Suffering from an anxiety disorder can mean dealing with various levels of anxiety every single day of your life. It can get really tough at times and often, it feels neverending. Thankfully, as awareness is increasing, so are the resources. Here are the ways you can reduce daily anxiety.
1. Be creative
Creativity is a great way to channel that anxious energy. It’s a fantastic way to express yourself as well as seeing something pretty at the end of it. Creativity can come in many forms. You could try composing a song, writing a poem, colouring, drawing, painting, sculpting, knitting… The list goes on!
Distractions can really help as they divert anxious thoughts. If you are stuck at home, look for things you can do to stay busy but also relax a little. Cleaning is productive and although it can be used for mindfulness practice, it can also lead to being stressed out which is why I suggest trying something creative. It requires focus but there is no pressure attached.
2. Exercise
It’s no secret that exercise is good for our mental health as well as physical health. Doing some kind of exercise every day will decrease the anxiety while your exercising but should also decrease the amount of anxiety you experience generally.
Start with something simple like a short walk or a few yoga stretches. Personally, I really like using Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure as it guides you and you set the difficulty. It’s a great way to exercise as it’s fun but you are still in control unlike if you follow an online class.
3. Relaxation
Make time every day where you can just relax. Something that helped me a lot was at some point every day, I would lie down and do about ten minutes of progressive muscle relaxation. It helps to relax both body and mind which is what you want when you are experiencing anxiety. There are other things you could do like guided meditation, mindfulness exercises or even just making time to sit and read a book. We all need a moment to relax and the more that becomes routine, the less anxious you should feel.
4. Talking
Talking helps in various ways. The first, most obvious way is that it regulates your breathing. You can’t talk and hold your breath or talk and hyperventilate. It also serves as a great distraction. You don’t have to talk about anything in particular but I find that talking to someone can help divert your thoughts away from the anxiety. When you are by yourself in silence, thoughts can go wild. Talking about how your feeling can also help a lot. Express your worries to someone you trust. Address the symptoms. I always found that it was just a little bit easier to deal with anxiety when I vocalised that I was feeling anxious. It’s hard to explain why but my guess would be that it releases me of feeling the need to hide it.
5. Journaling thoughts
Writing things down is such a great way to clear our minds. Since we have to do a lot of writing in school, we often avoid doing it when we don’t have to. However, writing can be very therapeutic. The best thing about journaling your thoughts is you can do it in whatever way suits you. Nobody else is supposed to read it. Perhaps you need to rant about something that happened in the day or you have some great idea for the future. Maybe it’s just a quote or a saying you heard that you want to remember. It can be compiled of sketches, photos, whatever you want! It’s a safe space for you to express yourself. By not bottling things up, you may find that as time goes on, your anxiety eases.
These are five things that have worked for me and although they don’t get rid of anxiety entirely, they definitely help make it bearable on a day-to-day basis. We all have our challenges and managing anxiety makes it that much harder. Having an outlet is the most crucial and these five tips are basically that. An outlet to relieve some of the symptoms anxiety can bring.