How to Calm Down from Anger, Anxiety or Overwhelm
Getting worried or upset from time to time is part of the human experience. But sometimes those feelings can take over and it may seem like you’re not in control of your reactions.
If you’re feeling angry, anxious, or overwhelmed, it can be difficult to know how to calm down. Having a few calming techniques on hand can help you manage your feelings better in the moment. Some general strategies include focusing on your breath, meditating, moving your body, getting fresh air, or resetting your mood by listening to music.
If you want to learn how to calm yourself down, consider adding these calming techniques to your toolbox.
Identify Your Stress Response
When you’re angry, upset, or overwhelmed, your “fight-or-flight” stress response often kicks in. This is when anxiety can turn into panic attacks or anger might escalate into uncontrollable behavior. Understanding more about your personal response to stress can help you learn how to calm down and manage your reactions better. Internally, we all respond the same: blood pressure rises, the heart pumps faster, and muscles restrict. But externally, stress may manifest into different reactions.
If you become withdrawn, spaced out, or depressed while under stress, you may have an under-excited stress response and benefit from stimulating or energizing stress relief activities. If you feel completely “stuck”, your mind draws a blank, and your body shuts down when upset, you may experience a “freeze” response that is best processed with physical movement and a focus on the body rather than thoughts.
If you tend to become agitated, angry, or overly emotional, calming techniques like those suggested in this article may suit you better and help you learn how to calm down.
Label the Feeling
Taking the time to identify exactly what you are feeling (e.g. “I’m not just upset, I am frustrated”) may both help you to express it more healthily and reduce the feeling due to you processing it better.
Try a Quick Distraction
Fully absorbing yourself in another activity can provide an important reset if you’re feeling overwhelmed and need to know how to calm down. Small strategies such as leaving the room or counting backwards can be surprisingly effective calming techniques. If you have the time, this popular sensory exercise can help regulate your nervous system in addition to serving as a distraction. Using your immediate surroundings, name five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.
Ask Yourself Key Questions
Some grounding questions in a critical situation could be instrumental in teaching yourself how to calm down. These could include, “Will this matter to me in a week’s time?” or “Does this deserve the level of reaction I am giving?” or “Will I let this circumstance/person disturb my peace?”
Giving the situation a “reality test” can help you side-step the irrational behavior that often accompanies anxious or angry feelings.
Chew Gum
You may not feel like eating when upset, but chewing gum can be a useful anti-anxiety or anger strategy. It has been found to help tune out external stressors and inhibit the proliferation of stress-related information in the brain.
Sigh Deeply
Focusing on the breath is a staple for managing stress, anger or anxiety, but you aren’t always afforded the opportunity to do so. If you’re short on time or in the middle of a conversation but need to know how to calm down, swap mindful breathing for a mindful sigh: breathing in slowly, mentally counting to ten, and then sighing fully through the mouth to refocus.
Relax Your Body
A tense body contributes to mental stress and vice-a-versa. Try adding progressive muscle relaxation to your quota of calming techniques. Lie down on the floor or sit back in a comfortable chair. Keep feet uncrossed and hands relaxed at your sides. Start by clenching your toes momentarily, then releasing them. Slowly work your way up and through the body, clenching and releasing until your whole body feels relaxed. Stress and tension can also cause the shoulders to tense up around the ears. Throughout the day, focus on drawing your shoulder blades together and dropping them down the back.
Utilize Pressure Points
Massage and acupuncture are highly effective tools when considering how to calm down anxiety or anger. However, these may be too time-costly if you’re looking for fast-acting calming techniques. Recruiting pressure points can help you manage overwhelming feelings. Try focusing on the area between your wrist and hand where creases form. Press down with your thumb for two minutes to help relieve tension.
Learning how to calm down in stressful situations can take time. If you are struggling regularly with overwhelming feelings, chat to someone you trust or try a cognitive behavioral therapy session.
8 Foods That Reduce Anxiety
Anxiety is one of the most common mental health conditions, taking many different forms such as generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, or phobias. It is generally characterized by continuous feelings of worry, tension, and nervousness, and symptoms can become severe enough to interfere with daily life.
Anxiety can be managed through medication, psychotherapy, and lifestyle changes. In addition to staying physically active and getting enough quality sleep, taking in plenty of nutrient-rich foods that reduce anxiety can serve as a powerful contributor to managing symptoms.
If you want to learn more about the best foods for anxiety, here is a list of recommended ingredients to add into your diet, generally containing anti-inflammatory properties, antioxidants, healthy fats, plus key vitamins and minerals.
Oily Fish
Fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel, and trout sits high on the list of foods that reduce anxiety. They are rich in omega-3s: fatty acids that have a strong correlation with cognitive function and mental health thanks to their potent anti-inflammatory properties. Salmon is also high in an amino acid called tryptophan, which has been associated with lower anxiety levels. Both salmon and sardines are amongst the few foods containing vitamin D, where lower levels are associated with mood disorders such as anxiety.
Avocados
The high vitamin B content in avocados earns them a ranking amongst foods that reduce anxiety. Foods rich in B vitamins have been linked to lower feelings of anxiety, and a single avocado contains multiple B vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6 and folate.
Eggs
Free-range eggs (the yolks, specifically) are another great source of vitamin D when seeking out foods that reduce anxiety. They also contain mood-regulating tryptophan.
Nuts and Seeds
Thanks to their rich and varied supply of nutritious ingredients, different nuts and seeds offer nutrients that make them some of the best foods for anxiety and stress. Cashews are rich in zinc, where deficiencies have been associated with anxiety, while Brazil nuts are high in selenium – an ingredient that may lower anxiety by reducing inflammation. Both pumpkin and chia seeds are listed amongst foods that reduce anxiety due to their rich supplies of magnesium: a mineral that may help regulate emotions. Pumpkin seeds also contain zinc as well as potassium, where deficiencies are associated with high levels of cortisol.
Dark Chocolate
Often renowned as one of the best foods for anxiety, dark chocolate contains a wealth of anxiety-busting ingredients. These include antioxidants, tryptophan, and minerals such as magnesium, zinc, copper, and manganese. Low levels of these minerals have been associated with increased symptoms of anxiety.
Yogurt
Yogurt contains healthy bacteria known as probiotics. Sources of nutrition that contain probiotics are generally recognized as foods that reduce anxiety. Including yogurt and other fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and kimchi, in the diet supports the gut microbiome, which is known to be closely connected to the brain – including emotional wellbeing. In addition to probiotics, prebiotics – ingredients that fuel probiotics in the gut – are also considered to be foods that reduce anxiety. You’ll find prebiotics in high fibre foods such as oats, barley, bran, fruits, vegetables, and beans.
Chamomile & Green Tea
In addition to eating more foods to reduce anxiety, there are certain drinks you can try too. Chamomile is widely regarded as a calming tea that promotes sleep, potentially due to anxiety-lowering antioxidants called flavonoids. Green tea is also packed with antioxidants that not only help to reduce inflammation but may reduce symptoms of anxiety in those with stress-related conditions. One of the main active ingredients in green tea, l-theanine, is an amino acid that interacts with the body’s neurotransmitters and may lower anxiety.
Turmeric
Those exploring the best foods for anxiety often seek out ingredients with powerful anti-inflammatory properties such as turmeric. The active ingredient in turmeric, called curcumin, is responsible for reducing the inflammation and oxidative stress that is often increased in those with mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
If you are struggling with anxiety and stress, it is important to seek the guidance of a healthcare professional. While adjusting your diet to include more foods that reduce anxiety may prove helpful, nutritional strategies should be seen as a complement to conventional treatment methods rather than an alternative.
12 Natural Stress Relief Strategies to Try
Individuals worldwide are no strangers to stress, yet we would all be much better off – both mentally and physically – if we could get a better handle on it. When stress is experienced over a long period of time without being controlled it is considered chronic, and can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, mental conditions, digestive issues, obesity and even cancer.
If you want to get your stress levels under control without using medication, here are a handful of natural stress relief strategies to consider.
Keep Moving
Exercise is a proven form of natural stress relief that helps to improve all processes in the body and mind. Considered the body’s built-in painkiller and mood-lifter, exercise releases powerful endorphin chemicals in the brain, helping to ease anxiety.
Eat Nutrient-Rich Foods
A healthy body supports a healthy mind. And much like the benefits of exercise, sound nutrition is one of the most effective natural stress remedies available to us. Taking in a steady supply of essential vitamins and minerals, healthy fats, amino acids, electrolytes and antioxidants will equip your brain to handle stress better when it hits. Stress can also deplete certain nutrients, including vitamin A, C, E and B complex vitamins, so it is important to keep replenishing them for natural stress relief.
Get Some Fresh Air
Spending time outdoors in a scenic natural setting, even for just a few minutes, is linked to improved wellbeing – lifting your mood, reducing stress and benefitting sleep. Try “forest bathing” as a form of natural stress relief; immersing yourself in naturally beautiful and health-boosting forest surroundings has been shown to provide various health benefits, including decreased stress hormone levels.
Write it Down
If you are exploring natural stress remedies, you could try writing down your thoughts and feelings. Keeping a stress journal can help you identify stressors, how you they made you feel, how you responded and what you did to make yourself feel better. All of which can contribute to you managing your stress better overall.
Practice Meditation
Meditation is touted as one of the most helpful practices for those seeking natural stress relief. Regularly following guided meditations has been shown to lower the body’s responses to stress, improve mental alertness and help individuals overcome mental and physical issues such as anxiety, depression, poor eating habits and disrupted sleep.
Take a Deep Breath
Controlling the breath is another leading form of natural stress relief. Systematic deep breathing is an effective way to reduce the activation of the sympathetic nervous system – responsible for the body’s fight or flight responses – and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for the body’s “rest and digest” responses. If you want to explore natural stress remedies, try breathing in slowly and deeply for a count of five, holding the breath for two, and exhaling slowly and fully for a count of five or more.
See a CBT Therapist
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is renowned as one of the most effective therapies for lowering anxiety, stress and other mental disorders. It is useful for training us to avoid internal sources of stress, such as pessimism, jumping to conclusions, and having “all-or-nothing” thinking. This type of treatment can also serve as a form of natural stress relief by helping individuals to react better in situations they find stressful.
Sniff Essential Oils
Certain adaptogenic herbs and essential oils are considered natural stress remedies because they have been shown to lower anxiety by reducing the effects of stress and cortisol on the body. Adaptogens such as ginseng, maca and ashwagandha can help make stress more manageable by regulating hormones and physiological functions. Essential oils such as lavender, bergamot and myrrh are often used to provide natural stress relief, as they can improve immunity, reduce inflammation and balance hormones, aiding with stress, sleep and digestion.
Connect
Meaningful connections are tied to longevity, helping individuals to feel supported and create a sense of belonging. Seeking out social connectedness can help us cope with stress better and simultaneously boost resilience. Sharing laughter with others – or even laughing at a funny video – is another powerful antidote to stress.
Manage Your Commitments
It’s easy to feel anxious if you have too many commitments, whether those are personal or work-related. Effective time management or having a game plan of action steps for pending commitments can help turn stressful anticipation into productive action, helping to keep your stress at bay.
Prioritize Sleep
Quality sleep is one of the most underutilized forms of natural stress relief. We are more prone to irritability, mental cloudiness and stress when under slept. Research suggests that following a similar sleep routine each night as well as getting enough quality sleep can help us to manage stress far better.
Try Progressive Relaxation
This method of natural stress relief involves tensing or squeezing one part of the body at a time, holding it, then releasing it. Moving through the body and systematically tensing and relaxing in this way helps to calm the body and mind. This is a great strategy to help you fall asleep too.
Anxiety or stress that is chronic or interferes with your ability to function day to day warrants treatment. Talk to your healthcare provider if stress is becoming too overwhelming to manage alone.
How Stress Meditation Can Help You Manage Anxiety and Stress
We can’t eliminate stress, but we can learn how to reframe its role in our lives so we manage it better. With an increasing number of studies exploring the benefits of meditation for stress and anxiety, research is pointing to it as an effective stress-management tool.
Stress meditation can induce a sense of peace and calm that benefits both your emotional and general wellbeing. It may also help you to manage symptoms of certain medical conditions. In fact, when stress meditation is a daily practice, individuals may be able to counter the effects of stress hormones like cortisol and reduce systemic inflammation in as little as eight weeks.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is a set of techniques designed to offer a number of integrative benefits to the body and mind, including producing a deep state of relaxation and a more tranquil mind.
Practiced for thousands of years across many different cultures, meditation was originally designed to help deepen our spiritual understanding. Today, individuals more commonly use meditation for stress and anxiety reduction, managing insomnia and pain, and other chronic conditions.
Regular meditation can help enhance attention and focus, mental clarity, emotional awareness, kindness and compassion, calmness, and overall physical and emotional wellbeing.
Benefits of Stress Meditation
Regularly practicing meditation for stress and anxiety offers a variety of well-documented benefits. Even a short, simple stress meditation, when undertaken routinely, can enhance physical and emotional wellbeing in the following ways:
Improving Emotional Wellbeing
Stress meditation can help you to maintain a positive outlook during stressful situations, become more self-aware and live in the present moment. It may also help to minimize negative emotions and improve your coping skills, while increasing imagination, creativity, patience and tolerance.
Regulating Neurotransmitters
Some of the positive emotional benefits of stress meditation are due to its ability to regulate neurotransmitters in the brain. Meditation for stress and anxiety has been found to increase serotonin levels – associated with reduced symptoms of depression – and decrease norepinephrine, where high levels have been linked to anxiety. Stress meditation can also increase the “happy” hormone oxytocin.
Offering Physiological Benefits
Stress meditation may help to lower your resting heart rate and blood pressure, improve sleep quality and reduce insomnia, and support immune function too.
Preventing and Managing Stress-Related Diseases
A regular stress meditation practice has been found to reduce cortisol levels. This can make it a beneficial tool in preventing or managing stress-related conditions such as weight gain and diabetes, plus autoimmune and cardiovascular issues too.
Types of Meditation
There are many different varieties and forms of meditative practices. Most types of stress meditation will include elements such as focused attention, relaxed breathing, a quiet setting, a comfortable position, and an open, non-judgmental mind-set.
Breath Focused Meditation
This form focuses mostly on the breath, calling on you to regulate your breathing with techniques such as boxed breathing, alternate nostril breathing, or pairing body tension with an inhale and body release with an exhale.
Movement Meditation
Movement in the body may help to focus the mind better than stillness. A moving stress meditation could include simply walking, or structured practices such as qi gong, tai chi, or yoga, which combine meditation, relaxation, a sequence of physical postures, and synchronized breathing together.
Body Scan Meditation
These types of meditation involve focusing attention on to different parts of the body, simultaneously increasing self-awareness, learning to observe rather than identify with negative sensations in the body, increasing focus, and promoting relaxation.
Mantra Meditation
A mantra meditation uses a repeated calming word, thought or phrase (e.g. “Relax” or “I am strong”) that is either thought or said aloud to support focus and prevent distracting thoughts.
Guided Meditation
A guided meditation involves visualization – creating mental pictures to calm and relax you. The meditative narrative may call on you to imagine smells, sights, sounds and textures associated with the visualization, training the body to recruit its own imagination and promote relaxation from within.
If you are regularly feeling anxious, stressed or worried, consider trying stress meditation. Even a few minutes at a time can support a more calm and relaxed state. Meditation is not only available to everyone, inexpensive, and equipment-free, it has been proven to offer an array of emotional and physical benefits that may help you to better manage and reduce your stress.
Medicine for Stress Relief
While stress can help you cope in the short-term, the effects of chronic stress can have negative mental and physical consequences in the long run. Stress is mostly subjective: often only the person experiencing it can confirm if it is present and how severe it is.
Since there is no specific family of medication used to decrease stress, a wide variety of options might be considered when seeking medicine for stress relief. Many of these may also be used to address related conditions such as anxiety or depression.
Consider the following prescription and natural remedies if you are seeking medicine for stress or anxiety.
Sedatives (CNS Depressants)
Sedatives slow down central nervous system activity, reducing tension and anxiety, inducing relaxation, and slowing the breath.
Benzodiazepines
These are one of the most regularly prescribed groups of sedatives, including names such as diazepam (Valium), lorazepam (Ativan), and alprazolam (Xanax). They work by enhancing the effects of an inhibitory neurotransmitter known as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). This substance has a calming effect and can counteract the overstimulation in the body associated with anxiety.
Recruiting benzodiazepines as medicine for stress comes with the risk of addiction and overuse long-term.
Other prescribed drugs with a sedative effect include antihistamines (medication to reduce allergic reactions) and sleeping tablets.
Bupropion
Known as BuSpar, bupropion is an anti-anxiety medicine used to treat the physical symptoms of anxiety e.g. racing heartbeat, tension, or dizziness. It is typically prescribed for short patches of time and is not recommended as a long-term form of stress relief medicine.
Antidepressant Medications
Used primarily to address major depression, antidepressants are also prescribed as medicine for stress and anxiety relief.
SSRIs
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a particular family of antidepressants most frequently utilized as anxiety and stress relief medicine. One of the brain’s neurotransmitters, serotonin, is thought to play an important role in susceptibility to depression, anxiety, and stress. By slowing down a process in the brain known as reuptake, SSRIs are able to increase levels of serotonin to help increase mood and decrease anxious feelings. Unlike benzodiazepines, SSRIs tend to be prescribed as a long-term medicine for stress, anxiety, or depression.
Beta-Blockers
Beta-blockers are prescriptions drugs that are typically used to manage high blood pressure and treat some heart problems. For some people, they also help control the body’s fight or flight stress response by blocking certain nerve impulses. Beta-blockers are not approved by The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a medicine for stress or anxiety relief as they do not prevent symptoms. However, they may help reduce some symptoms, such as shaking, sweating, or an increased heart rate.
Pregabalin
Pregabalin (Lyrica) is a form of anticonvulsant medication typically used to treat epilepsy. It may, however, also be recommended as an off-label form of medicine for stress relief – usually when individuals have not responded to antidepressants and benzodiazepines. If pregabalin works well, it can be prescribed as a medicine for stress, anxiety, or depression long-term.
Nutritional Supplements
Nutritional deficiencies in GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), vitamin D, and vitamins B6 and B12 can contribute to increased levels of stress, anxiety, or depression. Meeting your daily recommended allowances of these nutrients may help to support symptoms.
Then, a handful of nutritional supplements may assist with symptoms of stress or anxiety:
- Ashwagandha is an adaptogen that regulates the effects of stress on the body.
- L-theanine is an amino acid found in green tea believed to have relaxing effects while improving cognitive function.
- Lemon balm is considered a natural form of medicine for stress and anxiety, also assisting with sleep and gastrointestinal issues.
- Magnesium is an important mineral used to help regulate dozens of processes. Adequate intake can have a calming effect.
- Passion flower and chamomile are well-known for their benefits as calming agents and are included in many natural forms of medicine for stress.
- Valerian root and melatonin are widely touted as natural forms of sleep support, also contributing to reduced feelings of stress.
While these ingredients occur naturally, they still need to be used with care as they could interact with other medications or have unwanted side-effects. Stress can have negative mental and physical effects on a person’s health. However, both prescription and natural options may help if you are considering taking medicine for stress. It is advised that you proceed with caution under the supervision of a healthcare practitioner when taking stress relief medicine, as prescription options in particular incur side-effects and are often addictive.
How to Calm Nervousness Quickly
Almost every individual has found themselves wondering how to calm their nervousness in a certain situation. That’s because everybody experiences nervousness, and feeling nervous is a normal bodily response. While the reasons behind our feelings may be different, the sensations are usually similar: sweaty palms, elevated heart rate, and “butterflies” in the stomach. Although they are responsible for unsolicited changes in the body, stress hormones such as adrenaline are actually designed to help us perform at our best. It is only when these symptoms become disproportionate to the relevant situation or affect our ability to function well that nerves may hinder rather than help.
If you are feeling nervous in a time-sensitive situation and want to keep symptoms of stress at bay, learn how to calm nervousness quickly with these tried and tested suggestions.
Accept Feeling Nervous
If you find yourself wishing you knew how to calm your nervousness, try simply accepting it. Letting the feeling run its course when it arrives can help it to pass more quickly. Ironically, resisting feeling nervous can increase its persistence, and is often what triggers a panic attack. Resistance also stops you addressing the sensation front on, preventing you from exploring new ways to process it. As a result, you may continue to fear its onset.
Breathe
When we are feeling nervous, anxious or stressed, we tend to take quick, shallow breaths. This reinforces the message to the nervous system that the body is under stress and should remain in a fight-or-flight state. If you are exploring how to calm nervousness quickly, focus on your breath.
Long, deep breaths can disrupt the fight-or-flight response and help your system calm down. Once your breathing is more regular, aim for longer exhales than inhales: inhales speed up the heart rate while exhales slow it down. You can also close your eyes and visualize a calm version of yourself as you breathe – the imagery alone can help stop you feeling nervous.
Change Your Position
You can also try switching up what you’re doing if you’re stuck on how to calm your nervousness. If your arms are tightly folded, spread them wide and gently stretch your chest skywards. If you’re sitting still, stand up and move around. Try splashing your face with cold water or, if possible, heading outside for some fresh air. Changing your sensory experience can help your brain and body switch out of the anxiety state.
Redirect Nervous Energy
Those considering how to calm nervousness quickly often try to repress the sensation. However, feeling nervous generates energy that needs to be processed, not supressed. If possible, kick into a short burst of activity, whether that’s washing dishes, jogging on the spot, or shaking out your wrists and hands.
Put a Positive Spin on It
It may sound difficult, but if you’re running out of ideas on how to calm your nervousness, shoot for positivity. In reality, feeling nervous has similar sensations to feeling motivated and excited e.g. an elevated heart rate. Just as football coaches rev up their team before they hit the pitch, try giving your nervous energy a positive slant in the form of an affirming pep talk, with phrases such as “You’ve got this”, “I’m prepared and ready” or “I bet this will be fun”. If you’re struggling to believe it, remind yourself that you’ve likely felt nervous before and no one realized or – even better – you were still praised for doing a great job.
Arrive Early
If applicable to the situation, such as convening for a meeting or a presentation, arrive early. When exploring how to calm nervousness in live time, it helps to take the stress of being late off the table. Familiarizing yourself with your surroundings can help you relax and feel more in control. Have a glass of water on hand too: it will help to both encourage normal breathing and prevent your mouth getting dry.
Practice and Prepare
While this isn’t always possible in time-sensitive circumstances, being well-prepared can help you identify weak spots in your train of thought and give you a mental rehearsal of the actual event ahead of time.
Have Someone You Trust on Hand
A few supportive and non-judgmental words from someone who cares can be a lifeline when you’re feeling nervous. Asking a friend or significant other to be on standby, even if just to shoot you a quick text is an effective addition to your “how to calm nervousness fast” playbook.
While we don’t usually enjoy feeling nervous, remember that it can signify positive things, such as you caring about your job or taking your responsibilities seriously. If you often worry about how to calm nervousness quickly, it may be time to address your overwhelm with a healthcare provider.
How to Calm Anxiety
Feeling anxious from time to time is a part of life. Occasional anxiety is a normal response to uncertainty about the future, whether that is in the next few minutes, days, or even months. You could be dreading a serious conversation with someone, feeling stressed about a pending career change, or worrying about finances.
Whatever the source of your stress, if you want to learn how to calm anxiety, there are a number of effective strategies you can try.
Ride Out an Anxiety Attack
Anxiety can lead to panic attacks: sudden episodes of intense fear that cause strong physical reactions despite there being no threat. As frightening as these attacks can be, it’s important not to let them control you. Panic or anxiety attacks always pass, and the goal is to try ride out unpleasant feelings rather than distract from or avoid them. Doing your best to remain in the situation and address the sensation head on teaches you how to calm your anxiety – by discovering that nothing bad is going to happen. As the anxiety passes, focus on your surroundings and get back to what you were doing before.
Remember You Can Still Function Well with Anxiety
When anxious feelings arise, put self-criticism aside and tell yourself that it is okay to feel that way: your nervous system is simply activating in response to your circumstances. Remind yourself that you can perform very well with anxiety, and probably have in the past. When trying to figure out how to calm your anxiety, think back to a previous experience when you were overtly anxious and yet managed to do what you needed to anyway.
Make an Anxiety Appointment
General anxiety can take over your day, getting in the way of work performance and routine tasks. If you don’t know how to calm your anxiety and stressful thoughts are threatening to derail your plans, set aside a 15-minute time slot to address them. This will help keep anxiety from spilling over into the rest of your day while training your brain to put aside negative thoughts until you are ready to handle them.
Get Up if You Can’t Sleep
If you are wide awake in bed wondering how to calm your anxiety, get up. Any time you find yourself battling to sleep for more than 10 minutes, move into another room and write down your worries. Go back to bed when you feel tired, but repeat the process of getting up if your mind is still restless. It may take a few disruptive nights to train your brain, but this move can be an effective strategy for anxiety relief, helping your mind associate your bed with rest not stress.
Take a Social Media Break
If you’re in need of some anxiety relief, put down your phone. Scrolling through social media is not only addictive, it has been regularly shown to increase one’s negative feelings about themselves. It can also be viewed as an unrewarding or unproductive use of time, doubling its undesirable effects. Switch the time you spend viewing other’s lives online to something that brings you more joy, whether that’s reading, dedicating 10 minutes to a skill you’d like to improve, or using your internet browsing more fruitfully, such as watching YouTube cooking tutorials or following educational or inspirational role models.
Avoid Stimulants
Culturally popular stimulants like caffeine and alcohol aren’t for everybody, and they can be particularly harmful for those who don’t know how to calm their anxiety. While alcohol may initially appear to provide some anxiety relief, it has been shown to aggravate symptoms over time.
Take a Cold Shower
Although you may consider the idea unpleasant, many people wanting to know how to calm anxiety are turning to cold therapy. While access to a cold plunge or ice bath may be difficult, you can get the same anxiety relief benefits at home with a cold shower. Research shows this can boost dopamine levels and release endorphins – two chemicals renowned for their mood-boosting abilities.
Burn it Off
Sometimes the question you need to be asking is not how to calm anxiety, but how to burn it off. Feelings of stress sometimes require a more energetic output. If you’re too wound up for activities like deep breathing, try something high energy such as dancing to loud music, any aerobic exercise, or walking briskly outside in the fresh air.
Share Your Feelings with Someone You Trust
Avoiding unpleasant thoughts can make your symptoms worse. If you’re trying to address how to calm anxiety, talk it over with someone you trust. Also consider psychotherapy, which has a high success rate for those with anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy has been found to be particularly helpful, and although the benefits require multiple sessions to take effect, individuals often report feeling better after just one.
Almost a fifth of the American population is living with an anxiety disorder. Knowing that your symptoms are both common and normal can help you feel less alone. If your anxiety is long-lasting and affects your day-to-day life, you could have an anxiety disorder. Chat to your healthcare provider about treatment options.
8 Strategies for Quick Stress Relief
Society’s stress levels are on the rise, which can keep us from feeling and performing at our best. Not only that: chronic stress also puts us at a higher risk of both mental and physical health problems. There are many tried and tested ways to manage stress, including yoga and meditation, exercise, medication and therapy, to name a few.
However, we aren’t always afforded time to address our stress and need solutions that offer some instant relief. The quick stress relief tips outlined below can help you to stay calm, focused and constructive when you need to take immediate action against stress.
Addressing stress is not a one-size-fits-all solution; you may need to experiment with different techniques and ways to relieve stress to find what works best for you.
Recognize that You’re Stressed
It may seem obvious, but sometimes our stress levels have us running on autopilot and we don’t pause to notice that we’re in a stressed state. Taking a moment to observe ourselves is the first step towards quick stress relief. Look out for tense muscles, a tight stomach, clenched hands or jaw and shallow breathing.
Take 10
Taking regular breaks throughout the day is one of the simpler ways to relieve stress quickly – temporarily resting the mind, shifting our focus and giving the central nervous system a chance to calm down. Breaks as short as 10 minutes have been shown to both provide quick stress relief as well as improve mental health.
Recruit Your Senses
One of the most effective ways to relieve stress in live time is to engage the senses: sight, sound, touch, taste or smell. The senses that have the most beneficial effects will differ person-to-person, so take some time to explore which sensory experiences work best for you. Recruiting sight could include using plants or flowers to brighten up your work space, surrounding yourself with colors that positively stimulate you, or keeping photos of loved ones or happy memories close at hand. Glancing at these in stressful times can have an instantly soothing effect.
Garnering quick stress relief from smell could include lighting a scented candle, using essential oil diffusers or roll-ons, or spritzing your favorite perfume or cologne. Cuddling a pet, massaging your hands or neck, or rolling your feet over a golf ball are different ways to incorporate touch into your quick stress relief strategy. Recruiting sound could include listening to your favorite music or playlists specifically designed to help relax you (such as whale or ocean sounds or binaural beats), or enhancing your work space with wind chimes or a water fountain. When it comes to taste, dark chocolate has been shown to regulate levels of cortisol (our stress hormone), while eating crunchy raw vegetables has a calming effect by creating sensations that draw you out of the mind and into the present.
Chew Gum
Ironically associated with a more casual attitude, chewing gum may help to lower your anxiety or ease stress. Some schools of thought believe the benefits of this quick stress relief strategy come from enhanced blood flow to the brain, while others think it’s engaging the senses with smell, taste and movement that helps you to relax.
Keep Smiling
It turns out the old adage that suggests we “grin and bear it” may in fact be a helpful strategy for quick stress relief. A genuine smile that recruits the muscles around your eyes and mouth has been shown to help reduce the body’s stress responses, regardless of whether or not the smiler feels happy. Once a short-term stressful situation has ended, smiling can also help return your heart rate to normal quicker.
Reboot Your Breathing
The breath is closely linked to our state of wellbeing or stress. Slowing, deepening and regulating the breath during periods of stress can curb the body’s “fight or flight” response, helping you to relax. Try taking deep inhales followed by slow exhales of equal or longer length while mentally or verbally repeating a word or mantra that calms you, such as “relax” or “I am safe”. You could also try yogic pranayama breathing which involves inhaling through one nostril then exhaling out the other.
Write it Down
Jotting down thoughts and feelings can be a powerful emotional outlet and one of the more accessible ways to relieve stress quickly. Regardless of whether you prefer paper and pen or typing on your phone or laptop, channeling your thoughts this way may serve not only as a form of quick stress relief, but as a gatekeeper of your reactions to others as well.
Drip Cold Water on Your Wrists
There are major arteries right underneath the skin of both the wrists and the earlobes. Dropping cold water onto these areas can serve as an effective strategy for quick stress relief.
Hopefully a few of the quick stress relief strategies listed above help you to keep calm in challenging situations. It is important to reach out to a healthcare provider if stress is affecting your daily functioning, impacting your physical or mental health or generating new or unusual symptoms.
How to Manage Stress with The 4 A’s
While stress is a part of being human, it’s arguable that today’s fast paced and complex work and home environments have peaked society’s stress levels higher than ever. Learning how to manage stress can help you balance your life better – finding time for work, relationships, leisure and fun and building resilience to hold up better under pressure.
If you are wanting to learn how to manage stress, one of the common ways to reduce stress is to practice the four A’s of stress management: avoid, alter, adapt or accept.
Avoiding Unnecessary Stress
While avoidance is not always a healthy strategy when exploring how to manage stress, there are many unnecessary stressors that can be eliminated simply through avoidance. This could include saying “no” to commitments in your professional or personal life that are going to push you beyond your limits, or reducing the time you spend with individuals who add stress to your life.
Learning how to manage stress through avoidance could also include taking control of your environment: avoiding traveling in peak traffic, switching off the news, or opting for shopping online rather than facing busy and time-consuming stores. This strategy also extends to certain subject matter that upsets you. If you find yourself constantly arguing with a relative over religion or politics, cross those subjects off the conversation list, stick to your game plan when you’re tempted to reengage, and leave the conversation if the topic arises.
Avoidance also extends to extra items on your to-do list. One of the simpler ways to reduce stress includes taking an in-depth look at your list of responsibilities and daily tasks, and getting honest about which items you could put off or eliminate entirely.
Altering Certain Situations
Since we aren’t always able to avoid the things that stress us out, learning how to manage stress may involve making changes in certain situations rather than avoiding them entirely. This could include altering how you respond in specific circumstances i.e. choosing to communicate your concerns with someone who is bothering you versus bottling them up and building resentment. On the contrary, altering a situation could include you choosing to compromise e.g. ceding a third point in an argument if your first two have been accepted. Taking control of your behavior – perhaps by being more assertive or prioritizing work/life balance is another way to alter situations to help reduce stress.
Adapting in the Face of Stress
It is difficult to know how to manage stress if there is no way to change any element of a stressor you are faced with. In these instances, you could try changing your perspective instead. Adapting to circumstances you can’t control might serve you better in the long run. Reframing problems may find you tuning into your favorite podcast during a traffic jam, or realizing that that argument with a stranger will be meaningless in a week’s time. Practicing gratitude is another one of the healthy ways to reduce stress helping you put certain issues into perspective and bring those things you appreciate most into the foreground of your focus.
Adapting to certain stressors may require adjusting your standards as well. If you are a natural perfectionist, being okay with “good enough” may be an important part of learning how to manage your stress better.
Accepting Unchangeable Circumstances
Sometimes, stress is unavoidable, as is the case with a serious illness, a natural disaster or the death of a loved one. While it can be more difficult than it sounds, accepting a tough situation is one of the most powerful ways to reduce stress. Acceptance also requires relinquishing control over the uncontrollable. Relationships and human interactions are primary sources of stress, probably because the behavior of other people is beyond our control. While we aren’t in the driver’s seat when it comes to what others might say or do, we do get to choose how we react.
As hard as it may seem to do in the moment, choosing to look at challenges as opportunities for growth is a powerful strategy for learning how to manage stress. Expressing what you’re going through can also be one of the more helpful ways to reduce stress when there is nothing else within your control. Regularly talking to a trusted friend or therapist may become a helpful habit to build when learning how to manage stress.
It can be difficult to know how to manage stress. If you are feeling overwhelmed, using alcohol or drugs to cope, or having thoughts about hurting yourself, it’s time to seek the help of a healthcare provider. There are a number of different strategies to help you learn how to manage your stress, including medication and natural remedies, such as meditation.
Focus at Work: Essential Tips for Staying on Task
Modern life means we are surrounded by distractions: from smartphone notifications and multiple social media streams, to a surplus of unnecessary commitments and a never-ending to-do list. There is always something we should be busy with, and so many distractions pulling our focus from the task in front of us.
This conundrum is made even more challenging when we face it in an open office setting. Spontaneous interactions with colleagues, ringing phones, loud conversations, people moving about, or doors constantly opening and closing can all contribute to more distractions and less productivity.
Here are a handful of strategies to consider if you are exploring how to stay focused in an office without coming off as rude or antisocial to your colleagues.
Benefits of Learning How to Stay Focused in an Office
As with anything that requires effort, the benefits of exploring how to focus better at work serve as an excellent incentive. Some reasons to put a little more energy into your concentration levels in the office include:
Getting More Done in Less Time
Distracted workers are less productive, sometimes losing over two hours a day to interruptions. That could mean more than 10 unproductive hours per week. Simply reducing work hours can be motivating when considering how to focus better at work.
Building Momentum
Uninterrupted time spent on projects is the key to completing them efficiently – or at all. 45 minutes of undisturbed focus is likely to produce more work than 45 minutes of total work time broken up by indulging distractions whenever they crop up. Uninterrupted work could also mean putting smaller, less important daily tasks aside to pursue a higher priority one with more important outcomes.
Reducing Stress and Promoting Better Work/Life Balance
Working less productively means more hours spent on work than is necessary. This may result in work bleeding into your private life, with you taking work home or staying up late to complete tasks. When you finish the work you aimed to complete in the day, you are less likely to feel guilty about clocking off and reduce stress by promoting better work/life balance.
Tips for How to Stay Focused in an Office
Put Aside Time for Your Colleagues
While fellow workers may be one of your biggest distractors, there is also merit to having company in the office. Getting to know your colleagues and interacting regularly provides opportunities for connection, collaboration, humor and support. Mentally block out time each day to catch up and interact with other staff members. This will help you set more realistic deadlines and feel less stressed or rushed for time if a colleague wants to catch up.
Go With the Flow
If you are establishing how to stay focused in an office, dedicate time to observing your circadian rhythms. They dictate the times of day we are most likely to be energetic, focused or drowsy. Pay attention to peaks and dips in your concentration, assigning more important tasks to those hours where you feel the most productive. Digital time trackers can help you observe time spent on the same activity during the morning versus afternoon, helping you deduce when you are at your most efficient.
Align Expectations
Sharing an understanding of office dos and don’ts can help colleagues in a communal space to work more effectively together. Perhaps all team members agree to speak in whispers when a colleague is on the phone, or there is an earbud protocol in place where wearing two earbuds means “do not disturb”, wearing one earbud means “ask before disturbing” and no earbuds in means “I’m free to talk”.
Wear Noise-Cancelling Headphones
When you are in “do not disturb” mode, noise-cancelling headphones can help to drown out distractions – whether you choose to play classical music, white noise, or whatever helps you concentrate best. As discussed above, these can also serve as a visual cue that you don’t want to be interrupted – although you should use them sparingly so as to still promote healthy social dynamics.
Move Around the Office
Even the most open-plan offices are likely to have a few secluded areas for more concentration-heavy work. If you are exploring how to stay focused in an office, ask your boss if you can keep an eye out for an open conference room, semi-private cubicles or even desks that may be free due to absenteeism. If you work in a large company, it can be helpful to move to a different floor of the building, where you presumably know fewer people and are thus less likely to be distracted. You may even request permission to leave the office temporarily to a nearby coffee shop when you are busy with particularly focus-demanding tasks. This is a smaller ask than requesting to work remotely.
Use Your Commute Wisely
Having energy to focus requires taking full advantage of your “off” time. If you have a commute to the office each day, make use of the precious alone time with a consistent “pre-work routine”. Whether it is listening to a podcast, reading a book, planning a holiday or even napping on the train, targeted, routine downtime can help to not only provide you with extra rest, but also condition you to slip into work mode once your commute is complete.
Keep an Organized Work Space
A cluttered space can create a restless mind. When exploring how to stay focused in an office, try freeing your work space from old post, unnecessary office supplies or non-urgent filing. Even if your desk is tidy, remove extra items and create a simple, even slightly boring environment. Too much visual stimulation – even if it is organized and appealing – can contribute to brain fog and lower productivity.
Adjust Your Environment
Learning how to focus better at work requires you to adapt the ergonomics of your chair and desk. Raise or lower your seat so your feet sit flat on the floor or on a foot rest. Ensure your computer screen is slightly below your eye level – computer risers can help if this isn’t the case. Adjust the back support of your chair to sit flush against your lower back (there are portable back supports that can help with this). Reducing stress is an important part of considering how to focus better at work. Plants have been shown to relieve stress in the workplace – so invest in a small houseplant to place on your desk. Try to bring in as much natural light as possible, opening shutters near you if available, or bringing your own overhead LED lamp to work to emulate natural lighting.
Just Start Working and the Brain will Catch Up
You don’t always have to start strong to get stuck into a project. Even if your mind is blank, get started on the task at hand. If, for example, you are writing an article, sit at your desk and begin writing, even if the quality is poor. Simply starting the process can be enough to kick start the brain into focus-mode, regardless of getting off to a bumpy start.
Write Down Other Thoughts and Ideas
Often, a plethora of thoughts, to-dos and ideas crop up while you’re busy with something else. Rather than allowing your brain to follow each thought, simply write all of them down on a nearby notepad. This way, you won’t worry about forgetting them later, but you’ll resist disturbing your concentration to address ideas in live time. If you’re writing up something, the same goes for editing. Rather than disrupting your focus by checking your grammar and spelling as you go, return to editing once the whole body of work is complete.
Improve Your Bedtime Routine
While this obviously doesn’t refer to in-office practices, the standard of other routines in your everyday life can influence your productivity at work. Focus and performance are dependent on sleep quality, and if your office hours are fairly rigid, you will benefit from consistent sleep patterns. If you are considering how to focus better at work, aim for more than seven hours of sleep each night, following the same pre-routine daily to queue the body for sleep.
Stay Active at the Office
If you are office-bound for the majority of the day, chances are you are stationary for hours on end. This can result in energy slumps and poor focus. Incorporate activity into an otherwise sedentary environment: consider sitting on an exercise ball for a few hours at a time; stand up and stretch every 45 minutes; take the stairs where possible; keep a mini-rebounder in your office if space allows, jumping on it between tasks (which proves more effective than a power nap); or keep a pair of dumbbells under your desk to practice bicep curls, weighted lunges or shoulder presses a few times in the day for a surge of blood circulation and concentration reboot.
Have a Focus Mantra
There are certain practices we can instill to bring the mind back to the present each time it wanders. A personal mantra designed to remind you of the task at hand can serve as a useful reset. Each time you find your focus straying, try repeating a statement in your mind, such as “It’s time to keep working on this task” or “Do what you are doing right now”. This can quickly become an effective tool to resume your concentration when working on how to stay focused in an office.
Do the Hardest Task First
Leaving the most challenging task on your to-do list for last encourages procrastination and casts a negative lens over the time leading up to it. Often the hardest part of a project is getting started, so commit to simply beginning the work, even if you don’t complete it. Getting used to knuckling down on unattractive activities is a powerful tool to teach your mind discipline and train it to push through procrastination.
Physically Remove Distractions
It takes willpower to ignore distractions such as smartphone notifications and social media. Rather than using energy to resist temptations, put them out of sight. A smartphone should be placed in a drawer or another room rather than simply set to silent, put your emails into “do not disturb” mode for chunks of time, and try app-blockers to keep you off of distracting platforms for predetermined time periods.
Plan Your Week
Having a game plan of tasks you want to complete will rope the brain’s reward system into your work day, triggering a satisfying release of dopamine after completing work. Take some time at the beginning of the week to realistically map out your responsibilities – there are apps that can help you plan your week, manage your time and knock important items off your to-do list.
If you are exploring how to stay focused in an office, there is also a range of other tools you can recruit, including food, medicine and supplements, that aren’t necessarily specific to working in a communal space. Whether you find yourself zoning out on Zoom call meetings, or working through your email inbox instead of addressing an important deadline, remember that focus is like a muscle: the more you work on exercising it, the more your focus can improve. Give the above tips a try and see if you can train your brain to stick to the task in front of you when you are office-bound.