Mental health experts agree: feeling and expressing gratitude helps anxiety. However, when you live with anxiety, it hardly seems possible that gratitude can lower or help anxiety. For one thing, it can be challenging to find things for which to feel grateful when you're living in the grips of anxiety. For another, how can being grateful for something help anxiety? Once you know what gratitude is and is not, you can use thankfulness to improve your mental health. Even better, you can get light-hearted (something refreshing when you have anxiety) and play a gratitude game to reduce anxiety.

Put your anxiety relief into your own hands with do-it-yourself (DIY) mindfulness tools. Make some objects to add to your growing toolbox of strategies to lower your anxiety. An anxiety toolbox refers to techniques you use to reduce anxiety, both in the immediate moment and long term. Some tools are actual objects, such as a jar of bubbles to foster slow, deep breathing. Other comfort objects reduce anxiety as well. Here are three mindfulness tools you can make for DIY anxiety relief.

Recognizing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) rituals can be an important journey of self-discovery. Obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers often have mental rituals that help lessen their worries and unwanted thoughts. When a sufferer performs an OCD ritual, it can temporarily help relieve anxiety. The rituals may seem illogical to those who don’t have the disorder. But to those who suffer from this often-devastating condition, recognizing OCD rituals and their triggers can sometimes lead to greater self-understanding and relief.

You can reduce holiday anxiety, a very real experience, by coping ahead of time. Contrary to what greeting cards and advertisements depict, the holidays aren’t always relaxed and happy-go-lucky. Lots of things conspire to make our anxiety spike, and linger, from before Thanksgiving all the way through the New Year. You don’t have to let holiday anxiety dampen your spirit. Check out 7 Causes of Holiday Anxiety if you missed it. Then, take some of the actions below to reduce holiday anxiety at its core cause.

I continually struggle with my anxiety concerning side effects from psychiatric medications. These side effects include insomnia, lack of appetite, increased appetite, chronic constipation, dizziness, tremor, lack of energy, and weight gain. I know I sound like the spiel they give on commercials for the side effects of psychiatric medications. But unfortunately, side effects can impact my anxiety in a variety of ways because I take medication for my chronic psychiatric conditions.

The day the calendar turns to November, and often well before that, many people begin to experience holiday anxiety. There are legitimate, and numerous, reasons for this. The seven causes of holiday anxiety discussed below are common. They can cause anxiety in people who don’t have anxiety disorders, and they can magnify existing anxiety disorders to such a degree that they cause people to question their sanity. Understanding the causes of holiday anxiety can reduce your anxiety and allow you to actually enjoy yourself this holiday season.

As life-disrupting and misery-creating as anxiety can be, it’s often difficult to know when you should see a doctor about anxiety symptoms. Learning when you need anxiety help will help you feel more confident and less anxious about your decision. Use the following information to help you decide if and when you should see a doctor for anxiety.

Performance anxiety may prevent me from living my dream of singing professionally. Since junior high school, choir teachers and audience members commented on my anxious stage presence. I loved to sing with other people in unison or harmony, but when it came to solos, I was a nervous wreck. I was the recipient of the “Every Which Way but Loose” award in high school choir because onstage, I simply couldn’t relax and enjoy performing. Performance anxiety was front and center at every concert, and it often stole my spotlight.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction, or MBSR, for anxiety is much more than just a long, official-sounding, somewhat intimidating name. MBSR is an accessible process that helps people of all ages, beliefs, and backgrounds turn stress and struggles like anxiety into positive change for their lives. Developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979, MBSR is a program that uses mindfulness to enhance wellbeing. In doing that, MBSR reduces stress and anxiety when they interfere in your life. Whether or not you participate in a formal program, you can use MBSR to rein in your anxiety and stress.

I receive a lot of negative comments and unsolicited advice as an anxiety sufferer. The average person who has experienced anxiety may think that he has some helpful comments and suggestions for you. Some anxiety management ideas may, in fact, be helpful. Other observations are simply unsupportive or condescending. For the most part, I’ve found that unsolicited comments and advice are not constructive or beneficial to me as an anxiety sufferer.