Strategies To Calm Your Anxious Thoughts
Anxious thoughts are. the. worst.
If you are a worrier, or someone suffering from anxiety, you may benefit from some tips and tricks to help you keep worries in check.
1) Notice your anxiety and label it
It sounds simple, but often when we are anxious we are so busy avoiding or distracting ourselves that we don’t acknowledge or notice the emotional response going on in our bodies.
Taking a few minutes to observe our emotions, and mentally label them - “I’m feeling anxious right now,” “I’m noticing that I’m really on edge,”, “I’m really tense,” can actually reduce our anxiety if we can spend a few moments checking in on ourselves.
2) Physically relaxing your body
When we are stressed or anxious, our body reacts - we flood with hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that cause us to tense up, to breathe more quickly and shallowly, that cause our hearts to beat fast. This can become a bit of an anxiety cycle, because the more anxious we feel, the more anxious thoughts we are going to have, and the more anxious we will feel!
So if you can practice relaxation strategies, you can start to break the cycle.
My favourite quick tip is called ‘the three drops’. Drop your jaw (you hold so much tension there). Drop your shoulders (if they are up around your ears, you are way too tense). And lastly, drop your stomach (if you are holding it in, that’s a lot of extra tension around your core that’s making it hard to breathe deeply).
The other classic of course, is deep breathing. When we stress out, we stop breathing into our belly and diaphragm. Place a hand on your stomach and make sure it’s moving with your breathing. that’ll help let your brain know it’s okay to switch off the adrenaline and let you calm down.
3) Ask yourself “Is there anything I can do about this?” and “Is there anything I can do about this right now?”
If there is something you can do about it, great! Making a bit of a plan could be helpful in managing the worry thoughts. But if it’s the middle of the night, or you’re at work or it’s some other inappropriate time, ask yourself “Is there anything I can do about this right now? The answer is almost certainly no. So instead, make a mental note to come back to it as soon as you can do something about it. This reassures your mind that you are aware of the problem, and the next step towards handling it has been scheduled. You will come back to it tomorrow, or when next convenient and will work towards solving it then.
And if there is nothing you can do about it at all? Reminding yourself of that lets you know that this type of worrying is not helping. Take a deep breath, and turn your mind onto something that is useful stead.
4) Talk to someone about it
Lastly, talking to someone else can help us gain additional perspective on our anxiety that helps us move past it and feel calmer. If you have someone in your life that you can talk to, it can be one of the most powerful strategies in your arsenal to manage anxiety and worried thoughts.
If you are concerned that your worries and anxiety are impacting your day to day life and stopping you from living your life in the way you’d like to , you may benefit from seeing a psychologist who can give you strategies more personalised for you.
Sunrise Clinical Psychology offers individual psychotherapy with a Clinical Psychologist through telehealth to people all over Australia. Reach out now for a no obligation chat to see if Sunrise is right for you.