How To Control Your Nerves

The first step to controlling nerves and anxiety is to understand how the body works. When faced with a threatening stimulus, it is activated. That is to say, in a situation that may pose a danger, the body’s survival mode is put into operation and that triggers the sensations that we feel that we often call “being nervous.” Specifically, it activates the sympathetic autonomic nervous system responsible for preparing our body to flee or fight, causing the anxiety symptoms that we will explain below.

It is important to know the symptoms of anxiety and not confuse them with any pathology. People who feel anxiety and do not know what it is, become scared, generating what we call “fear of fear.” Therefore, in order not to continue increasing anxiety symptoms, it is important to know and detect them. What symptoms does anxiety have?

• Tachycardia. The heart pumps faster so that blood reaches the muscles and they obtain oxygen and other substances that allow them to be optimal when running, fighting or climbing to hide.
• Cold, pale and dry mouth. Blood moves to the muscles and areas necessary for survival and is removed from the most external areas so that, in the event of a superficial wound, the least amount of blood possible is lost.
• sweaty hands. The blood moves to the hands, as these need skill to fight or escape.
• Muscle tension. The muscles prepare for action.
• Hyperventilation, tingling and dizziness. The respiratory rate accelerates to obtain more oxygen, which is the body’s energy.
• Pupil dilation and contraction. The pupils dilate to better perceive any visual information.
• Piloerection. Goosebumps and chills are due to this mechanism.
• Contraction and relaxation of the sphincters. The sphincters may relax to expel urine or stool to be lighter when escaping. They may also contract, since during the fight it is not time to urinate or defecate.

Other symptoms may occur. The important thing is to know that the body reacts this way because it wants to protect us. It’s not dangerous

The body activates in this way because you are perceiving danger. This can be real or imaginary. It is also important to know that the body reacts the same to an event when it happens in reality or when it happens in our mind. So anxiety can be caused by thoughts that you are not even aware of. Therefore, many people wonder why they have anxiety for no reason.

We can talk, and we will do so below, in many ways to manage anxiety. But, The really important thing is to get to the source of the problem This requires a lot of self-knowledge, self-observation and introspection. You may start to ask yourself:

• Where is the danger?
• What do you fear.
• What’s the worst that could happen?
• What does this situation remind you of?

And so on until you find what worries you so much and why. You may be afraid of not being liked by others and being alone, of losing your job or of the death of a family member. Beneath any intense reaction, there is an irrational fear linked to some learning derived from some past event. Surely, you are not aware of it, but Through self-knowledge you will be able to understand why you react the way you do depending on what situations and you will be able to rework the learning derived from that situation.

Finding those experiences and reorganizing those beliefs takes time, but in the meantime you can apply different strategies and exercises to manage anxiety and nerves.

The most effective and most widespread technique to regulate anxiety is breathing. When we breathe with the diaphragm, slowly and deeply, we are activating the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system, which produces an opposite reaction to anxiety. Therefore, to control the nerves, it is very useful to perform diaphragmatic breathing exercises.

1. Place one hand on your abdomen and the other on your chest.
2. Inhale and swell your belly slowly with a long inhalation.
3. Wait a couple of seconds.
4. Expire slowly expelling all the air from the abdomen. Exhale through your mouth making a slight sound.

To calm the nerves and relax the body, it is very useful to relax the muscles. Start with the feet and mentally review all the parts: if they are tense, loosen them. The legs, buttocks, abdomen, back, shoulders, cervical… It has been proven that body posture and psychological state feed off each other. That means your body posture influences your mind. Relax your muscles to relax your mind, it is one of the best exercises to combat anxiety.

As we said, the state of the body transmits information to the mind. There is a very simple detail that we can do to help calm anxiety quickly: place our relaxed hands on our legs and with the palm facing the ceiling. When we are under tension, our fists are closed and our hands are rigid. Placing them face up is sending the brain the message that there is no danger, that we are safe. Put this little trick into practice to calm your nerves.

To calm nerves and anxiety quickly, one of the simplest and most effective exercises is to focus on a task that involves the senses, such as observing and describing reality. Ask yourself:

• Do you see
• What do you hear
• What do you notice with touch?
• What do you taste?
• what do you smell

Look closely and write it down. Explain it in great detail. This is an easy technique to control nervousness.

Another trick to relax your mind and control your nerves before an exam or exhibition is to keep your mind busy. You can use anything that involves reasoning: from doing sudoku if you are at home, to counting windows if you are on the street. You can also look for numbers and add them, count the steps you take, or name things that are blue. Any of these strategies will help you distract your mind and calm your nerves.

However, as we have already explained previously, these tricks to calm nerves and anxiety are just band-aids. That is, they are momentary solutions to relax at the moment. The relevant thing is to dive into oneself and find the causes and work on solutions.

Whatever you are doing, if you do it quickly, you activate the body even more. Doing things quickly conveys hurry and urgency, so you can keep your nerves. Shower slowly, eat slowly, walk slowly…Going slow will help calm your nervousness.

Another strategy to control and calm anxiety is to exercise. It is not so important which exercise, what is relevant is consistency. We all know that the benefits of sport are many and very important, but why does physical exercise relax you? Physical exercise:

• It releases endorphins, which provide a general feeling of well-being.
• Reduces levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.
• It increases the production of serotonin and dopamine, whose effects are contrary to anxiety.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to control your nerves we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.