7 Quick Ways to Calm Anxiety
Are you stepping outside your comfort zone somewhere in your life?
If so, you’re guaranteed to have anxious feelings - if it didn’t make you anxious, it wouldn’t be out of your comfort zone!
Anxiety can be especially challenging for people with nervous systems that are on the higher end of the sensitivity spectrum, they feel everything deeper and for longer.
Developing your personal toolkit of strategies for calming your nervous system can be super helpful.
Here are some of my favorite quick and easy strategies that can be done anywhere.
Slow your breathing. When we get anxious our breathing speeds up. Take some slow deep breaths. Make your exhales longer than your inhales.
Count backwards by threes, starting at one hundred. Engaging the brain’s prefrontal cortex by doing things like math, puzzles, and counting objects in the environment can be a fun way to shift your brain out of anxiety mode.
Scrunch your toes. Great for getting out of your head and into your body!
Visualize your happy place. Where do you feel most relaxed and happy? Imagine you are there. Engage all your senses - what do you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?
Pass an object from hand to hand - can be something small like a pen or rock. When you pass something back and forth across the vertical midline of the body it engages both brain hemispheres, shifting your brain out of anxiety.
Massage behind your ear. This stimulates the vagus nerve, helping to calm your heart rate and panicky feelings. Other easy techniques to activate the vagus nerve include pulling on your ear and gently tapping your thymus gland.
Smile! Smiling and laughing signal your anxious brain that everything is okay so it can relax.
Your brain gets nervous when you step outside your comfort zone because it wants you to stay safe, so finding your favorite ways to calm your nervous system will help you do more of what you want to do in your life.
You’ve got this!
Love,
Liz
