Tips for Easing Anxiety

When you’re dealing with fibromyalgia, it comes with the territory that you also experience anxiety.

Sometimes your anxiety existed before your fibro diagnosis, but in many cases the pain and stress of managing your fibro causes you to develop it.

A vicious cycle occurs: your fear of relapsing causes anxiety, which then exacerbates symptoms into a relapse, which then leads to more fear of relapse. It’s important to end the cycle and ease your anxiety before it causes your symptoms to worsen.

There are many ways anxiety can rear its head: generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are all common anxiety disorders, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

When you have a chronic illness it’s important to ease your stress, but when in conjunction with an anxiety disorder, it takes on a whole other level of importance.