Lifestyle Changes For OCD

OCD is the short form for obsessive-compulsive disorder and it features a pattern consists of various unreasonable fears/obsessions and thoughts. In some cases, these unreasonable thoughts and fears result in doing repetitive behaviors or compulsions. Both compulsions and obsessions interfere with the individual’s daily activities and result in a huge level of distress.

The main problem, in this case, is that when you put efforts to stop or ignore the obsessions, you will experience an increase in your anxiety levels and distress. Finally, you feel as driven towards performing compulsive acts for trying to relieve the stress. Even though you put efforts to overcome bothersome urges or thoughts, they come back repeatedly, which results in ritualistic behavior. Doctors refer to it as the OCD’s vicious cycle.⁽¹⁾

Embrace And Accept Your Thoughts And Urges: When you take steps to control your intrusive thoughts or urges, they become further strong and make your anxiety prolong. Moreover, when you try to push your thought away or avoid thinking about it, your brain will get a signal that the respective thought is a real threat and you have to overcome it. Thus, rather than simply rejecting your urge or thought, you should accept it, while look for ways to embrace it.

Make Your Habit To Stay Healthy: You should make your habit to stay healthy and for this, you should include good nutrition and physical activities in your daily lifestyle. The best thing is that you will expect to get huge relief and that too for many hours if you opt for a brisk walk of 10-minutes. Thus, we recommend you to involve in any of the moderately intensive physical activities for about 150minutes weekly. This may be anything, like a brisk walk or cycling at a slow rate. Alternatively, you may involve in 75minutes of vigorous activity, like swimming laps or jogging laps and a combination of the two. Physical exercises help you to get a peaceful night’s sleep, which is very much essential to manage your stress and anxiety.

Other than exercises, you have to take care of your daily diet. Accordingly, you have to avoid candies, sweets and processed food items strictly. Simultaneously, you should stay hydrated for the entire day and avoid alcohol as well as caffeinated beverages. Certain food items and supplements may help you in reducing your anxiety levels and help you to stay calm, especially the foods rich in Tryptophan and Vitamin B. Also, you should go with food items, which contain complex protein and Omega-3 fatty acids to improve your mood and the concentration levels.

Schedule Your Time For Daily Exposure To Provoke Your Thoughts Deliberately: You should designate a specific amount of time i.e. few minutes daily to think about intrusive thoughts repeatedly on purpose, while do not involve in any avoidance or compulsion. You should do this for about 20minutes to 30minutes during the end of your day or when you find minimum possible distractions. A single and effective way to manage your intrusive thoughts better to involve in rigorous practice to achieve persistence.

Get A Strong Sense Of Humor: The contents present in intrusive thoughts are sometimes become too much catastrophic and silly outrageously that sometimes you only require to laugh. You should keep in mind that laughter is an excellent and fast mood booster, which releases beta-endorphins to create a euphoric feeling.

Involve In Activities To Make Your Mind Active: Lastly, you should involve in various activities, which force you to keep in your mind active, mindful or more present. Thus, you always stay grounded whenever intrusive thoughts come in your mind or become worse than before. Meditation and yoga are excellent ways for practicing mindfulness.⁽²⁾

Conclusion

To conclude, we should say that one can easily manage their OCD-related symptoms by following certain lifestyle changes and stay healthy for a lifetime.

References:

Also Read:

Lifestyle Changes For OCD