Anxiety can hijack your mind, disrupt your sleep, and make even simple tasks feel overwhelming. Whether you’re experiencing daily overwhelm, severe anxiety, or panic attacks, having effective strategies to manage anxiety is crucial. If you want to know how to deal with anxiety, this guide explores five powerful, research-proven techniques that can help you regain balance and find calm – both in moments of intense anxiety and over the long term.
Understanding your anxiety response
When anxiety strikes, your body activates its stress response system (fight or flight), flooding your system with hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
This leads to anxiety symptoms such as:
- Racing thoughts and persistent worry
- Rapid heartbeat or palpitations
- Shallow, quick breathing
- Muscle tension
- Sleep difficulties
- Digestive issues
- Restlessness
- Difficulty concentrating
While these experiences can be intense, they’re manageable with the right tools. Let’s explore five proven ways to deal with anxiety that can help you build coping skills that really work.
5 proven ways to deal with anxiety
Want to know how to deal with anxiety? The methods below are healthy ways to manage anxiety that are easy to do, work well, and can help you remain more balanced and at ease in the long run.
1. Meditation and mindfulness
Meditation is one of the most studied natural treatments for anxiety. There are a variety of different meditation styles that offer positive ways to deal with anxiety.
These include:
- Mindfulness meditation
- Loving-kindness meditation
- Body scan meditation
- Walking meditation
- Guided visualization
- Mantra meditation
- Present moment awareness and grounding exercises
- Tapping meditation (see #2 below!
Meditation techniques that incorporate elements of mindfulness and present moment awareness can be particularly helpful, because they help you ground into the present moment (and shift your focus away from anxious thoughts or sensations).
If you’re just starting out, you will likely benefit from doing guided meditations, where you’ll be guided through the process and don’t have to guess your way through it.
2. EFT Tapping: a science-backed approach for rapid anxiety relief
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Tapping is one of the most effective ways to deal with anxiety, offering both immediate relief and long-term benefits.
This mind-body approach combines ancient Chinese acupressure points with modern psychology to calm your nervous system and reduce anxiety quickly.
When your body is caught in a stress loop, logic alone won’t fix it. Tapping sends calming signals directly to your nervous system, breaking the fight-or-flight response and helping your mind and body return to balance. If your nervous system is dysregulated, your thoughts and emotions follow. Tapping helps you regulate both so you can feel better – and quickly!
The technique has been shown to:
- Send calming signals to your brain’s stress center
- Reduce cortisol (stress hormone) levels
- Help release physical tension and discomfort
- Interrupt anxious thought patterns
After 1.6 million plays of a “Releasing Anxiety” Tapping meditation in The Tapping Solution App, users report an average 41% reduction in anxiety – in just 9 minutes!
Go here to learn more and get started with Tapping for anxiety relief.
Or, try these short guided Tapping meditations for anxiety to experience the benefits yourself right now.
3. Breathwork: instant anxiety management through controlled breathing
Your breath directly influences your nervous system. When anxiety strikes, specific breathing techniques can help activate your body’s natural relaxation response.
There are a variety of different breathwork techniques that can help, like diaphragmatic breathing, box breathing, alternate nostril breathing, and more.
Here’s a simple one called “4-7-8 breathing” that you can try right now:
- Inhale slowly through your nose for 4 counts
- Hold for 7 counts
- Exhale slowly through your mouth for 8 counts
- Repeat 5-10 times
This method helps:
- Slow racing thoughts
- Reduce physical tension
- Lower heart rate
- Increase oxygen flow
- Restore mental clarity
You can even combine breathing techniques like this with Tapping (see item #2 right above this!) for even greater effect.
Try the “Tapping + 4-7-8 Breathing” session in The Tapping Solution App and see for yourself how effective these two techniques to deal with anxiety can truly be!
4. Physical movement: transform anxious energy into action
Exercise is one of the most well-researched natural treatments for anxiety.
Movement helps to:
- Release endorphins (natural mood boosters)
- Reduce muscle tension
- Improve sleep quality
- Increase stress resilience
- Channel nervous energy productively
Even 10 minutes of gentle movement can shift your mental state.
Here are some options to try – either when you’re feeling anxious or as a daily practice to help soothe anxiety in the long run:
- Walking
- Stretching
- Dancing
- Yoga
- Swimming
5. Professional support
For chronic or severe anxiety that interferes with your daily life, professional support can be transformative.
Consider:
- Working with a therapist (who may introduce you to CBT or other evidence-based strategies to cope with anxiety)
- Joining anxiety support groups
- Getting medication evaluation and support
- Combining treatment approaches
- Working with an EFT Tapping practitioner for targeted support
How to deal with anxiety: creating your personal anxiety management plan
Start by learning one new coping tool for anxiety at a time, and practice the skills and techniques regularly – before you need them. This way, when anxiety does strike, those tools and methods to deal with anxiety will be at your fingertips, and you’ll already be in the habit of the practice.
Experiment with different options, and find what works for you by tracking your symptoms and experiences as you go.
Often, the most effective approach to dealing with anxiety often combines multiple techniques. Start with one technique that resonates with you, master it, then gradually incorporate others as needed.
You may find that a daily Tapping practice helps you create more balance and ease overall, and that breathing is a good “rescue” technique to cope with more severe, anxious moments. Or you might find that you enjoy physical movement as a preventative measure, and that Tapping for meditation is helpful for you in the moment when anxious thoughts take over.
The key is being open to trying new things and being willing to experiment to find what works best and resonates most with you. And remember to be patient with yourself – managing anxiety is a skill that improves with practice!
Would you like to get started right now? Download The Tapping Solution App for guided anxiety relief sessions that can help you find calm in a matter of just minutes. Or, try our “Tapping Solution for Anxiety Relief” 6-module program today to dive all in on Tapping for anxiety.
Until next time… Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner
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