Discover science-based tips to help you calm down an anxious mind and body.
It seems that nearly everyone is experiencing some level of anxiety these days. Maybe you’re feeling anxious about the future of your job, hurt about being slighted by a friend, frustrated about the direction your life is going, or all of the above. These emotions can lead to increased sympathetic nervous system activation (Charmandari, Tsigos, & Chrousos, 2005). As a result, we can feel wired, strung out, anxious, or just plain burnt out. Chronic anxiety takes its toll on our body, mind, and spirit. But fret no more, relief from anxiety is within your reach.
The activity of calming anxiety usually means helping our body to return to homeostasis (or its normal resting state). Generally, this involves feelings of relief, a reduction in negative emotions, and a general sense that we’re okay. Given how unpleasant we might be feeling in anxious times, learning strategies to calm down can be a great boon to our well-being. Check out the strategies below to start calming your anxiety:
1. Try Mindfulness
Decades of research on the benefits of mindfulness practices speak for themselves. It is one of the single most helpful practices for reducing stress and managing anxiety. In fact, a recent meta-analysis showed mindfulness-based therapy can reduce anxiety and depression (Khoury et al., 2013). Although mindfulness doesn’t work for everyone and can result in negative experiences for some (Krick & Felfe, 2019), when it works, it is a great tool for calming down. Often, mindful meditations are guided, which helps us stay focused on our breathing and our bodies and not on the thoughts that are making us anxious. There are many different types of meditative practices from Yoga (mentioned below) and walking mediation, to more expressive meditations such as chanting, dancing, and practices like tai chi and qi gong. The bottom line: Meditation is miraculous (Gordon, 2019).
2. Manage Ruminative Thoughts
It’s not uncommon for us to think about the bad stuff. We might replay that horrible interaction we had with a friend over and over again in our minds. Or we might keep going over what we’ll do if the worst happens. But at some point, this is just rumination, and we’re better off stopping the thought cycles and taking a break from trying to mentally solve all of our problems.
Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to stop rumination. You may have heard the saying, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” Basically, this means that when we think in certain ways, it becomes easier for our brains to keep thinking in those same ways. So, when we decide we want to break out of negative thought patterns, it can be tough. It may be helpful to remember that our brains are wired to the negativity bias for survival purposes, meaning we have to work extra hard to conjure up positive emotions.
Some of the best ways to stop these repetitive thoughts involve forcing the brain to focus on something else. I don’t just mean will the brain to stop—that rarely works. I mean give it something so distracting that it can’t help but change focus. For example, taking a cold shower or getting yourself up, out, and moving your body can do wonders. And the science suggests that both of these strategies do indeed help calm us down (e.g., Mourot et al., 2008).
3. Write in a Journal
Daily journaling, especially about emotional experiences, has been shown in research to result in small but meaningful improvements in mental and physical health (Pennebaker, 1997). Although ruminating about the past and playing it over and over again in your head is not helpful, sometimes writing it all down and getting it out of your head can be. It takes what is in your subjective mind and makes it objective creating mental distance from strong emotions and intrusive thoughts. Perhaps that is why journaling can be such a useful tool.
Other types of journaling may help induce feelings of calm or well-being as well. For example, gratitude journaling is a popular type of journaling that has been shown to be beneficial (Kaczmarek et al., 2015). By shifting our focus to the things we’re grateful for, we can potentially decrease negative emotions and feel a bit calmer.
4. Try Yoga
As mentioned above under Mindfulness, yoga has become a popular activity in recent years. For some, it is a form of exercise. For others, it helps increase flexibility. The greatest benefit however is that it calms and relaxes the body and mind. The calming effect of yoga appears to be more than anecdotal. Research has shown that doing yoga regularly can result in reduced cortisol, a key stress hormone (Thirthalli et al., 2013). So if yoga feels like a good fit for you, it may help you calm down your anxiety.
5. Practice Acceptance
For some people, relaxation techniques like the ones described above can function as a way to avoid unwanted negative emotions—and they paradoxically end up increasing emotional distress. The antidote seems to be to adopt acceptance and passivity (versus control) over the body and mind (Wilson, Barnes-Holmes, & Barnes-Holmes, 2014). In other words, we need to engage in calming or relaxing strategies without focusing obsessively on how well they are working for us. For example, instead of doing deep breathing while we continually ask ourselves, “Do I feel calm yet?” we have to be present, let the emotions come out as they want to, and then fade in their own time.
A more active way of practicing acceptance is consider, what is within our control to change, what is beyond our control, and where might we be able to influence the situation. And, one of my favorite acceptance practices is to say the Serenity Prayer; God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
For more information on how you and your team can overcome stressful work environments and employee burnout, contact Jennifer@BeWellLeadership.com.
Please note: This article references anxiety, burnout, and stress, and NOT clinical anxiety or depression. If you or someone on your team is experiencing clinical symptoms of anxiety or depression, please consult a mental health professional.
References
- Charmandari, E., Tsigos, C., & Chrousos, G. (2005). Endocrinology of the stress response. Annu. Rev. Physiol., 67, 259-284.
- Gordon, J. S. (2019). The Transformation: Discovering wholness and healing after trauma
- Kaczmarek, L. D., Kashdan, T. B., Drążkowski, D., Enko, J., Kosakowski, M., Szäefer, A., & Bujacz, A. (2015). Why do people prefer gratitude journaling over gratitude letters? The influence of individual differences in motivation and personality on web-based interventions. Personality and Individual Differences, 75, 1-6.
- Khoury, B., Lecomte, T., Fortin, G., Masse, M., Therien, P., Bouchard, V., … & Hofmann, S. G. (2013). Mindfulness-based therapy: a comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical psychology review, 33(6), 763-771.
- Krick, A., & Felfe, J. (2019). Who benefits from mindfulness? The moderating role of personality and social norms for the effectiveness on psychological and physiological outcomes among police officers. Journal of occupational health psychology.
- Mourot, L., Bouhaddi, M., Gandelin, E., Cappelle, S., Dumoulin, G., Wolf, J. P., … & Regnard, J. (2008). Cardiovascular autonomic control during short-term thermoneutral and cool head-out immersion. Aviation, space, and environmental medicine, 79(1), 14-20.
- Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological science, 8(3), 162-166.
- Thirthalli, J., Naveen, G. H., Rao, M. G., Varambally, S., Christopher, R., & Gangadhar, B. N. (2013). Cortisol and antidepressant effects of yoga. Indian journal of psychiatry, 55(Suppl 3), S405.
- Wilson, C. J., Barnes-Holmes, Y., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2014). How exactly do I “let go”? The potential of using ACT to overcome the relaxation paradox. SAGE Open, 4(1), 2158244014526722.
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