5 Simple Ways to Quiet Anxiety
5 Simple Ways to Quiet Anxiety, and Why They Work
For anyone who has ever experienced anxiety, you know what it is even if you can't exactly put words to the feeling. It's a general sense of uneasiness or dread. It can revolve around fears about the future or regrets about the past. It very often feels physical in your body, like your heart pounding in your chest, or your muscles tense and tight, or a shaky and queasy feeling.
What a lot of people don't know is that anxiety is a physiological response in your brain and body to a trigger that feels upsetting or threatening. It's not a mindset problem that you can just think your way out of, it's an automatic nervous system response that's part of your hard wired survival instinct. You reduce anxiety by creating a sense of calm and safety in your nervous system so that you can get out of survival mode.
Anxiety grows in the mind, but it starts in the body.
When you understand this one thing about anxiety, it becomes more intuitive to know how to diffuse it. The following 5 simple strategies go beyond just changing your thoughts, which can feel nearly impossible when you're anxious, to creating a sense of safety in your brain and body that naturally bring your baseline of anxiety lower so that it's quieter in your mind.
1 - Silence
We live in a noisy world. There's near constant input, stimulation, and activity. Studies show that constant stimulation and the instant gratification we have access to through technology and devices weakens the thinking part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, and puts the emotional center of our brain, the amygdala, on overdrive. This activates our stress response system and interferes with our ability to self-regulate anxiety and emotions.
Unplugging from noise, stimulation, and devices, can actually change your brain and strengthen your prefrontal cortex
Silence can lower your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your stress hormones. Spending just a few intentional minutes in silence each day can reconnect you to your emotions so that they're not just stuffed inside, where they can heighten anxiety. Simple ways to incorporate silence into your daily routine...
Breathing
Mindfulness
Prayer
Nature
Incorporating silence into a morning routine can be surprisingly life changing. Try starting your day when you wake up with breathing, mindfulness, prayer, or time in nature before you reach for your phone or jump into activities.
2 - Exercise
Regular exercise is consistently shown to be just as or more effective than antidepressant medication. I often see people try to set fitness goals that are too big and then get discouraged when they don't meet them, instead of looking for simple ways to start incorporating movement each day. Anything that gets you moving can go a long way to reducing anxiety, even if it's not a lengthy workout.
Simple ways to incorporate exercise into your daily routine...
Pace and count steps
Take a 10 minute walk outside in the sun
Play with your pet
Gym workout
Sports or outdoor activities
Yoga
Stretching
Exercise is consistently shown to be just as or more effective than antidepressant medication
Just start with what feels doable, and then add to it over time as you're able to!
3 - Gratitude
Fun fact, gratitude and anxiety originate in the same place in your brain. This means you actually can not experience gratitude and anxiety at the same time. A daily gratitude practice is a small thing to add to your routine that has powerful neurological effects.
You can not experience gratitude and anxiety at the same time
Simple ways to incorporate gratitude into your daily routine...
Keep a daily gratitude journal with 3 things you're grateful for, try not to repeat things
In moments of stress or anxiety, try looking for one thing you're grateful for in the moment to shift your attention to
Keeping a daily gratitude journal trains your brain to start looking for things that are going well throughout your day instead of things that feel negative, which can help to lower anxiety.
4 - Social Connection
I've heard it said that the opposite of depression is connection. For a variety of reasons, people are more isolated and disconnected from each other than ever, and this isolation can increase feelings of depression and anxiety.
Social connection can reduce stress and emotion, strengthen positive neural connections, and increase feel good hormones that calm the body and brain
Simple ways to incorporate social connection into your daily routine...
Reach out to a friend or family member just to be in contact... a text can help, a phone call can be better!
Get out of your house and go somewhere where you're around people
Create positive interactions as you go throughout your day with the people you come in contact with, even if it's just the grocery store checker or a person you pass on the street
Be intentional about in person interactions in addition to digital or online interactions
Social connection doesn't always have to be big events or significant plans with friends, it can be as simple as creating engagement with people you see throughout your day.
5 - Meaning
Spending too much time in your own head focused on spiraling thoughts and worries can cause anxiety to escalate, but engaging in things that shift your attention to something bigger than you or outside of your own reality can break cycles of what-if and worst-case-scenario thinking.
Simple ways to incorporate meaning into your daily routine...
Prayer or faith practices
Reaching out to check on a friend or family member
Planning a thoughtful gesture or surprise for someone
Volunteering
Work that feeds a sense of purpose or fulfillment
What gets you out of your own head? Is it focusing on the bigger picture, other people, or a larger purpose?
Anything that shifts your attention away from worry to something with meaning can interrupt negative cycles of thinking and help to lower anxiety
Creating Daily Disciplines
I often work with clients to identify and implement daily routines and consistent habits that help to bring anxiety down, and then prevent it from escalating. I consistently get pushback about the daily routine because it feels hard to add things to a busy life, but I also consistently get feedback that it's one of the most life changing things people try. These 5 simple ways to quiet anxiety work best when done consistently - try to make them part of a daily routine, but make it easy and do what works for you!
