The Top 7 Natural Anti-Anxiety Techniques
1. BREATHING EXERCISES
There is nothing simpler than a breathing exercise to deal with uncomfortable anxiety. It is free. It is quick. It is always available wherever you are. Its proven effectiveness has been established time and time again for de-stressing.
In the 1970s, Harvard Professor Herbert Benson, MD, Cardiologist, and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, produced some of the first medically validated studies on behavioral relaxation responses to hypertension and stress. His team proved that simple breathing exercises could actually lower blood pressure and decrease heart rates in a matter of minutes! That is quicker than most medications take effect.
And you have choices. Who knew there were so many options for breathing?! Let’s look at some anti-anxiety variations of this popular technique.
Mindful Breathing: involves focusing on every physical detail of your inhales and exhales. Details such as the sensations of your chest and stomach rising and falling, the feeling of the cool air in your nose during inhale and the warm air on your lips and surrounding skin on exhale, as well as the various other body sensations you can become aware of while breathing.
Mindful breathing is simply making breathing an all-encompassing, focused activity for a short duration of time. Use this breathing technique when you notice your mind racing, when you are feeling overwhelmed, or simply as a routine self-care mindfulness exercise.
Breath Regulation 3-3-3: is an excellent tactic to use when you feel panic symptoms beginning and you need to regulate your breath. When your heart rate suddenly increases and you think you may be about to have intense anxiety or even a panic attack, you should try this one.
Take a long, slow breath in through your nose to a count of three. Slowly. 1…2…3…, not 123!! Hold your breath to the count of three. Exhale slowly, to a count of three, while you relax the muscles in your face, jaw, shoulders, and stomach. Imagine you are blowing up a balloon on your exhale. Breathe out every last bit of air from your lungs in that final count of three.
Repeat the whole process until you start to feel your heart rate slow once more. This will counteract your body’s fight or flight response.
Diaphragmatic Breathing, or Deep Breathing: is my favorite technique to recommend. Specifically, 4-7-8 is what I teach my clients. This one has even been recommended to help insomniacs get to sleep. I have not yet seen a body of evidence to support this claim, but I can see why it might work for sleep. This technique is said to be derived from an ancient Vedic technique, Pranayama, which is the formal practice of controlling the breath. Dr. Andrew Weil, MD, describes the steps involved as follows:
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
Hold your breath for a count of seven.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.
This technique will require practice, but it is worth it. Want to see it demonstrated? Watch Dr. Weil here.
2. PROGRESSIVE MUSCLE RELAXATION (PMR)
We can also look to Harvard University for our second anti-anxiety technique. In 1908, Edmund Jacobson developed the first detailed ‘procedure’ for removing muscular tension. This is great if you have generalized anxiety and hold a lot of tension in your body.
It involves isolating groups of muscles, purposely tensing them for a short hold time, and then releasing the tension. Beginning on one end of the body and moving all the way through, muscle group by muscle group, until you reach the other end of the body.
A good progressive muscle relaxation exercise should last at least 10 minutes. I routinely instruct my clients to use this when they are having difficulty falling asleep. A quick google search will turn up lots of different options for guided progressive relaxation exercises.
3. MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness is essentially knowing what you are doing when you are doing it. Many of us shift into an ‘auto-pilot’ mode and are not tuned into the present moment. This happens for various reasons, but one of the side effects of mindlessness is that you can time travel into the past and into the future way too easily.
When you are experiencing anxiety, it can be helpful to have a trick to help you stay focused on the here and now, free from judgement and thoughts of the past and future. Observing yourself as if you were detached from your experiences has a unique value. When you allow sensations and thoughts to enter your awareness without trying to judge or make meaning of them, you can begin to detach from the emotional responses that usually accompany them. There are several options for developing a mindfulness practice in your life.
Meditation is an excellent pathway to mindfulness. Whether you do this yourself, or with the help of a guided meditation video or an app on your phone, you are sure to leave the experience with more peace than you entered into it.
Another mindfulness technique involves simply observing and describing. For example, you can stand in the grass or sand with your shoes off and simply feel the sensation of your bare feet on the ground. Describe to yourself the feeling of the ground underneath you, the temperature the softness or hardness, the texture, and whatever other specific details you experience. It is a simple but powerful anti-anxiety tool.
4. DE-STRESS
Adding more peaceful moments into your life is one thing, a peaceful lifestyle is a whole other thing. It is kind of hard to achieve this when you are up against some major life stresses. Take an inventory of your current stressors and see where you have room to make some healthy changes.
If you are in a stressful job, are there any steps you can take to alleviate some of that stress? If you are involved in some interpersonal conflict, is there a resolution, or a way to disengage from that stress? If you continuously find yourself in stressful time deadlines, is there a better way to organize your schedule and streamline your efforts? If you are handling a lot on your own and feel overwhelmed, is there someone you ask to help you lessen the responsibility? If you are carrying a heavy emotional burden, is there someone you can confide in to buoy your spirits?
De-stressing does not always seem practical or productive. Allow yourself the time to indulge in self-care:
connect with nature - get outside!
feel the warm sun on your skin
pet an animal
beautify a space in your home
take a warm bath with aromatherapy
get a massage
bonus if you live near the ocean, a lake, or a river: go to it and practice a mindfulness exercise
You will find that even your physical health improves when you take the time to de-stress your life.
5. REGULATE SLEEP/WAKE CYCLE
This is actually one of the very first things I ask my clients about when I meet them. Track your sleep habits for a week to see how many hours of sleep you are getting. Also, it is important to note what time you are falling asleep and what time you are waking each day. Ideally, your sleep/wake schedule is regular. When it is, your body and your brain are so much happier. The sleep hormones are regulated, and the feel good neurotransmitter chemicals are better regulated. It is an all natural way to achieve this!
Try to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. If at first you have trouble doing this, ask your doctor for some help. Eventually though, it will become your brain’s habit and you will not struggle as much. A good sign that your sleep is regulated is that you wake up around the same time every morning without needing an alarm.
Download the FREE Sleep Hygiene Checklist!
6. EXERCISE
You may have heard that regular exercise works as well as medication for anxiety for some individuals. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports that the positive effects of exercise on anxiety are experienced both immediately and long-term.
And the good news is that you don’t have to go all in to get results. Psychologists studying how exercise relieves anxiety and depression suggest that a 10-minute walk may be just as good as a 45-minute workout. So you can start with what level of exercise you are comfortable with and know the effort will be worthwhile.
7. NUTRITION
More and more, Psychologists are recognizing the mind-body connection as crucial to treating anxiety. Much like we would not tell someone to change their mood while ignoring their thoughts and behaviors, we cannot say: just ignore the body, let’s work with the mind.
This anti-anxiety tip is not the most popular one with my clients, but we can’t ignore its impact. Certain nutrients may worsen your anxiety and these need to be limited to give your body a break. The biggest offenders are caffeine, alcohol, and sugar.
Caffeine. Research shows us that panic symptoms that come on out-of-the-blue due to a genetic predisposition can be triggered by caffeine consumption. Caffeine also increases tension in your body, which is not helpful when you are dealing with generalized anxiety. For individuals who experience social anxiety, caffeine serves to magnify the nervous system’s arousal system. In other words, it can intensify those symptoms you are trying to hide: flushing, sweating, and shaking. Caffeine is in your coffee, tea, soda, chocolate, and energy drinks.
Alcohol. This one surprises some. “Wait. Doesn’t alcohol make me less anxious?” The answer is complex, because it seems that way in the beginning. Once the body has detoxed from the alcohol - which could take hours - you begin to experience increased anxiety and panic. It is as if there is an undertow that occurs and pulls away some of your natural comfort that existed before the alcohol was even consumed in the first place. (Interestingly, tobacco users report a similar occurrence with smoking.) Ultimately, alcohol consumption is bad for anxiety.
Sugar. I know. I’m sorry. Sugar is in everything it can seem. The goal is to maintain a stable blood sugar level. Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, can lead to symptoms that feel a lot like your anxiety symptoms. That doesn’t mean you should eat more sugar! When you consume sugar, your body produces more insulin to process the sugar into energy. Eating sugar = more insulin = drop in blood sugar = anxiety symptoms. Thanks body. The best way to avoid the rollercoaster is to avoid sugar, or at least limit it.
Chances are pretty good your general Physician would encourage you to limit these food choices whether you have anxiety, or not. That is a double recommendation. Hopefully that doubles your effort on this front. That logic makes sense to me!
Limit sugary mixed drinks.
This article is for informational purposes only, even if and to the extent that it features the advise of medical practitioners. This article is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advise, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice.
