The truth is that stress doesn't come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges or other circumstance, It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances.
Andrew J. Bernstein
Stress and anxiety are natural reactions to threats to our safety and wellbeing. It's a response in our body that allowed us to survive in the wild, and it's a response that tells us now when our mental and emotional needs are in jeopardy, surviving in the modern world. Anything can amount to high stress. We've evolved to have new kinds of stressors (yay humans).
Anxiety and stress can become physical, but can be ramped up by your thoughts and stories you make up in your head based on past incidents. Our focus is to calm the mind so the anxiety and stress doesn't get out of hand.
Note: All of these techniques take a dedication to looking after yourself, to not wanting to feel on edge anymore, to understanding that we have the power to calm ourselves (for free, no drugs or alcohol), even if it means we feel silly. If you're not ready to try some new, mind-calming techniques yet, flick to this section where I talk about effortless ways to calm yourself. I hope you come back and give my suggestions below a try too, particularly in high stress or near-panic situations, as this is where I have found them most helpful.
The 5 Things
When my psychologist first gave me some techniques, this was one that I reached for a lot. When you're hyper-stressed, triggered or just plain old anxious, take 1 long deep breath in, 1 long deep breath out and notice five things you can see. When you see them, look at them, say the name in your head, then move on to the next thing. Once you've listed 5 things you can see, you might feel less stressed. If there's still too much stress for you, continue on with five things you can hear. If you still feel in a tizzy, continue on with five things you can feel (this one can be a little tricky so some examples include: the surface your touching, the breath in your lungs, the wind on your face, your heart beat, an itch on your arm, the prickly hairs on your legs, etc). Keep doing the same with your sense of taste and smell.
This technique can be repeated over and over again, OR you can focus on one sense (e.g. sound) and just keep focusing on the five things you can hear (e.g. fan ticking, an owl, other birds chirping, fridge buzzing, cars in the distance). Re-focus. Keep listening to each sound by itself and move on to the next. You can get to a point of relaxation using this if you do it for long enough.
Breathwork
Breath-To-10 is one I'd use in public because no one knows you're doing it.
Each inhale is a count of 1, and you breathe until you get to 10 completed breaths. So inhale (1), exhale. Inhale (2), exhale. Inhale (no. 3), exhale. All the way to 10. Then once you're at 10, start again. Keep going and going and going.
This one is great because it requires a lot of focus, which is something a stressed or anxious mind does not have. I remember sitting on the train to beauty college, using this technique. A few minutes later, I realised that my brain was running rampant and I had stopped my breaths. I didn't even remember what number of breaths I got up to before my mind took over. I would get annoyed with myself that I couldn't stay focussed, but as long as I kept re-trying to Breathe to 10, that's all that mattered, because it eventually would calm me down.
There are other forms of breathwork out there such as breathing in slowly for 6 counts, holding your breath for 5 counts, and releasing the breath strongly in 4 counts, then repeating. The Wim Hof method is another one that comes highly recommended but that I don't have much experience in, so if you're interested in learning about it, look it up.
Any Activity That Requires Focus
As you can tell through the last two techniques, focus plays an important role in stepping out of your head space. Creativity has been regarded as a fantastic tool to become present and less focussed on the mind stuff. My fiancé had a realisation the other day that any time things got too much for him in high school, he'd go play piano, and that he still does that do this day. This doesn't automatically count you out if you can't play piano, because even learning piano--any instrument for that matter--takes a great deal of focus, so much that you have to choose whether to be in your head or whether to be present and focus on the task at hand. I've realised lately that singing and feeling the music is a creative focus that keeps my SO present. For my friend, it's painting. For my sister, it's dance. Whatever you choose, it's not about skill. When I sing now, it's not to sound amazing, but to feel the song through the words and to convey the feeling through the sound. It not only eases my stress, but gives me an excitement for life.
Physical Grounding (a quickie)
Push all four corners of your feet into the ground. Feel the ground, your sock, and/or your shoe. Feel the muscles in your feet working. It's a reminder that you are standing (or sitting, or lying) here right now. You are wherever you are physically and you don't necessarily need to be wherever you are mentally.
Body Mindfulness
I use this EVERY night to go to sleep, but you can even do little parts of it throughout your day:
Lay flat on your back on your bed, completely still and close your eyes. Take three deep breaths, in and out. Notice how your feet feel--tingling? warm? cold? can you feel the blood rushing through them? You may not realise where your body is holding tension, and you're about to find out. Start by relaxing your toes. Once your toes are relaxed, move onto your ankles. Once they're relaxed, relax your calves, and your knees. Move up to your butt and hips, relax those. Your lower back. Your abdomen/stomach. Your chest. Your arms, hands, fingers. Your upper back. Your shoulders and your neck. Your jaw. Your lips. Your nostrils. Your eyes. Your brow and forehead. Scan your body from head to toe just noticing if there are any areas that need to be relaxed again.
Not only is it taking immense focus for your anxious brain to slowly focus on each body part until they relax, you're physically relaxing your body to allow it to calm down. If you struggle, keep trying with the aim of relaxation, not perfection.
Visualisation ( + mindfulness)
This works way better when you pair it with the mindfulness meditation above. This technique asks you use your own imagination to calm you. Why does this work? Because our thoughts create our reality, and by shifting our head space somewhere calm, our reality becomes a little better.
Examples: 1. Imagine a white light that shines really bright connected to the Earth. It's purpose is to keep you calm and grounded. Imagine the light coming up through the bottom of your feet, then up through your ankles, and so it goes all the way to your head.
2. After completing the Body Mindfulness meditation, picture your happy place--a space where you go where you are completely alone, completely safe and feel most at peace. Just be there. Get creative. For me, I like to imagine I'm in a Wakanda-like place in the jungle--it's invisible to every body else and no one can get there but me. I sit on the jungle floor amongst all the greenery, or in a treehouse in the jungle treetops. I can hear birds and monkeys and they're all friendly. I just be there and I'm calm. Or, I'm in a huge non-penetrable bubble that can mould itself into anything. I can lie on a bed inside of it and I float anywhere I want to go.
3. Imagine there a grey liquid-ooze that covers you from head to toe. As soon as it touches you, it relaxes all the muscles in that area. Start at the crown of our head this time, all the way down to your feet until it covers your entire body and you are fully relaxed.
External Ways of Calming Minor Anxiety and Stress
Tea with relaxing properties
You may not like tea, sometimes I don't enjoy some teas, but I use it as a tool to calm down. Pick a tea with chamomile, lavender, valerian, mint, or any tea advertised as calming or sleep-inducing. There are plenty at Woolworths such as Asha Vanilla Retreat (biggest recommendation for taste), Celestial Sleepy Time Tea, Higher Living's Sweet Dreams and more.
Ditch the caffeine
It can be done! You might think this wakes you up in the morning but if you're having coffee every day the only relief you're getting in the morning is from withdrawal symptoms--check out James Hoffman's video Caffeine: Explained. I quit coffee cold turkey for two weeks, and now I enjoy a coffee once a week or fortnight rather than depending on it to wake up every day. If you want to see what coming off of coffee looks like, check out my previous blog post here.
Remove anything that you reminds you of stress or your to-do list
A good example is when it comes to wedding planning, I get excited and then quickly stressed at the mountain of things I have to do. In order to get the wedding planning out of my head, I leave my wedding planner, note book, anything I've purchased out of sight, even down to closing my Safari tabs. This, paired with my next point, has been tremendous is letting go of stress.
In our house, we love being productive in the kitchen, but that also can mean we put it before relax time. We moved our lounges to face away from the kitchen, so when we're watching a movie together the kitchen is out of sight and it's made a big difference to our enjoyment levels.
Set yourself limits, or a specific time to address your tasks
I've limited myself to two things at a time when it comes to wedding planning. I've also limited myself to one morning a week where I can look at anything to do with wedding planning so that my mind doesn't get caught up in it all. This can even be done with emotional stress.
Another example is, "I'm not allowed to worry about this until Sunday 12pm." Make an agreement with yourself that you will try to spend your spare time wisely and prevent your brain from obsessing over a task or to-do list, but give yourself permission in x amount of time so that if whatever your concern is isn't done by then, THEN you're allowed to focus on it. I sometimes use it if my fiancé isn't home by a certain time--good old childhood fear of death here. I'm not allowed to worry about him until a ridiculous hour like 8pm, unless we've had contact between.
Avoid scrolling on social media
Honestly, it will give you more anxiety than anything else. Most likely you like scrolling because of the dopamine hit you get, but it doesn't soothe any stress. Reach for a funny YouTube video instead if you must be on a screen. Laughing counts as a release of stress.
Exercise
Move your body! Go for a walk with no music, just you observing nature at it's finest. Go for a run to see if you can move the stress in your body, as most people either feel it in their chest or just below. I prefer HIIT when I'm stressed or anxious, as I need to burn some energy FAST (check out Pamela Reif for some great exercise videos at all levels). Yoga is great if you need to slow down, breathe and focus on the movement of your body. I love Yoga with Adriene and have used her videos for years. Your stress and anxiety can be used as intrinsic motivation to exercise. If you want to know more about that, I did a blog post about that too.
End Notes
We're a high-functioning society of anxiety (try saying that ten times fast). This is helpful to the companies we work for, but not to our bodies. It's important to remember not to shut out the feeling of stress because it's unhelpful or unproductive (this leads to burnout and is when you start to get sick). Stress and anxiety can be a sign that something isn't right about what you're doing, that maybe you need to take a break from the world for a day (it is pretty chaotic after all). Take a break to properly calm yourself, and get back into work the next day. I've done this, I know people that have done this, and you feel so much better. I know people that have taken a whole week off for it because they needed it so bad!
Most importantly, don't guilt or shame yourself out of what you're feeling. Yes, there are people out there who have it worse, but that is not a helpful statement to them nor to you. Your focus needs to be on you.
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