how to reduce anxiety and stress in 3 steps
If you struggle with anxiety, anxious or insecure thoughts, you are not alone. Anxiety can manifest physically and mentally in our bodies so it's important to acknowledge and take action to reduce those feelings of stress. In this episode, I read a few poems from my poetry collection changing with the tides and shared my 3-step process that I use when I’m feeling anxious or stressed.
step one
The first step I take to reduce my anxiety has taken a lot of practice, and it’s something that I’m still actively practicing: being mindful about what is actually causing the anxiety. Anxiety can really manifest in our physical health too, it can cause stomach pains and stomach issues, can lead to nail biting, picking at your skin, all sorts of physical manifestations.
Whenever I am experiencing those physical aspects or feeling particularly anxious or nervous, I try my best to stop and identify what’s causing the anxiety. It can be helpful to keep a log or journal of this, marking out the date you’re experiencing these symptoms and the root of it. I think it's so important to be mindful of this and try to actively focus on what could be causing it because we can become really used to it. Acknowledging when you feel this way and recognizing your symptoms can help identify the root of the anxiety, which leads us to step two.
step two
There’s one piece of advice that I hear a lot about managing anxiety that I don’t like: identify what the root cause of your anxiety is and think about the worst thing that could happen. then think about the probability of that worst thing happening. But for me, thinking that way is what often causes my anxiety in the first place, so that doesn’t work for me. even if I know the chances of that worst case scenario happening are low.
What I like to do instead is to think about the opportunities. Think about the positives that could come out of it. So for example if you are really anxious about a job interview or a presentation that you have to give, think about what good could come out of it. Maybe you’ll knock it out of the park and get a promotion or you get the job offer and you really impress everyone and yourself.
Maybe if you're feeling anxious about a social event the best outcome is that you do great, you mingle and you interact with people and it goes well. Maybe you will even make a new friend. So I try to think about what the positives could be in a situation versus trying to focus on the negatives and the probability of that happening.
step three
The last step in my process is trying to interrupt my thoughts. For me that's usually something where I’m using my full body and not just pacing or picking at my nails. Usually I turn to a creative project like writing or working on my own business, listening to music, going for a walk. My goal is to clear my head as much as possible because if I'm left to just sit there in silence and think about it, I will. So while it’s common advice to do something you enjoy to distract yourself, I find that it really does help.
small step
As always in every episode I give you a small step to take with you that we can practice in our journey to self-love. For this episode I think it makes sense to just practice these three steps. Next time that you're feeling nervous or anxious try to apply these in your life. Maybe you start with step one and you just focus for a few weeks on identifying the causes of your anxiety or the causes of why you're feeling nervous or anxious and then incorporating step two and then incorporating step three and seeing how it goes for you. If you already have things that work for you, I would very much love to hear what you do when you're feeling anxious. Leave a comment on the youtube video, or leave a review on one of the podcast sites and let me know your thoughts!
where to listen
tune into the podcast episode to hear more about reducing stress and anxiety, and to hear me read two poems from my collection changing with the tides!
Remember that if you are dealing with anxiety, you are not alone, and there are resources to help you. I hope these steps can help ease some of the stress and anxiety you may feel, and help you recognize the root of how you are feeling.
Also, I created a voicemail box for listeners to send me voicemails and be featured in future podcast episodes! If you have any thoughts about anxiety, or topics from previous episodes about self-doubt, insecurity, self compassion, I would love to hear from you! You can leave me a voicemail here!