Most people breathe shallowly. They hold in their stomachs and fail to engage their diaphragms when breathing. We all want to look slim but pushing that belly out with our breaths is the only way to fill up the lungs and utilize their full capacity. Analyze and check your breathing.

• Are you breathing quickly or slowly?
• Are you breathing deeply or shallowly?
• Do you feel your breath in the center of your chest around your heart or do you feel it down low in your abdomen?

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Anxiety has a way of crimping our style. Excessive worry makes us avoid certain activities, opportunities, or experiences that may good for us, fun or valuable towards career advancement. 

This is a problem that many panic attack and anxiety sufferers complain about; the ability to do new things, try new activities, and take on new challenges is severely curtailed by the oppressive feelings that at any moment could tighten their chest, make breathing difficulty and death seem imminent.

If you associate the new or unusual with the unpleasant sensations of a panic attack, chances are you will do everything in your power to avoid being exposed to these types of situations. 

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Here is the very good way to work on your abdominal breathing in the comfort of your own home:

• Lie down on your back and bend your knees while leaving your feet flat on the floor. You should make a little teepee with your knees.

• Put one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen.

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Is this my mom’s fault? Is this my fault? Why did this happen to me and not my brother? These are probably only some of the questions that are percolating through your mind as you struggle to understand and control your anxiety disorder. 

Understanding the causes of your anxiety disorder is important in assisting to resolve the problems you are facing. While relaxation techniques can be implemented with or without understanding the source of your anxiety, they will be more effective if you work to uncover the reasons for your anxiety.
 
Understanding why you are anxious and what triggers your anxiety or panic attacks will help you employ your relaxation tools more timely and effectively. A deeper understanding of your anxiety and panic attacks will also help to resolve them. 

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Jacob had always been a little shy, a little nervous, and a little reluctant to try new things. He approached life cautiously, he didn´t take too many risks, and he didn´t rock the boat. He had a good job, not a great job, he had a nice apartment, not a great one and he had some friends that he hung out with. 

Life was good and he generally thought of himself as pretty happy. He wasn´t king of the world but he had a nice, steady life. One of his friends set him up on a date with a girl he knew. She was the friend of a girlfriend. Jacob was looking forward to the date, but understandably a little nervous. He had looked her up on facebook and she was cute. 

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What causes panic attacks? Why do some people have them and some don´t?  Why do they happen at certain times and not others? These are just a few of the questions that race through the mind of anxiety sufferers.

There are so many questions pertaining to why, that you could spend your life obsessing over it. One of the reasons that you may be experiencing extreme problems with fear, stress and worry is that you fuel your body´s apprehension with a lot of negativity. 

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Generalized anxiety disorder is a long term generalized feeling of anxiousness that lasts for more than six months but doesn´t have panic attacks, phobias or obsessions attached to it. 

People, who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder or GAD, often find themselves burdened with a large number of worries and they spend a lot of their time worrying without being able to control it very well.

A specific characteristic of this disorder is that the intensity and frequency of the worry is out of proportion to the likelihood of the feared events happening. You will generally experience at least four of the following symptoms:

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Panic Disorder is a distinct but related condition to panic attacks. These attacks are isolated instances of 4 or more of the below listed symptoms. Your attacks cross over into a panic disorder if:

1) you have had two or more attacks and

2) at least one of these attacks has been followed by an extended period of concern, one month or more of having a repeat episode. The second requirement is crucial to a panic disorder diagnosis.

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What is anxiety anyway? Anxiety is not fear and you can distinguish between the two feelings by looking towards the source of your uneasiness. Fear is usually directed towards something concrete, the man in the dark alley following you, the shark lurking in the water or the 9:00 am meeting with your boss. The external object or situation is real and whatever you fear is within the realm of possibility.

Anxiety on the other hand, is an unspecified anxiousness. You can´t identify or explain what you are worried about. Rather than an external object, the source of your anxiousness is inside you.

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Anxiety disorders affect millions of Americans at one time in their lives. Some disorders are subtle, others are life altering and paralyzing. Luckily, as anxiety disorders have become more understood and accepted in our society, more study has been devoted to helping the millions of people suffering under this terrible burden.

Anxiety disorders are a treatable problem and there are a number of treatments that can help you manage your fears, panic attacks and general anxiety as you navigate through life.

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