Lower Your Anxiety & Access Daily Peace In 7 Easy Steps
Do you live a high-stress lifestyle and feel like your anxiety is kicking you in the butt? This is common. In fact, most of us are living in a constant state of stress due to the increased demands of balancing work, family, relationships, self-care, finding your purpose, the trials and tribulations that life throws at us. Not to mention; the chaos that is social media and technology, over-stimulating us on a minute-to-minute basis.
The good news is, there are proven ways to reduce stress and anxiety and live more peacefully throughout your day. Through personal experience, I’ve curated 7 simple hacks that you can follow to start regaining some control over the anxiety in your life.
For years, I’ve dealt with high anxiety and for a long time I didn’t know what it was. I was nervous to talk to anyone, or ask for any help, out of fear of being considered abnormal or crazy.
Moreover, You are not crazy. Everyone experiences these feelings, and they are a normal part of being human and living in this world. So don’t stress (pun intended).
It got to the point where it was increasingly hard for me to get through each day without feeling intense panic, worry, racing thoughts and constant stress over nothing in particular. I was battling with my thoughts constantly and it was exhausting… Slowly, as I practiced self-awareness, confided in friends and family, sought out counseling and went through my own trial and error research. I was able to reduce my anxiety over time. Here are 7 lessons that I’ve learned throughout my battle with anxiety.
1.Realize
When you start to feel anxious, stop and try to pay attention to your body. What physical sensations are you feeling, and where in the body are you feeling them? What thoughts are going through your mind? The act of realizing your feelings will help you move through them. If you tell yourself to suppress how you’re feeling, you’re literally telling your body that there is a threat present and it will continue to feel panicked, in a state of fight or flight.
Once you realize and become self-aware of your anxious feelings and begin to move through them, you can start to implement practices and habits that will help calm your body.
A few practices that helped me through my own anxiety:
- Tense Jaw? – Massage and relax it
- Meditating – closed eyes, deep & slow breaths, in & out for a few minutes, while thinking of the calm state I want to reach – It works wonders!
- Staying hydrated – adding a dash of Himalayan salt to a glass of water to balance my electrolytes – helps my mood
- Sun exposure for at least 20 minutes – 1 hour/day
- Stretching out the whole body – yoga!
- Listen to calming sounds; instrumental music or nature sounds
2. Just Breathe
What a laugh right?! Breathing?! But we do that all the time!
Funny enough, we forget how to breath all the time. Unfortunately, the act of conscious breath work was never taught to us as we grew up, but it is so important for our overall health. Breathing exercises can help bring chronic stress relief, clearer thinking and help regulate anxiety! Anxiety can make you experience shortness of breath. When this occurs, I take a 2-5 minute check-in.
First, I make sure to focus on something around me or close my eyes, and start taking deeper breaths. I inhale and hold my breath for a few seconds before letting it out. Continuing this for about a minute or so, increasing the oxygen flow through my body and so my brain starts to relax.
3. Envision Happiness
Envisioning Happiness is simple, it just takes some practice.
Once, I become aware of my anxious feelings and take a few moments to breathe deeply, the next step in the process involves what I call envisioning. I envision and focus on at least one good thing that I will be doing that day/week/month. And if I do not have some thing lined up yet, I will create some thing to look forward to on the spot. It can be as simple as a hot bath, a home cooked meal, an evening walk with a friend or loved one, reading a book or working on a blog.
Next, I try to focus on reminding myself that my high-stress situation/anxiety will not be forever and it will pass. By practicing this, I feel as if I am essentially telling my animal mind that I am safe, there is no danger, and I can relax. Our anxieties, fears, and stresses are usually bigger and worse in our minds than in our realities. And if our realities are truly stressful outside of our minds, then maybe this is a sign that it is our environments and habits that we must seek to change as well.
As an example,
a great mentor of mine, Tami Leigh, taught me that people stay in their current jobs at least two more years past the time they are no longer enjoying their work or environment. People endure two more years of misery on average before they leave that environment.
This is something unkind that most of us do to ourselves…pausing our happiness for years, which can then lead us to developing unhealthy habits and growing frustrations. Because of these habits, it then takes us double the time or more, to regain that lost happiness. This scenario very likely repeats in many different areas of our lives, not only our work-life.
Let’s not just ENDURE life anymore, let’s LIVE and LOVE life to the FULLEST. Let’s find better ways to live. Let’s create healthy habits and confront our issues. And find different ways to live that serve us better.
4. Fix your Posture
Additionally, what I have found is that posture is everything and if I am slouching or in pain of some sort, this adds to my anxiety. Posture can affect and impact my body in ways such as:
- insomnia, (buy yourself a good mattress)
- mood & temperament swings, (does this happen to you often?)
- loss of energy, (making sure you get your steps in so fatigue doesn’t set in!)
- loss of self-esteem,
- increased joint pain, (stretch regularly & use the right creams)
- digestive pain, (find what works for your digestive track)
- varying stress levels (make sure your are getting all the right supplements), and more!
I highly recommend that you do you’re own research on the benefits of good posture. Fix your posture!
A good chair can go a long way, for both work and home-based needs. Switching between standing and sitting throughout my day also induces some natural healing; to my lower back especially. I get up and stretch every 40 minutes or so; keeping a yoga mat near-by in case I need a back stretch. Also going for walks in my lunch hour, or finding nice spots in the park to stretch on my yoga mat make the world a difference.
When I sit in my chair, I relax my shoulders and place them back. I then level my head; and adjust my eyes straight forward rather than down or up. Find examples of correct sitting postures online or ask your doctor/specialist to give you the information that suits your body type and condition.
5. Exercise To Lower your Anxiety
What exercises do you practice for your anxiety and mental health?
Do you have a routine?
Exercise is one of the most underutilized antidepressants. Even just getting outside for a walk in the fresh air can boost your mood significantly. If you’re like me, this doesn’t necessarily mean going to the gym and walking on the treadmill for days or aimlessly lifting weights, because that’s not my thing. I love working out in motivating group settings, like barre, yoga, or dance classes where the energy is uplifting. I also love hiking and being among nature, feeling the fresh air and the sunlight on me, while getting my blood flowing.
Find what works best for you and makes you feel the best. Don’t force yourself to do activities that you don’t enjoy because that just leads to more anxiety and stress.
6. Caffeine & Sugar
If you’re prone to anxiety, sugar and caffeine can make your symptoms worse (look into some alternatives!). In my own experience, I can barely have half a cup of coffee(check out chicory alternatives to coffee) without getting the jitters and experiencing a crash later. I’ve also battled an addiction with sugar since I was a kid, and I find that when I cut it out completely my moods and feelings are much more stable.
Unfortunately for myself, this also means cutting out some fruits and other carbs, but everyone is different. For most people though, over-consuming sugar and caffeine can wreak havoc on the digestive system over time.
“…evidence from small studies of humans and decades of animal model research have begun to show a link between the gut microbiome and mental health” – Ashley Yeager, The Scientist.
These studies are concluding that the gut is partially responsible for regulating our mood since many of the feel-good chemicals in our bodies (dopamine and serotonin) are produced in our digestive tract. Substances such as sugar, caffeine, alcohol and other chemicals can disrupt the balance of our gut microbiome and lead to depression and anxiety.
7. Proper Hydration
Lastly, what I have also found is that drinking a nice cold glass of water, slowly and with pauses and breaths in between, truly helps clear the head and refresh the body. You might be experiencing migraines because of dehydration. So grab a glass of water, drink it slowly.
Enjoy. Refresh. Reflect. Lower your Anxiety.
Without a doubt in my mind now, another action that causes migraines is that of jaw clenching. My own massage therapist alerted me to this and so I began developing a habit of recognizing when I was clenching and unclenching my jaw; I would catch myself doing so, and I actually (gleefully!) began avoiding the clenching! I’ve mastered avoiding most of my migraines now!
So, if you are a jaw clencher, try to remind yourself to unclench or even train yourself for when you are sleeping, by wearing a mouth guard when you sleep!
Listening to your body and what it needs to feel safe and calm is so important and we forget that we need this. Make sure you have a safe space, a place where you can go to relax. Make sure you have habits that help you calm down and feel grounded. Know your limits and stay within them. If you need time to yourself, don’t forget to take that time for yourself. If you need more time around people because being around people makes you feel good, make sure to get out of your house and strive to see others!
Essentially, listen to your needs, your body is constantly telling you what your need and most of us choose to not listen. So start listening, this will bring more healthy habits into your life and therefore, bring your anxiety and stress levels down. You will be in control of your mental health more than you have ever been once you listen to your body and give it what it needs!
Invest in the greatest thing. Invest in yourself. Achieve a healthier lifestyle; which in turn will bring you a strong, healthy mind and body, so that you can design and live your best life, anxiety and stress-free, as your best self.
