14 May 7 Tips For Reducing Anxiety -2 Will Surprise You
What Is Anxiety?
This word is tossed around a lot in popular media. It’s used to describe anything from a modicum of stress experienced sitting in a traffic jam to a full-blown panic attack. The former is a common stress response. The latter seizes our mental and physical body and reduces us to a bundle of nerves, sweat, and heart palpitations.
Simply put, anxiety is the body’s natural reaction to stress that can cause feelings of apprehension, nervousness, and fear. Such responses to certain events or circumstances are natural, particularly now given the current state of the world. And in some cases, fear can be quite motivating, but when these feelings intensify or become chronic, meaning they occur regularly or out of context, the resulting anxiety can be debilitating. At this point, you may seek professional guidance on how best to manage it.
How To Reduce Anxiety Safely & Naturally
Anxiety is part of the human experience. That doesn’t mean you have to grit your teeth and tough it out. There are plenty of ways to prevent anxiety from taking over your life and sense of reason. In this article, we’ll share evidence-based strategies you can use to manage moderate anxiety that are accessible and easy to integrate into your daily life.
One important note before we begin is don’t fight it. Resisting anxiety, or any difficult emotion, only intensifies it. Instead, try to identify its source and note the sensation it creates in your body, even though that may seem counterintuitive. Becoming acquainted with our stress response can support our understanding and management of it.
Meditate.
Forget what you think you know about meditation. You don’t have to completely immobilize your body or clear your mind, neither are possible anyway. Meditation is a journey––a practice that trains your mind, not an arrival point where life is easy and you never feel sad, angry, or stressed out.
Initially, meditation may actually induce feelings of anxiety. Why? Because meditation isn’t about escapism. It’s about creating space that allows for the presence of any feeling, as difficult as it may be. Meditation is also not a “hack” that quells difficult emotions. Instead, when practiced regularly, meditation helps you confront your anxiety and get to its source.
One of the most powerful insights that can emerge from a regular meditation practice is that anxiety is the result of unmanaged stress, and stress is an internal physiological response to an external event. That means, moderate anxiety is within your control, and how you think about it plays a big part. The goal is not to absolve anxiety completely, but rather to recognize that it too has a place within you, a message to deliver, and a lesson to teach. With time and attention, you’ll notice it become less intense and have less power over your life.
Breathe.
Sounds easy right? Just breathe, they say. But some breath can actually make you more anxious. You can use your breath strategically and therapeutically to relieve a super-charged nervous system that creates feelings of anxiety. How?
For starters––and this combines quite well with sitting meditation––just notice your breath. Every once in a while throughout the day, particularly at moments of transition, pause and notice the quality of your breathing. Become conscious of how it appears in different places in your body, such as your abdomen, your chest, or the edges of your nostrils.
Oftentimes, this conscious attention to breath can be the calming force you need. Other times, you may need focused breathwork, pranayama, in yogic terms. Check out this excellent video that guides us through three techniques in breathwork for anxiety:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9jmO6xwFfs
Exercise.
Ever notice how great you feel after a good workout? As hard as it is to get your butt moving sometimes, the benefits of physical exercise on mental health are well known. The problem, when it comes to anxiety, is that exercise can feel like one more thing you have to do. That’s why it’s so important to set realistic goals around time, activity, and regularity.
Make a plan that’s workable in your life and commit to it. Even if it’s a 15-minute kitchen dance session three times a week, or a brisk walk in the morning. Take advantage of any opportunity to move at those incidental times throughout the day: taking the stairs instead of the elevator, cycling to the store instead of driving, even a vigorous cleaning of the bathroom can be accomplished in the spirit of physical fitness!
Don’t Try So Hard.
Say what?! Surprise! This one is especially important. One of the most insightful books on personal growth and development and overcoming our self-limiting beliefs is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Using Toltec wisdom, this book guides you through four main themes, or agreements, on cutting yourself some slack by confronting some hard and necessary truths about yourself. How does that help anxiety?
Sometimes we find ourselves stuck in life, bound by self-doubt, insecurity, and indecision. All three states contribute to anxiety because at the core of each one is a sense of powerlessness over our lives. When we feel unable to manage our lives, stress rises from the depths of our experience and infiltrates our thoughts, actions, and relationships with everything, from our work to the people in our lives to the toaster oven that acts up every time we want to use it. And guess what unchecked stress causes? You guessed it––anxiety.
One of the key insights the author points out is to always do your best, but understand that your best––what you’re capable of managing––is going to change depending on circumstances, influences, and other uncontrollable events you will inevitably encounter. Keeping this in mind will help you avoid self-judgement and regret, both of which can lead you into powerlessness and anxiety.
Get Enough Sleep.
Duh, right? You’d love to get more sleep, but sleep doesn’t always bestow upon you its goods. Long busy days with a 12-foot to-do list and a cluttered mind doesn’t only worsen anxiety, it doesn’t improve your sleep either. According to Chinese medicine, sleep disturbances may occur because of a disruption in the flow of Qi.
Are those sleep hours before midnight really more restorative? Most sleep experts agree that’s a myth. While there are benefits to REM sleep, some research has suggested that non-REM sleep, which dominates the early stages of sleep, is deeper and more restorative (1). The takeaway is that an early night is always a good idea. More importantly, appropriately prepare yourself for sleep to avoid interruptions during the early stages that seem to count the most.
Perform A Probiotic Inventory On Your Diet.
This may come as a surprise too. Authors of The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection provide fascinating scientific info about the gut-brain axis, served up in digestible form. They suggest that gut dysbiosis caused by insufficient beneficial bacteria in our gut may cause anxiety, and likewise, anxiety can cause dysbiosis in a never-ending feedback cycle. Checking in with your gut health can be a first step to treating anxiety. Probiotics work quickly and are more effective when consumed regularly. Great sources are plain, organic yogurt, fermented foods, or a highly-quality supplement.
Get A Massage Regularly.
Our Western culture regards massage as an indulgence. Indeed, few things feel better than checking out in lux spa and getting a head-to-toe massage. It certainly feels like luxury! But massage is as necessary for mental health as strengthening, flexibility, endurance, and balance is for physical health. Why? Release. Massage releases lactic acid, helps cleanse tissues, stimulates the flow of lymphatic fluid, improves circulation, and can help work out energy blockages and trigger points. Consulting with a massage therapist who has in-depth knowledge of physiology, anatomy, and energy medicine can help manage and prevent stress by releasing it through calming the nervous system and keeping a healthy flow of Qi throughout the meridians.
To learn more about how massage can help reduce stress and anxiety, contact Marnie, an expert in energy medicine, Reiki, and various other bodywork modalities.
In the meantime, move every day, get to bed early as often as possible, and listen to your body––really listen.
References:
Other Resources:
Scott C Anderson; J F Cryan; Timothy G Dinan (2017). The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, And The New Science Of The Gut-brain Connection. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Partners.
Ruiz Miguel (1997). The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide To Personal Freedom. San Rafael, Calif.: Amber-Allen Pub.