3 Ways To Calm Anxious Thoughts

During this track, Krista will give you 3 ways to calm your mind when anxiety creeps in and tries to take hold of your body. These 3 practices are ways that Krista deals with her personal anxiety and have proven to work time and time again.

Transcript

Hi there,

My name is Krista and I am going to be your guide today on this insight timer.

And I want to talk about the big word anxiety that so many people face in this world today and I'm hoping that some of the ways that I am going to give you of dealing with anxiety will help you and help you move through the feeling that arises in our bodies.

And I'm going to share a little bit of my own personal experience with anxiety and how it shows up in mine.

And years ago,

I would just call it worry.

I was a worrywart.

I'm a mother of two boys that are grown adults now and when they were little,

I would worry a lot about them and I would just say,

I'm a worrywart,

I'm a worrywart.

But then I began to notice that it was going into certain jobs that I have or certain situations that I would go into and I would feel this overwhelming heat come through my body.

And most recently,

We did a move from Canada to Costa Rica and I started to feel this different sensation happening in my body.

And so I started to do a lot of research around it and I knew one thing I want to remind you of is that you are not the anxiety.

You have this feeling of anxiousness within your body.

And one of the very first things I want to tell you about when you're feeling these feelings is to name it.

It is so powerful if we can name and claim what is happening,

Whatever it may be.

I'm feeling scared,

I'm feeling tired,

I'm feeling sad,

I feel so excited.

When we name it and claim it,

We're able to manage whatever it is better.

So when we can label our anxiety,

We become more aware of it.

Oh man,

I'm feeling really anxious around applying for this job.

I'm feeling really anxious around having this conversation.

You are now taking away the shame of feeling that way and giving it a name and giving it a label.

And what that does is it helps us understand the triggers around it.

So what's triggering your anxiety?

The other thing that I have learned,

And I want to help you with this,

And I help a lot of my clients understand this too,

Is that when we start to feel this anxiousness within us,

It's almost like our body's way of protecting and telling us something big is coming.

Something and it can be exciting or it can be like,

Oh,

Either way,

Something big is coming.

And if we can reframe that to go,

Say it's applying for a job,

Okay?

Or having a conversation.

Or maybe you're moving out of the house.

Maybe you're moving somewhere and it's all this change that's happening.

Our body has this beautiful way of protecting itself,

Of wanting it to stay the same,

Right?

We were created to stay the same.

However,

That doesn't always help us in the big scheme because life is always changing.

We're always going through seasons of change.

And when our bodies can't catch up with that,

We have this anxiousness that comes over us.

We have this,

Oh,

What's going to happen?

And so if we can take that,

When you feel that anxiety coming in,

When you feel whatever sensations happen for you,

I'm going to share what mine are,

Sit back,

Put your hand on your heart.

Ah,

Okay,

It's happening.

What's going on in my life?

What triggers?

What is things that's happening in my life?

What is my mind thinking?

What is my external circumstances doing?

What's happening right now?

Don't reach for that drink.

Don't reach for that smoke.

Don't reach for the food.

Don't reach for the computer to go shopping.

Sit with it for a second.

Don't numb it away and feel it.

What's happening right now?

What's going on in my life that's causing all of this feeling to come up for me?

When we can name it,

This self-awareness of it empowers you to be proactive,

To take the steps that you need to take to manage that anxiousness rather than becoming overwhelmed by it.

So the way that anxiety and worry shows up in my own life is I will get a really tight chest and I was saying earlier,

This is new for me.

I've kind of had the upset stomach and the butterflies in my stomach and I feel like I might throw up or go to the bathroom.

I do a lot of speaking on stage and I have to hit the bathroom every time before I go on there because it's what my body does.

Suddenly in the last couple of years,

I've noticed it's moved to my chest and this tightness takes over and these pains take over and I can feel it immediately when I'm feeling overwhelmed,

When I'm feeling I'm out of control of a certain situation.

It's almost like this burning sensation.

It feels a little bit like heartburn.

And again,

I will put my hand on my chest and I'll go,

Thank you for showing me where I need to slow down.

I will get very shallow breathing,

Very normal,

Right?

When we're in the anxiousness,

We're breathing from our lungs and not from our stomach.

We're like,

And that right there causes anxiety.

I will sometimes get a headache.

My thoughts are just racing.

I cannot seem to slow the brain down.

It's like a rabbit and it's a squirrel and it's a chipmunk.

All the fast little animals on a wheel,

Just running as fast as they can.

I cannot seem to slow my racing thoughts down.

I go into freeze state and this is also really common.

When we start to have anxiety,

Either you will go into this hyper vigilant of doing things,

Maybe fight or flight.

You run from things or you start fighting.

Mine is a freeze state where I just get into this like paralyzation.

Procrastination is huge,

Which is part of the freeze state.

I can't sleep very well because my mind is even racing at night when I'm feeling stressed and anxious about stressed and anxious about something.

You might be able to relate to a lot of these things that I'm saying,

Because this is very,

Very normal,

Especially when we live in a society of go,

Go,

Go,

Hustle,

Work,

Go create more,

More,

More.

And I believe that you're drawn to insight timer to be able to slow down and calm the nervous system down and calm the anxious thoughts.

How do we do that,

Right?

How do we do that?

Sometimes we do need medication and I'm not saying no to that.

However,

I am saying in as well as there's a lot of physical things that we can do.

And one of them that I just said earlier was to name the anxiousness.

This is what I do when I feel all of that coming on,

When I can feel the tightness in my chest,

When I can feel the burning sensation.

Sometimes I get sweaty.

Sometimes the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up.

And sometimes I feel like I just got to shake it out.

I just got to shake it off.

It's actually a physical blanket of heaviness that I feel,

And I have to just actually do a shake.

So whatever works for you,

You have to take the action to find what works.

So as soon as I feel all of this coming on,

I will put my hand on my chest and I'll go,

Okay,

What's happening inside?

Where are my thoughts?

What's happening outside of my environment?

When we can name it,

We can actually take power and ownership of that and ask for help if that's what's needed.

Anxiety happens for so many reasons,

For so many of us for different reasons.

So naming it is huge.

I'm experiencing a little bit of anxiety,

A little bit of stress within my body right now.

I am not that.

I am not an anxious person.

I am not my anxiety.

That's what I want to make perfectly clear is I am experiencing these sensations within my body right now.

Separate yourself from it.

That's what happens when we talk like that.

When we acknowledge like,

Oh,

I'm experiencing these,

Just like I'm experiencing happiness and joy and peace and contentment and love.

Same thing.

I am experiencing some sort of nervousness and anxiousness within myself.

Oh,

I know why.

It's because I'm applying for a job today.

Oh,

I know why.

It's because I have to have this conversation with my partner or my son or my best friend.

Oh,

I know why I'm experiencing this.

A bit of anxiousness is because I'm starting college in September.

I'm moving away from the house.

I'm starting life on my own.

So many reasons why we can experience these things,

Right?

So after we realize and claim,

All right,

I'm experiencing this and I know why.

And I know why.

Because once I look at my life and actually go,

Oh yeah,

That makes sense.

There's a lot of change happening right now.

Or I'm not happy in my circumstance.

A lot of times these feelings of anxiety and this anxiousness and this worry can happen while we're laying in bed at night and it's quiet and it's still.

And then we're giving ourselves that time to feel and boom,

The anxiety starts to come,

The worry starts to come.

Those feelings start to come of uncomfortableness,

Of what if,

Of all the things,

Right?

Because we're quiet,

We're still.

That's when I want you to ask yourself,

Where is this coming from?

What's happening?

Oh,

I'm not happy in this household.

I'm not happy in my job.

I don't like the habits that I've created.

I need to make some changes.

This is going to be a very common modality,

But it actually works.

An insight timer is full of methods for you to do,

And that is deep breathing.

Calm your nervous system,

Calm the anxious thoughts,

Calm the worry.

Calm your whole heart,

Your chest,

Your gut,

Your mind with breathing exercises.

And I'm not talking,

I'm talking deep breathing,

Slow breathing.

If there's only one and you've never done it before,

Do the four,

Four,

Four,

Do the box breath.

The four,

Four,

Four,

Four,

Four in,

Four seconds in,

Hold at the top for four,

Exhale for four,

Hold at the bottom for four seconds and repeat this as many times as possible to calm yourself down and you may need to do this over and over and over and over.

That's the one that I started with years ago.

I just needed something.

I was a mess of anxiety ridden thoughts of worry of,

Oh,

I just couldn't seem to calm myself down in any and all situations.

When we do this deep breathing,

It helps actually move our body into a relaxation response.

It lowers our heart rate.

It lowers our stress response.

We're able to get clear on what it is that we need to do.

When we're in that frazzled state,

You know,

When you're running around the house looking for your keys,

Cause you're late for work,

You cannot find them anywhere.

And yet they're sitting right on the counter,

Possibly where you left them or they're in your purse,

Or maybe you left them in the,

You know,

The lock on your door,

Which I've done before,

But when we can take a few deep breaths,

Step back and go,

Okay,

Where did I put them last night when I came in,

Calm yourself down or you find them later when you come home and you're not as stressed and you're not as frazzled and you're not as anxious.

Take a few deep breaths.

Every single time I name what is that's happening within myself,

I then go straight to my breath,

Straight to my breath.

And if you don't know,

And if you're not in the habit of practicing that,

I highly,

Highly encourage you to get on that.

And like I mentioned,

There's many insight timers on here with deep breathing exercises for anxiety,

Deep breathing for stress,

Deep breathing for having conversations,

Deep breathing for speaking anything.

They are extremely powerful and they work when you do them.

When you implement the deep breath work,

It works.

If you're waiting for it to work and you've just done it once or twice,

It you'll feel it at the time,

But the more you do it,

The more you will see it in your life.

Does it mean that anxiety won't ever come again?

Absolutely not.

But what it does mean is that you get clear on it and you're like,

Ah,

Here you are.

So now when I feel it coming up,

Like I did this morning,

I'm like,

Oh,

Hey buddy,

You're back.

I literally am friends with it.

I'm like,

Oh,

Hey,

Yeah,

I know I got to do this today and I'm a little bit nervous about it.

So let's work through this.

I pray.

Okay,

God,

You got this.

We got this together.

I do my really deep breaths to calm my nervous system down,

To calm and to slow my heart rate so I can make good decisions.

This is the thing you guys,

When we're living in a state of anxiety and living in that state of like,

Oh,

Our decision making isn't always great.

So you have to slow yourself down,

Control what you can,

Which is your breath,

Which is your state.

Fix it so that you can make rash decisions,

Calm decisions,

Rational choices.

Sometimes this is my third way of calming the anxiety down for myself when I feel that sometimes I have to move through it.

And I talked a little bit about that earlier,

Physical activity.

I will always do breath.

There are times I will do a meditation.

Sometimes I can't do that.

I'm like,

If I sit still for one more second,

I'm going to lose my mind.

So physical activity,

I go for a long walk.

Maybe I'll get up and just shake.

I'll do a dance.

I'll just do a shaking.

My whole body.

Lifting weights is a big one for me to move through that feeling of anxiousness.

Lifting something really heavy.

That works for me.

Maybe it's dancing,

Painting,

Singing.

Maybe singing is a thing for you.

Exercise releases these endorphins,

Right?

Which are natural.

They are a natural mood lifter.

Whatever the exercise is for you.

It also helps distract the mind from the anxious thoughts that are happening.

My husband is a huge,

Huge surfer.

And fisherman.

So are my sons,

Both my boys.

And that's what helps them with their thoughts,

Is surfing and fishing.

And movement.

Movement's huge for all three of them.

Exercise also,

When we have a good exercise routine,

When we've got something that we're doing in movement-wise,

It helps us sleep better.

And we sleep better,

Guess what?

It reduces our stress,

Reduces the anxious thoughts.

Because how many of us know that when we've got lack of sleep,

The anxious thoughts seem to run a little bit more wild.

We aren't really in the right frame of mind for making decisions.

So I hope that some of this,

Of what I spoke about today,

Anxiety,

Helps you in your own journey.

But you have to practice this stuff.

You guys,

You have to implement.

Anything that you hear about anxiety,

Anything that you've been taught,

Everybody has their own thing,

Right?

You may have learned to tap your fingers,

The first,

The forefinger.

The five senses,

Touch,

Feel,

Smell,

Taste,

See.

Those get you out of that worry state and into the present moment.

Gratitude,

Huge.

So these three things that I gave you are what work for me,

Sometimes four,

Depending on if it's,

I name it right away,

Then I go straight into breath.

I calm everything down in my nervous system.

Those are the first two non-negotiables for me.

The third one can be a meditation,

It can be exercise.

Sometimes it's dropping into gratitude,

But I want you to know that when you do do them,

When you do implement them,

It works.

You just have to do the work to help calm yourself down.

Thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate you listening until next time,

Insight Timer listeners have a fantastic day.