Exercises To Calm Your Anxious Thoughts
Come down a notch or two.
Many of us experience anxiety throughout our lifetime. There is a whole spectrum of anxiety from uncomfortable but tolerable to crippling and affecting our functioning. Wherever your experience sits on the spectrum at any given time, it is important to have a few tricks up your sleeve if you ever need to calm your anxious thoughts.
Firstly, we are all different and this is not prescriptive. So what works for one person, may not work for another. However we do know that there are evidence based approaches that target reducing our sympathetic nervous system responses, behavioural change strategies and thought interruption processes. All intended to calm the anxious or monkey mind. Here are a few of the key components to try:
Determine if this is healthy anxiety or unhealthy anxiety. Is it serving a helpful purpose or activating you to achieve something necessary right now? Or has it tipped the scales in the other direction and become intolerable, overwhelming, and difficult to let go of?
Your breath. Deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing is key. There are numerous breathing techniques, however one fast way to reduce anxiety is breathing in for 5, hold, out for 5. Do this 9 times. Do it mindfully paying attention to what you are doing. You will see a physiological response so that the higher level order thinking can kick back into gear once you are in a more relaxed state.
Your senses. Get to know them well - what works for you. Do you respond well to certain smells or colours or temperatures or textures of touch? These are somatic experiences you can use to help keep you grounded while you might like to explore or challenge an anxious thought or feeling.
Your environment. Review it and change it if you need to. Are your anxious thoughts being impacted by other people antagonising you or pressuring you?
Reduce stimuli temporarily. Close down the eyes, go inwards. Sit on the floor or lower your head to your knees. Go where it is quieter with minimal disturbances if you need to. This is also helpful for panic attacks.
Challenge the thoughts. Try something new, what have you got to lose.
Embrace and invite rather than reject, avoid or suppress. This might sound counter-intuitive but evidence shows that the more we fall into the trap of avoiding the thought, feeling, behaviour, place, person or thing that increases our anxiety, the more we get stuck in this cycle. The anxiety cycle is where we avoid the issue because it brings us temporary relief which feels nice, and our anxiety still sits there unaddressed and growing in the longer term.
Practice some self compassion. Show kindness towards yourself in these moments of anxious thoughts. Know that this is a widely shared experience as a human, you are not alone.
Check back in with your mind and body afterwards when you are feeling more calm. Ask it what worked well and what didn’t. Note this for the future. Maintain a constant position of inquiry and dialogue with your mind and body, so that when a part of you is feeling out of synch, then you have a roadmap of how to get back in synch with yourself.
