7 Inventive Ways to Manage Anxiety by Chris Gilbert, MD, PhD

Most people will experience a few bouts of anxiety in their lifetime. The question is how do you deal with those. A lot of people take anti-anxiety medications and even anti-depressants to suppress anxiety but is there a way to turn anxiety into something inventive and beautiful?

Yes, there is.

Here are 7 healthy, positive ways to express anxiety:

- Write out your anxiety: Get a paper and a pen and write the details of how you feel, why you feel it and what an imaginary solution would be to decrease your anxiety.

- Sing out your anxiety: Sing out loud any song you are drawn to. You can also create scores and lyrics that exactly match what you feel. Even if you don’t know music, what you will create can be quite beautiful. Use your voice or any musical instrument you are drawn to.

- Dance out your anxiety: Chose a rhythm you are drawn to and, in the privacy of your home, dance your anxiety out.

- Go for a walk in a park, go to the gym or go for a swim and express your anxiety through physical exercise.

- Some people might like to, instead of doing physical exercise, sit still in a beautiful setting and meditate.

- Draw your anxiety: Take some paper and colorful crayons and draw whatever comes to mind. Some of those paintings can be quite gorgeous. Take the example of Vincent Van Gogh and his friend Paul Gauguin, some of their famous paintings reflect the intense anxiety and depression they were feeling.

- Verbalize your anxiety using a gestalt technique of putting a chair across from the chair you are sitting upon. Imagine that a person you trust is sitting on that chair and tell that person everything that you are bottling up inside.

Neuroscientist Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA showed that when we put negative feelings into words, activity of our amygdala (the part of your brain associated emotion response and decision-making) decreases, possibly promoting better mental and physical health.

What’s more, the Harvard School of Public Health has evidence that shows that people who openly express their feelings are healthier than those who habitually suppress strong emotions.

Use those techniques as needed for a healthy, happier life.

To know more about those techniques, read my book “The Listening Cure” or listen to the audiobook (one chapter per night at bedtime).

Chris Gilbert, MD, PhD (www.DrChrisGilbert.com) is a full time author and public speaker. Her books include “The Listening Cure” (SelectBooks 2017) available in paperback, ebook and audiobook formats, “The French Stethoscope” a memoir (Iuniverse 2010) and "Dr. Chris’ A, B, C’s of Health" (Iuniverse 2010). She is also a writer for PsychologyToday.
Dr. Chris was in private medical practice in Torrance, California (Integrative Medicine using a combination of Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Gestalt Therapy, Bio-identical Hormones, Supplements, Herbs as much as conventional Medicine). She did a surgical residency at Harbor UCLA and a medical internship at UC Irvine. Previously she worked for Doctors Without Borders in Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Mauritania and China (taking care of refugees). She has a MD, PhD from the university of Cochin Port-Royal in Paris where she was born.