Does your anxiety stop you from doing things in life? Is it controlling you, but you wish you could control it instead. Does having anxiety make you feel helpless and out of control? With a little planning ahead, you can stop feeling powerless and fearing your anxiety. Today, I am showing you 3 effective strategies to improve your anxiety and get your life back.
Anxiety can come on for no reason at all, completely blindsiding you. Other times, anxiety can occur because of an unexpected reason like realizing too late, that you forgot to study for a test. Furthermore, anxiety can be triggered by an event that you know going in will send you into a panic, such as calling to set up an appointment at the dentist.
Whatever the cause of your anxiety, it’s never easy to figure out how to calm back down in the moment, but having a plan can really help improve things. More people suffer from anxiety than you may think and for many medication is the only way to go, but before you ask for a prescription try these methods to alleviate your anxiety.
Table of Contents
3 Effective Strategies to improve your anxiety Now
1. Self-Soothing
You may not realize you have the power within you to offer comfort to yourself. This is known as self-soothing. It’s a great tool for you to use when you’re experiencing anxiety or an anxiety attack.
Self-soothing is done by using some or all of your senses. You will be paying close attention to the things you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.
Begin by first creating a list of self-soothing ideas for each of the senses. Do this ahead of time so you can pull the list out and refer to it when you need it later. Try to list at least 2 soothing ideas for each of your senses.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
See
- Pictures you like, or that make you happy.
- Calm, low lighting, if you have color changing LEDs, set them to a color you really like and that makes you feel relaxed.
Hear
- Music is the best thing for helping to take your mind off whatever is triggering your anxiety. Play anything you like, it’s up to you as music is subjective. You may find that instrumental music calms you, but maybe you really need loud metal music to completely distract yourself.
- Nature Sounds can do wonders for calming you down and transporting you to a different place. Think ocean sounds, listening to the waves come and go, or birds chirping in the jungle.
Smell
- Burn candles with essential oils or just a favorite smell. See below for a list of essential oils to help calm your mind.
- Essential oils – you can use a diffuser or a roll-on applicator. The best essential oils for relaxation and calming you down are lavender, chamomile, rose, sage, ylang-ylang.
Taste
- A favorite drink or one with a strong flavor will work best. A warm cup of tea or cocoa is a great option.
- Chewing gum works two-fold as it gives you a nice flavor perhaps a strong one and the act of chewing will help you calm down by reducing your cortisol levels which will help you feel more at peace and relaxed.
Feel
- Hug it out. You can try any combination of these four options for hugging.
- Wrap your arms around yourself
- Give another person a hug
- Squeeze a pillow or plushy
- Hug a pet
- Try using a weighted blanket. The pressure on your body causes your body to release serotonin which makes you feel good and will soothe your nerves. They also cause your nervous system to go into rest mode which will reduce your heart rate and slow your breathing down.
2. Self-Care for Anxiety
Now, if you experience anxiety on a regular basis, you should consider adding some of these suggestions to your self-care regime.
- Talk to someone – having a person you can trust to talk about all your fears and worries with can really go a long way in preventing these concerns from triggering your anxiety in the first place. Talk to a therapist or a good friend or relative that you know will be a helpful listener and not judge you or downplay your anxieties.
- Try to identify the things that trigger you, then you can be more prepared to deal with them because you’ll know they are coming. Keep track of your triggers in a journal.
- Practice meditation daily or just slow breathing. Meditation forces you to take your mind off of everything else and only focus on each breath you take as you inhale and exhale. Meditation is a fantastic way to calm down, I highly recommend it.
- Create and follow daily routines. Having a routine will help calm the chaos that anxiety feeds off of. Look into creating a morning and night routine, you can read more about how to that here:
3. Positive Self-Talk
Even if you don’t outwardly express your negative feelings towards yourself or vocalize your self-deprivation, just having those thoughts in your head can really bring you down. It’s important to have positive uplifting thoughts running through your head. You should be your greatest supporter by showing yourself a little grace and forgiveness.
Here are some affirmations you can practice repeating either out loud or in your head to help you improve your self-talk and have more self-esteem.
- It’s okay to take a break
- You are strong
- It’s okay to ask for help
- You matter, even if you’re having trouble believing it
- You will heal, just know it takes time and self-love
- You don’t always have to pretend to be happy
- You deserve to be happy
In Summary
We discussed alternative ways of dealing with anxiety today. Actions you can plan for and take to help you handle uncertainty and anxiousness.
Those plans included:
- self-soothing
- self-care for anxiety
- positive self-talk
I am all for taking medication if and when you need it, sometimes that’s exactly what it’s going to take to calm you down. These ideas are meant to be ways for you to push through your anxiety and relax you as quickly as possible. They are also here to help you understand the things that trigger your anxiety to begin with and to assist in keeping anxiety from rearing its ugly head in the first place.
Be sure to give at least one of these methods a try, or better yet, try them all and decide which one works best for you and your situation. After all, everyone is unique and that’s what makes you the beautiful human you are.
Have you tried any of these 3 effective strategies to improve your anxiety? Tell us how it went.
Do you have any suggestions for dealing with anxiety? Leave a comment below and share some of your best tips with us, we’d love to hear from you!
Do you struggle more with your mental health during the holidays? Same. Read this article How to Protect Your Mental Health During the Holidays to learn strategies to avoid a crisis.
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