripled my income in the last three years.

Constantly seek out ideas to improve your job or your business. People will take note of your commitment. You’ll become one of the ‘good’ people, and good people are hard to find.

Keep at it long enough and if you’re not getting paid what you’re worth, you eventually will if you keep a good attitude and deliver.

Bottom line: always strive to do the best job you can possibly do.  Always ask yourself, what is one more thing I can do to make this email/project/business better?

Stop Blaming Others

Blaming others is the fast lane to failure.

You are responsible for everything that happens to you.

Everyday you make choices. Sometimes thousands of choices a day.

You choose what to eat, who to hang out with, how hard to work, what to focus on.

You choose how to think and how to act in every situation.

It may not be your fault for what other people do to you. But it is your responsibility how you to react to it.

Responsibility means ‘respond ability’, your ability to respond will determine your quality of life.

You have a choice how to respond to everything in life.

If someone tries to provoke you, will you get mad or will you laugh in their face?

If someone treats you like shit, it’s time to bounce. You will find better people to spend time with if you are earnestly working to improve yourself.

People put up with a lot of grief from people that they don’t have to deal with.

I used to live in a house that was very tense. There was a lot of arguing, fighting and negativity.

I finally reached a breaking point and realized that environment was not helping me become the person I wanted to be.

I decided enough is enough. I found a cheap apartment and moved out.

That was the best decision I ever made because it allowed me the environment I needed to develop myself into who I wanted to be.

Part of evolution is selecting the right environment. Once I had my own place, I began to flourish.

The distance gave me perspective and I realized it was up to me the whole time. I stayed in that environment by choice because I was too scared to leave. I was where I was because of who I was.

Once I stopped blaming others, I took control of the wheel and my whole world opened into something completely new and awesome.

Blamers get nowhere because they don’t take responsibility

People afflicted with anxiety blame their job. They blame the government. They blame the politicians. They blame their parents, the blame the ‘others’, they blame their illness. If they have a problem, they find something to blame.

But they don’t blame themselves.

This is how anxiety starts. You give your personal power away when you blame others.

When you grab life by the balls and take command of your thoughts and actions, things begin to change for the better.

Regardless of what happens, you can only control what you do. Blaming is unproductive. So find a way to make it better.

Complaining is just as bad as blaming

If you’re a complaining is the cousin of blaming. Don’t complain either. Complaining will derail you.

Don’t complain. Instead, recognize problems and frame them in the form of a question with the intent to solve the problem. Complaining is for losers.

There’s always another way. But if you complain and make excuses you won’t change anything. in fact it will only get worse because you’ll be a day older with the same problems.

Stop complaining and start taking action to get what you want and to become who you want to become. Be the change. If you set the tone, there’s nothing to be anxious about.

You’re playing offense at that point. You make the call, you know the play. Now execute.

Stay off of Social Media

It’s pollution.

People lose hours mindlessly scrolling their social feeds of choice.

Social media is the ultimate procrastination tool. It’s predicated to PULL YOU IN AND NOT LET GO.

It will consume you if you let it. It is best to avoid social media entirely unless it’s necessary for business purposes.

It seems we put this pressure on ourselves by allowing these things to take out precious minutes of our life.

Get a hold of it or it will get a hold of you. Make it work for you. Not the other way around.

On one hand, social media is brilliant way to network and stay in touch with friends and loved ones.

But it has a dark and dirty side because it is rampant with pettiness, drama and un-original thought. Mingle with the brainless masses and you will eventually lose your mind and any sense of individuality.

Practice Gratitude

I heard Tim Ferris say this on one of his podcasts.

I don’t recall the context but it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that life is beautiful and everyday is a gift.

One day you won’t be here. Be grateful for your family and friends. Say a little prayer before each meal. Even if it’s just a “Thank you.”

If you’re not religious, just take a moment to think about all the people that are part of you getting that meal and by grateful for their work and what nature has helped provide.

This trains your mind to see the good in things, to think good thoughts. and is a great ‘primer’ for the day. I do it to start each day. It gets me feeling good and in a great mindset to start working.

So, Let’s Recap on how to Kill Anxiety

Breathing exercises, Cold showers. READ every morning. Learn a new skill. Meditate. Practice self control. Your mind needs to be trained just like your muscles. as your mind drifts and doom is near, you need the mental strength to pull yourself back to present. especially in high-stakes situations.

Read, learn, build your skill set. Build your body. The more you learn about the world and the more you learn about your self the more powerful you become. Don’t spend time with pessimists or bad influences.

Realize that Some Anxiety is Normal and Productive

Some stress is good. It motivates you to get shit done.  Channel that adrenaline, cash in on your heightened awareness and burst of energy to accomplish something.

Practice Your Craft

Get good at whatever it is you do.

Being good at something builds confidence and confident people do not suffer from anxiety like most people.

I used to be an anxious person. I don’t know why exactly. But I was. Was really bad for a while. I had my good days and I had my days I dreaded going to work.

My anxiety was so bad I couldn’t focus in meetings. Sometimes I felt a rush over me and my body would get hot and I’d get red in the face for no reason.

I attribute it to not being on the right path.

Strive for Growth

I think that because now that I’m constantly striving to better myself, I do not get anxious anymore.

You will begin to focus on the good. you’ll being to find the opportunity in difficult situations.

You’ll begin to adopt an abundance mindset.

Mandatory Reading: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie

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