KIMU

Relax. Be calm. Breathe. All phrases that can be super frustrating if you deal with anxiety, depression or you are highly strung and find life a little more stressful than most.

We all worry. We all get stressed and we all need a moment from time to time to cry in the bathtub. It’s normal to have moments of stress and worry, but it’s in how you handle it that helps you through it. If anxiety or anger bubbles over, you can feel overwhelmed, out of control and it can lead to panic attacks. No one wants to go through that, and you don’t have to, either.

Below, we’ve got some strategies to help you. There’s a way to find your calm, and we’ve managed to collect fifteen of these to stop the negative feelings taking over, and allow you to just relax, be calm – breathe. Here they are!

• Breathe Deeply. It’s the first thing that you’re told no matter who you tell about your worries. Honestly, it sounds like silly advice, but it’s quite possibly the best thing that you will ever do. Most people think they ARE breathing, but when in a panicky situation, most people are not actually pulling the air deep into their lungs and breathing into their belly. Reducing anxiety is so important and if you want to do it quickly and kick yourself out of a funk, you need to take a minute, drop your shoulders and breathe deeply five to ten times until you can feel the knot of worry dissipate. There are tons of breathing techniques that you can use to calm yourself down, and you should practice these when you’re calm before you do them when you’re upset.
• Own It. It’s so hard to admit when you are feeling anxious. Some people manifest their panic and worry in shopping sprees and other addictive and destructive behaviour. Instead of doing this you can admit that you aren’t functioning as well as you’d like. Absolutely, head to Venus Lounge clothing and start buying lounge clothes to relax and feel comfortable in, but pay attention to the impulsive shopping you might do in response to the stress in life and own the feeling. Say it out loud and give the anxiety a label. Once you can identify the feeling, you can start to unravel your thoughts and make sense of them.
• Challenge Yourself. When you are in a cycle of worry and stress, irrational thoughts can swirl through the brain and that becomes very difficult to detangle from the real thoughts in your haad. Those worst case scenario thoughts will lead to sabotage – and there’s where the self-destruct behaviours come in. When these thoughts come in, instead of sabotaging yourself, you can start asking yourself whether those thoughts are rational or not, and whether they will ever actually happen. Once you do this, you can then learn to reframe how you think in a stressful situation, telling yourself that when you hide, it gets worse. Challenge it and make sure that you stand in front of it.
• Let It Go. Oh, the hardest thing to do to chase your calm is to let the feelings of stress and panic go. The only way to truly release the anger, stress or anxiety that you are feeling is to burn it off. Often, panic and stress manifests as nervous energy and by engaging in a power walk, a run, a 30-second dance party for one – you burn it all off. Thi can help you to release the serotonin and feel calmer as a result. Try not to scream or punch walls, though, as this shows you that an anger response is the best way to handle something.
• Think It. Whether it’s soft, calm waters or you consider how you feel when you’re calm, you need to visualise yourself in a calm state/ Picture raging oceans and watch them turn to calm waters in your mind’s eye. After a few deep breaths, you can see how your body relaxes and imagine yourself feeling less stressed as a result. When you think it, you can feel it!
• Now & Next. How is this stress making you feel right now? How will you feel about it in a week? Asking these questions allows you to identify whether this is a stress that will matter or not. If you know that it’s not going to matter, you’re going to be able to think more rationally about it. Knowing how you feel now and how you will feel next will help you to shift your focus and test the situation. When we’re anxious, it’s easy to become hyper-focused, which can lead to those tricky irrational thoughts. Find your calm by working out how you will feel about it all in a week, and reassess.
• Distract With Music. Flipping on your favourite tunes and dancing can make a big difference to the way that you feel about a scary situation. Add headphones and go for your very own silent disco: you’ll feel fantastic once you do it, trust us! Music can be as rage-filled or as calming as you like and it’s all going to work to make you feel much calmer!
• Move. Take yourself away from where you are while you are feeling all of this panic. You need to get outside, out of the room and into wide open spaces. Leaving the situation that frightens you is so important and if you can remove yourself from whatever it is, you’re going to be in a better frame of mind to think clearly. Survival instincts matter here!
• Relax The Body. A yoga session, a massage, even something as simple as meditation is going to make a huge difference to how you feel. You need to be in better tune with your body and work to ensure that you are releasing all of those tense muscles, too!
• Journal It. Whenever you are hitting a low point, the smartest thing that you can do with your time is to journal how you are feeling and really get into the thick of what you are feeling. Writing it down is a form of letting it all go, and it works! It works because writing it down allows you to identify and label your feelings, allowing you to better move on.
• Treat Yo’self! Whether you treat yourself to beautiful new Venus Lounge clothing, you go shopping for that new gadget you so want, or you choose to go ahead and spend some money on a manicure, pedicure and massage, you deserve to find something in which you can indulge. Self-care is so important when it comes to relaxing properly. Go and indulge!
• Fresh Air. It’s underrated, fresh air. Sometimes, the temperature and the lack of air circulating a room can make you feel increased levels of anxiety and anger, and it doesn’t have to make you feel that way! You need to get out into the fresh air and get away from the heat of the space you are occupying. Get out of there and breathe that fresh air. You’ll get the added bonus of a change of scenery, too!
• Eat. Often, we feel anxious and worried and being hungry is not going to help. Eat something and drink some water to hydrate your brain – which can help you to think more clearly, by the way. You need to slow down and nourish your body, even a small snack will help.
• Let Your Shoulders Drop. They’re sitting somewhere around your earlobes right now and you need to drop them so that you can finally roll them back and just relax a little. Sit tall, take a deep breath and focus on bringing your shoulder blades down. Do this several times throughout the day.
• Rule Of 3. If you are in a panic and you need to calm down, follow the rule of three: find something that is your favourite colour, try to hear a new noise, try to smell something close by. These are all workable distractions that will snap you out of the panic! Whatever it is you do, you can find a way to centre yourself.

Finding your calm is not easy but if you try to implement some of these techniques, you will be able to learn how to be calmer than you ever have been before. Life is a stressful business and you deserve to be able to relax and figure out how to do that without feeling the judgement of those around you. If you are using these techniques and you find that they aren’t working, you should consider speaking to a therapist or getting a referral from your doctor. Life is not supposed to be so hard that you spend all of your time panicking, and if you can feel good with a little help – you should!

Take these fifteen tips and run with them. You’ll find your calm in no time at all.

This is a contributed post.