Cope with Anxiety in 5 Minutes or Less
Oh, anxiety, our old friend…it is quite literally never great to see you again! Unfortunately, the experience of feeling anxious is one that almost everyone experiences. For that reason, if we can’t stop the waves, we have to try to learn to surf, as Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us.
Anxiety can feel like: your heart pounding, feeling hot and sweaty, feeling antsy or like you can’t be still, thinking things like: “Everything is awful,” “Everything is ruined,” “Life is a disaster,” …you get the idea. It often shows up when we most need to feel calm, like before a big game, during a presentation in class, or walking into a social situation where we would really love to be able to make a good impression.
I have known many people who have told me that being told anyone to “use your coping skills” is infuriating and invalidating of their experience, but that it’s still incredibly hard in the moment to not know what to do and to just desperately want the feeling to go away. I get it. I absolutely hate being told to “just relax” when I’m anxious–if I could, I would! Well, these tips might not help you to relax entirely, but they could help you to get through this one difficult moment into the next, hopefully less difficult, moment of your life.
Name what’s going on: When you feel your heart racing or those unpleasant thoughts start up, say to yourself, “I’m feeling anxious.” This might sound overly simple or pointless, but labeling your experience accurately helps to calm down the part of your brain that processes fear and intense emotion. This skill is called affective labeling–essentially, labeling your feelings–and has been proven by researchers to be effective in moments of stress.
Use your senses: Eat a Starburst or sour candy (pink and red only forever), splash cold water on your face, put on a scented lotion, or hold onto an ice cube–sometimes, anxiety makes us feel outside of our bodies–that floaty, out of control feeling. Giving yourself a sensory experience to focus your attention on stops the spiral.
Breathe: Ah, breathing exercises. How many people hate to be told to practice them, but how effective they are!! Sorry friends, but I am a yoga teacher and student at heart, and believe in the power of using your breath to calm your nervous system. My favorite one for anxiety is simple: Put your hands on your belly or on your chest. Breathe in for a count of 4. Breathe out for a count of 4. When you’ve mastered that, breathe in for 4, out for 6. Then, in for 4, out for 8. This is called 2:1 breathing and it works! Don’t take my word for it–read the research!
Move: If anxiety is showing up for you in that antsy, tingly, can’t-sit-still way, that’s your clue to try moving your body. You can go for high intensity (think jumping jacks or high knees), or low intensity (think child’s pose to table top pose to cat/cows). Sometimes we quite literally have to shake it out to be able to move forward.
I hope that was helpful! Most of all, remember: This moment is temporary. It will not last forever. You will get through it. Slowly but surely, you will learn to surf.