For every individual, it is natural to face anxiety, also commonly known as uncontrollable stress. While it may vary from slight uneasiness to extreme panic attacks, there are simple ways to manage and reduce anxiety. Regular exercise helps to keep those cortisols down as shared by Dr Kriti Gaur, Clinical Counselor.
Happy hormones are the answer to battling anxious jitters. Finding time to move your body 30 minutes a day will produce endorphins, our body’s happy hormones. To complement your exercises, leading a healthy lifestyle is a must. If you suffer from extreme anxiety, reduce coffee and tea to one cup a day, eliminate sugar, and focus on clean eating that does not cause stress to your body.
Meditation or mindfulness focus can also silence those worrisome thoughts. If deep breathing is difficult, pick an object, sound, or mindfulness video and try to ground yourself while concentrating on the object. A way to know how to select a time limit for yourself is by sitting for the minutes that equal your age! So, if you are 25 years old, meditate or focus for at least 25 minutes every day! Mindfulness promotes inner calm and lowers anxiety in small doses. Reduce sources of anxiety, whether it may be social media or people who remind you of your triggers. Taking a timeout from sources that are too much to handle currently is okay. Set up a self-care routine to provide structure and balance in your life.
Maintain a mixture of work, hobbies, exercise, and socializing in your week, and allow yourself to take much-needed breaks! It is also important to learn how to talk about your anxiety. More often than not, the thoughts our anxieties produce do not help us stay calm. Thus, it is important to question those thoughts and make yourself aware of your strengths and capacity to face uncontrollable stress. Lastly, a tool that we practice most in therapy is gradual muscle relaxation; this entails focusing on a muscle in your body and doing a tense-release-tense routine for 15 repetitions. Here’s an example to try: closely tighten your fists for 5 seconds, open it for 5 seconds, followed by tightening it again for 5. Repeat this 15 times, and you will instantly feel your body destressed!
Remember, anxiety is common and a normal bodily reaction to stress. Be gentle with yourself, and know that with the correct tools, you too can control it!
