5 Skills to Quickly Ease Your Anxiety
Anxiety is a natural human response to stress. It's a way of preparing the body for danger, but sometimes it can be so intense that it feels like your whole world is coming down around you. Here are some ways to quickly ease your anxiety.
Anxiety skill 1: Practice deep breathing
When you're feeling anxious, practice taking long, slow breaths that go all the way down into your stomach. An easy way to do this is to pretend your stomach is a deflated balloon. As you breathe in through your nose, pretend you’re trying to fill the balloon up. And as you exhale through your mouth, pretend you’re trying to deflate that balloon as much as possible. It’s important that your exhale is longer than your inhale. A common technique is to inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4 and exhale for a count of 8. That long, slow exhale is actually going to send a message to your brain to “pump the brakes” and move away from the anxious part of the brain and into the safe and calming part of the brain.
Follow this link to a breathing bubble meditation on Youtube.
Anxiety skill 2: Try progressive muscle relaxation
This technique reduces stress and anxiety in your body by having you slowly tense and then relax each muscle. Starting from your feet, tense for 5 seconds as hard as you can and then release. Work your way up your entire body (calves, thighs, stomach, shoulders, face) doing the same thing - tensing for 5 and then releasing. By tensing and then releasing our muscles, we are transforming that familiar “anxious energy” that we hold in our bodies into a newfound sense of calm. This exercise can provide an immediate feeling of relaxation. The more you practice, the better you’ll become at noticing when you’re carrying tension in your body and when you need to spend some time un-tensing.
Follow this link to a great progressive muscle relaxation video on Youtube.
Anxiety skill 3: Practice the 5 senses technique
Often with anxiety, we are concerned about things that haven’t happened yet and might not even happen. This kind of anxiety can take us out of the present moment which can cause us to become forgetful, unavailable to our friends and family, or make careless mistakes. Also, it just feels awful. The 5 senses technique quickly gets us back into the present moment by engaging all of our 5 senses in the now. This exercise can be practiced anywhere. First, name 5 things you can feel. Do this by touching some objects that are near you. Describe to yourself what they feel like. Then, name 4 things you can see. Next, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. By the end of this exercise, you may notice feeling calmer and more resourced to move through the rest of your day maintaining a more grounded state of mind.
Anxiety skill 4: Practice Intentional worry
I know this one sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a great one. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with a million things to do or a million worries on your mind, unsure where to start and wanting to give up, try this instead. Take a few minutes to list every single worry that is on your mind. Take as long as you need here. Then, go through that list and circle any actionable items - items on the list that can be addressed by taking an action to resolve it. After you’ve circled these items, schedule times in you calendar to address each item. The remaining items on the list are typically worries or concerns that not much can be done about. Challenge yourself to find a way to accept these items for what they are and any limitations they present. This exercise will quickly free up some mental space in your mind, leaving more room for enjoyable activities or more productivity.
Anxiety skill 5: Talk to someone about your anxiety
Review your support system. Do you have a friend or family member you can count on to hear you out and offer an empathetic response? The act of not only sharing your feeling, but then having that feeling understood and accurately reflected back to you in an empathetic manner can actually be a game-changer. As humans we are social creatures - something about this process of being understood by another can sometimes transform the feeling completely. If you’re finding yourself feeling overwhelmed or unsure of who you can talk to, reach out to a mental health therapist. When I’m working with a client who struggles with anxiety, I often help them to identify the root cause(s) of the anxiety and then give them some skills to understand the anxiety and how to manage it.
There are many many ways to manage anxiety. These are just a few of my favorite tips and tricks. If you’re struggling with anxiety at the moment, feel free to try out these exercises and don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you’d like to talk about it. Just click here to request an appointment or schedule a free 15 min phone consultation!
