Stressed? 5 Techniques For Dealing With Anxiety
Does it feel like your stress is controlling you, rather than the other way around? Are you feeling overwhelmed, or getting anxious about something coming up? Allow me to share five quick, simple techniques that can help you get back on a level playing field.
Stress is, unfortunately, a part of life. Everyone, no matter how successful or “healthy” they are, will at some point experience some kind of stress. It may be nerves ahead of a job interview or public speaking, or it could be such intense overwhelm that it results in an anxiety attack.
Such feelings are a sign that we are experiencing a situation from our sympathetic nervous system, often known as our fight, flight, freeze or fawn mechanism. This part of our brain has a vital evolutionary role, in that it helps us identify and respond to danger. This isn’t part of our DNA where we pause and reflect, making heavily considered decisions about what to do next. If a predator is approaching, we have to respond immediately. This isn’t the time to analyse in which direction we want to run and at what speed will be most efficient. We just have to start running.
Unfortunately, our brain isn’t always as effective as we’d like in distinguishing between real threats (“my life is at risk”) and imagined threats (“people might think less of me if I make a mistake”). This means that an activity such as public speaking – where our safety is essentially guaranteed – can still leave some completely and utterly overwhelmed. “This situation is dangerous”, your brain is saying, “you need to get as far away from this situation as you can”.
“Unfortunately, our brain isn’t always as effective as we’d like in distinguishing between real threats (“my life is at risk”) and imagined threats (“people might think less of me if I make a mistake”)”
Obviously, this isn’t always helpful. There are times when we feel stress, anxiety, or overwhelm and would rather not. This can be when we find ourselves unable to make an important decision, or finding ourselves tripping over our words when talking to someone who makes us feel nervous.
So given this can happen when we don’t want it to, and at a time where we’re least able to process what we’re experiencing, how can we overcome it?
The best way to overcome this is usually to take a break and do something else. The problem is we don’t always have the time to do that. We need something fast, efficient and simple. If it’s too hard to do, frankly, we won’t do it. Our brain during times of stress isn’t interested in complicated or difficult options. That’s why giving up and walking away often feels the most tempting – if impractical – option.
“The best way to overcome this is usually to take a break and do something else. The problem is we don’t always have the time to do that. We need something fast, efficient and simple.”
The key is to focus on the fundamentals of the human experience; our breath, our senses, our surroundings. If we can put our full attention in to something so simple our primitive ancestors would have had access to them, it only has to take a few seconds to lessen the immediate stresses of our modern lives.
With that in mind, here are five techniques you can do almost anywhere and that take just seconds to do:
1. 4, 7, 8 Breathing
Regulating our breathing is the quickest way to provide us space to get on top of feelings of anxiety, and I’ll provide two examples in this list. I find this first one to be my go-to in times of stress, and you may know of it as pranayama in yoga.
To do this you take a deep breath for four seconds, then hold that breath for seven seconds, and then breath out for eight seconds. And repeat.
It’s that simple. While you can play around with the lengths based on your circumstances, the key is that the out-breath must be longer than the in-breath. Breathing out for longer than you breathe in will bring your nervous system down in just a few seconds.
2. The Physiological Sigh
This is another technique that focuses on breath. It mirrors what our body does automatically at times of needing more air, and yet we don’t even notice it.
To do this, take a breath in. However, before you breath back out, inhale again. Two in-breaths in a row. And then breath out. It’ll go: breathe in, breathe in, breathe out.
It may sound unusual, but have you ever been so upset that you make that repeated air sucking noise, like you're gasping for air in the tiniest in-breaths you can manage at that moment? It's a noise parents may recognise when their child has just stopped crying, with the *sniff* *sniff* *sniff* noise before each out-breath. These in-breaths mimic these experiences by filling up the vast excesses of our lungs in a way a regular breath doesn't, and goes a long way to decompressing and getting us back on a level playing field.
3. Grounding Your Senses
This is a personal favourite of mine, and it’s so simple I’ve taught my three-year-old daughter it. When feeling anxious or overwhelmed I take things back to the very basics of my being; my senses.
To do this, firstly identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
If I were to do it right now, I'd say; five things I can see are I can see my laptop screen, my desk, my cup of tea, a photo of my wife and daughter, and a painting of the Clifton Suspension Bridge hanging on my wall. Then, four things I can touch are my keyboard, my desk, my shirt, the office door. Then, three things I can hear are a car going by, music coming from the kitchen, people talking outside my house. Two things I can smell are the lingering aroma of toast from my breakfast, and the laundry detergent on my shirt. And one thing I can taste is the toothpaste from brushing my teeth this morning.
This technique forces us to reset our focus, moving away from whatever it is that is making us feel stressed and instead towards the most fundamental experiences of our being; our senses. This re-focus allows us the chance to pause, reset, and then start again.
4. 20, 20, 20
This is one helpful for if the thing bringing you stress is coming from something right in front of you, such as your computer screen at work.
The goal here is to look at something 20 metres away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes.
For me, that often means looking out of the window of my house at a tree down the road. By focusing on this it takes the energy away from the immediate danger (at least, that’s how our brain processes it) and on to something far away. It has the added benefit of being good for our eyes to focus on something far away as well as several inches from our face.
5. Bilateral Stimulation
This technique focuses on activities that engage both sides of your brain.
It can work as simply as looking to something out of the left side of your eyes, and then to the right, and then to the left, and so on. Alternatively, you can tap yourself on the left side of your body, then the right side, then the left. You can even experiencing through walking, with a right step, left step, right step, left step. Anything to experience a sensation that involves alternating sides of your body, and there are plenty of examples you can find online.
What I have found works most powerfully for me is bilateral drawing. This works by grabbing a blank piece of paper, taking a pen in each hand, setting a timer, and then drawing identical shapes with each hand without ever letting the pen come off the page. I've found that combining this with listening to music you love can be particularly powerful; I did it this morning to “Sometimes” by the rock band James, and found myself making swirls and patterns to the tune of the song, concentration flicking from my dominant left hand to my more clumsy right hand, and back, as I got lost in the song. My thoughts slowly moved away from my intimidating do-list, and it meant when I went back to it I was no longer quite so overwhelmed.
Of course, you don’t have to do all of these at once, which is what makes them so valuable. If you find one that works for you, great, focus on that. If you find that doing a combination of these brings heightened results, that’s brilliant. I personally find the 4, 7, 8 Breathing followed by Grounding Your Senses combines very well, but everyone will be different.
Where these techniques can be most powerful, however, is in not waiting until feelings of stress to use them. Proactively calming your nervous system can have an immense effect on our ability to process stress in the first place, and so incorporating any and all of these techniques can give you the best footing to take on the challenges of the day. The best cure is prevention, after all.
I hope these techniques go some way to helping you stay calm, and if you have any questions on any of these techniques you can use this contract form to get in touch and I’d be happy to discuss further.
Top Three Takeaways:
Stress is a vital part of our evolution: our sympathetic nervous system helps us to stay safe, but isn’t always effective at identifying how real a danger is
Speed and ease are critical to stress management techniques: we often don’t have the luxury of time when feeling stressed, so identifying quick and easy tools will be the fastest way to de-escalating
Focusing on human fundamentals are key to remaining calm: activities that are a core part of the human experience, such as breathing or our senses, are the quickest way to removing excess stress
If you’re looking to go further with overcoming stress and anxiety, check out my Services page to see what I can do for you as a Stress Management Coach.