By Dr. Mercola

When you're feeling anxious, do you ever tell yourself to calm down and relax? It seems as though this would be a useful strategy, but if you've tried you probably know that it's not that effective.

When you're faced with an anxiety-inducing situation, say giving a public speech, your heart is likely pounding and levels of the stress-hormone cortisol rise. In short, you're in a hyped-up state of arousal, and simply telling yourself to relax may be too big of a leap for your body and mind to make.

A more effective option, according to Harvard Business School Professor Alison Wood Brooks, involves the opposite strategy: telling yourself you're excited.

Excitement isn't too far off from anxiety. The difference is excitement is generally a positive emotion while anxiety is negative. But in terms of the physical changes in your body, excitement and anxiety are difficult to distinguish.

And so, when you're anxious, it's not a stretch for your body to channel those negative feelings into positive ones of excitement instead. This isn't just hearsay, either.

Brooks conducted a series of experiments in 2014 to evaluate reappraising anxiety as excitement. She wrote in the Journal of Experimental Psychology:1

Brooks experiments challenged people to engage in three anxiety-inducing scenarios: giving a public speech, solving a difficult math problem and singing karaoke. The participants were able to change the outcomes of their performance just by altering their self-talk or mindset. Results were as follows:2

✓ Public Speech

Participants prepared a persuasive public speech and were told it would be recorded and judged by a committee. Before giving the speech, the participants said either "I am excited" or "I am calm."

Those who said they were excited gave longer speeches and were more persuasive, competent and relaxed.

✓ Math Problem

Participants read either "try to get excited" or "try to remain calm" then were given math problems to solve. Those in the excited group scored 8 percent higher on average than the calm group or a control group that read neither statement.

Similarly, in 2010 a study found that reappraising feelings of anxiety into a positive (the participants were told it would improve performance) improved their scores on the math section of the GRE standardized test.3

✓ Karaoke

Participants said they were anxious, calm, angry or sad before singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" in front of the group. The American Psychological Association reported:4

Brooks noted that when you're anxious it causes you to ruminate and focus on negativity, including potential threats.

By refocusing your mind on a positive outcome by saying you're excited, it leads to real benefits. "Even if they don't believe it at first, saying 'I'm excited' out loud increases authentic feelings of excitement," she said.5

The featured experiments show how powerful your mind can be in relieving anxious feelings.

If you struggle with anxiety, you may want to look into energy psychology techniques such as theEmotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which involves stimulating different energy meridian points in your body by tapping them with your fingertips while simultaneously using custom-made verbal affirmations.

EFT significantly increases positive emotions, such as hope and enjoyment, and decreases negative emotional states, including anxiety.

It is particularly powerful for treating stress and anxiety because it specifically targets your amygdala and hippocampus, which are the parts of your brain that help you decide whether or not something is a threat.9 EFT has also been shown to lower cortisol levels, which are elevated when you're stressed or anxious.10

In the following video, EFT therapist Julie Schiffman discusses EFT forpanic attacks and anxiety relief. Please keep in mind that while anyone can learn to do EFT at home, self-treatment for serious issues like persistent anxiety is not recommended.

For serious or complex issues you need someone to guide you through the process, as it typically takes years of training to develop the skill to tap on and relieve deep-seated issues like anxiety. That said, the more you tap, the more skilled you'll become.

It's estimated that only one-third of people with anxietydisorders receive treatment11 but many who do resort to drugs. Prescriptions for benzodiazepine anxiety drugs including Valium, Ativan and Xanax tripled from 1996 to 2013.

The rate of overdose deaths increased more than 500 percent during the same time period.12 However, "treatment" does not have to equal "drugs." You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by applying lifestyle modifications before trying medication. You may be surprised by how much such changes lessen anxiety naturally. If you often feel anxious or have panic attacks I strongly recommend the following:

✓ Exercise

In addition to the creation of new neurons, including those that release the calming neurotransmitter GABA, exercise boosts levels of potent brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which may help buffer some of the effects of stress. Many avid exercisers also feel a sense of euphoria after a workout, sometimes known as the "runner's high."

It can be quite addictive, in a good way, once you experience just how good it feels to get your heart rate up and your body moving.

✓ Optimizing Your Gut Flora

Your gut and brain work in tandem, each influencing the other. This is why your intestinal health can have such a profound influence on your mental health and vice versa. It's also the reason why your diet is so closely linked to your mental health.

Prior research has shown that the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus had a marked effect on GABA levels in certain brain regions and lowered the stress-induced hormone corticosterone, resulting in reduced anxiety- anddepression-related behavior.13 The probiotic known as Bifidobacterium longum NCC3001 has also been shown to normalize anxiety-like behavior in mice with infectious colitis.14

So optimizing your gut flora with beneficial bacteria is a highly useful strategy. This is done by eliminating sugars and processed foods and eating plenty of non-starchy vegetables, avoiding processed vegetable oils, and using healthy fats. Additionally, eating plenty of fermentedvegetables or taking a high-potency probiotic would be useful to reestablish healthy gut flora.

✓ Omega-3 Fats

Your diet should include a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fats, like anchovies, sardines, wild-caught Alaskan salmon orkrill oil. The omega-3 fats EPA and DHA play an important role in youremotionalwell-being, and research has shown a dramatic 20 percent reduction in anxiety among medical students taking omega-3s.15