Feeling Anxious? Reduce Your Anxiety With These 4 Tips
Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash
Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Anxiety can hit randomly and when it hits, it hits hard. Increased heart rate, sweaty hands, and armpits, uncontrollable shaking, nausea, you name it.
Regardless of when, or how it happens, it’s never a good time. BUT you know what’s worse than being anxious? Being anxious about being anxious.
The good news is, if you’re reading this, I have some tips that can relieve your anxiety symptoms.
When I began therapy at the beginning of my college career, my therapist and I came up with a list of techniques I could use at any time, no matter where I am.
Here are the 4 that are most effective in my everyday life.
1. Deep Breathing
When I feel anxious, breathing normally can be a huge struggle.
If you’re ever having difficulty breathing due to anxiety, there are breathing techniques you can do, to alleviate those symptoms almost immediately.
One that has been most effective is called belly breathing. This simply means breathing from your diaphragm. This is how I do it:
For my personal comfort, I lie down on my bed but I also sit when lying down isn't an option. Make sure that your muscles and limbs are relaxed and your knees are slightly bent.
Place one hand on your chest over your heart and one hand on your stomach above the belly button. This is to help you focus on the rise of your stomach and the stillness of your chest.
Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Doing this as needed throughout the day will allow you to isolate your breathing and bring air deeper into your lungs.
This deep breathing also brings more oxygen to the brain which stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. This puts you more at ease and calms your nerves.
2. Ground Yourself
Grounding myself has been the key to my internal peace.
Grounding techniques are designed to help a person cope with strong emotions or stressful situations. Its purpose is to pull your attention away from the stressor and focus more so on the present moment.
Anyone can use these techniques to calm them during distressful feelings and/or situations.
The grounding exercise I use is known as the 5–4–3–2–1 exercise. Personally, I close my eyes for this exercise (but if ever driving, please keep your eyes open!). To do this, ask yourself these questions:
What are 5 things you can see? (sky, road, birds, grass, etc.)
What are 4 things you can feel? (clothes on your skin, wind on your face, etc.)
What are 3 things you can hear? (lawnmower, fan, car horns, etc.)
What are 2 things you can smell? (fast food, coffee, pastries, etc.)
What is 1 thing you can taste? (drink, gum, toothpaste, etc.)
This exercise allows me to absorb my surroundings and actively engage all my senses. This helps too regain control of my mind instead of feeling trapped in those anxious feelings.
3. Get Active
When you move your body, you release a feel-good chemical known as endorphins. These endorphins help fight off stress and other anxiety symptoms.
Getting active has numerous direct stress-busting benefits. These benefits include:
Reducing negative effects of anxiety.
Improving your mood
Providing an outlet
Giving a mental break from everyday stressors and challenges
Exercise, in any form, can act as a stress reliever. Getting active can involve any form of movement you enjoy.
Roller skating and yoga are my go-to activities but you can do just about anything. Some good examples include:
Taking a walk
Stretching
Dancing/Zumba classes
Gym routine(s)
Boxing
Regardless of what you choose, being active helps with anxiety and high-stress symptoms.
4. Journaling
Journaling is a technique I highly recommend. Journaling alone can reduce anxiety, lessen feelings of distress, and improve health and well-being.
You can journal on an as-needed basis while using any method of journaling.
Journaling can be an impactful stress-management tool for examining emotions and shifting thoughts from anxious and ruminative to empowered and action-oriented.
The whole goal of journaling is to challenge those anxious thoughts and emotions. Once you’ve challenged them, you’ll be able to come up with ways to address them.
I start by writing what worries (WWW) me. This is 10–15 minutes of free writing whatever comes to mind.
A great thing about journaling is you’re free to say whatever you like without concern from others.
After I’ve completed WWW, I reread, reflect, and reset (RRR). This involves me going back over what I wrote, confronting and understanding the problem, coming up with options/resolutions, and changing my mindset.
I do this by asking myself 2 important questions:
1) Is there something I can do to change my circumstances?
2) Can things be different/get better?
Journaling can be a powerful outlet and tool for anxiety, stress, and any strong emotion or emotional situation.
A Word From Dani
These tips have improved my anxiety tremendously. These tips can provide you with good tools to help you through different scenarios and situations.
However, some issues require more help than articles can give.
With that being said, it is important to seek help when needed from a doctor, or counselor. If you’re unsure of where to find someone, search online to see what’s in your local area.
