How to Decrease Your Anxiety

Do you suffer with constant anxiety? I have been there, too! For many years, I was stressed and anxious and didn’t understand what I could do to help decrease it. Luckily, I have learned of a few things to help reduce my anxiety and it’s helped tremendously. Keep reading to find out how I’ve lowered my anxiety!

1. Meditate

I used to think meditating is for hippie yogis, but I’ve learned that this practice helps so much with lowering anxiety!

When my anxiety was at its peak, I stumbled across the Headspace free 10 day trial, and man was I happy I did! Just the free 10 days helped me understand what to do with my anxiety, so definitely check it out!!! (Hint: you’re going to hear about your thoughts being cars and them clogging up your “freeway”, aka brain, and how to get past it!)

Whenever I’ve had a stressful week, I will pull up my Headspace app, but I also LOVE this Tony Robbins priming video! I literally listen to this every single day on my drive to work, and I’m telling you it has helped so much! I can tell on days where I haven’t listened to it that I am way more anxious. Highly recommend!

2. Journal

Some of my favorite mentors and coaches has always told me to journal, which I think is funny because I remember journaling every day as a child. When did this habit disappear while growing up and why!?

Journaling has helped me reduce my anxiety. Any time I am stressed or anxious, I turn to my journal to write down all of my thoughts and worries. I can vent and express my raw emotions without judgment from anyone. I don’t like to put all of my stress on my husband either, so sometimes a good journaling session helps clear my mind and not dump everything onto him.

I always feel so much better when I am done journaling, and sometimes I like to go back and read the entries where I was most stressed and reflect on where that problem actually ended up. Usually it’s never as bad as my anxiety makes me think.

3. Get Sleep

This might sound basic, but getting sleep helps reduce stress and anxiety by a long shot. Whenever I am not getting quality sleep, I notice that my anxiety is amplified.

In the last couple of years, I’ve started nightly habits to ensure I get a good night’s sleep. Here are a couple things I do:

1. Start mentally preparing for bed about an hour before I want to fall asleep.
2. Wear my blue light blocking glasses if I am watching tv or on my phone. This helps block out the blue light that keeps us awake at night.
3. Prepare my clothes for the next morning so that my day will go smooth.
4. Read a book to wind down.
5. Do not get on social media an hour before bed.
6. Write my goals out and/or journal.

By implementing these habits, I am feeling more calm and able to fall asleep faster. Before, I would try to go right to sleep and lay in bed with all of my thoughts keeping me awake.

4. Work Out

This tip takes me back to when I was losing weight from college, and my stress and anxiety were at an all time high in my life. I gained 50lbs because my anxiety and sadness led me to binge-eating, so when I began my fitness journey, I realized that the gym was actually a place to go get my stress out!

On my most anxious days, I now head to the gym and use all of that energy to get a great workout in. I will blast music and channel every bit of anxiety into lifting heavier weights and pushing myself.

9 times out of 10, I will leave the gym incredibly less anxious, if anxious at all. When you work out, you release endorphins, and as I’m sure you know, “ENDORPHINS MAKE YOU HAPPY.” Haha, this is the truth though!

I honestly think of the gym as free therapy now, and I highly recommend working out if you are an anxious person.

5. Set Boundaries

I used to say “yes” to everyone and everything, and it was a huge reason for a lot of my stress and anxiety. I would constantly over-fill my plate and feel extremely overwhelmed. Have you ever done this too?

I learned that setting healthy boundaries is necessary for me to not have constant anxiety. Sometimes saying no to someone means saying yes to yourself. It means not overwhelming yourself and being able to feel more balanced.

If there is something you really don’t want to do and it is stressing you out, set boundaries and say NO. I learned why boundaries are healthy from reading “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud.

You Don’t Always Have to be Anxious

I used to think of myself as an inherently anxious person. I used to think that it was just the way I am and there’s nothing I could do about it. This is not necessarily true! Although I do still battle anxiety from time to time, I’ve realized that my habits can help shift and control my anxiety and stress.

What is something that you do to help reduce your anxiety??