How to relieve stress and anxiety (Psychological guidelines)?
Sometimes we can’t help but worry about a threat. As the word suggests, “pre-occupying” is taking care of something before it happens. Anticipating the circumstances does not make much sense and, in addition, it can cause us discomfort and even trigger an anxiety attack. As Alba Fernandez Andreu, an Emotional Intelligence psychologist explains, “one of the triggers of anxiety is our tendency to anticipate the future. Trying to solve problems that have not yet occurred can trigger an anxiety attack. We must stop pre-occupying ourselves to take care of ourselves”.
But;
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is an emotion that is experienced in situations in which you feel threatened by an external or internal danger and it is impossible for you to find the appropriate response. You get stressed and feel unable to react properly.
How to recognize an anxiety attack?
There are symptoms that often persist when you have an anxiety attack. The most frequent are:
- Palpitations
- Feeling of suffocation
- Stress
- Fears
- Anguish
- Phobias
Obsessions Intrusive ideas that can be accompanied by rituals that reduce the anguish of the obsession (wash your hands a lot for fear of infection, check tests, plugs)
- Instability
- Fear of dying
Have you ever experienced these symptoms? Do you feel reflected?
Do not be sad. It happens badly, but it happens Alba Fernandez Andreu explains that “Anxiety appears, reaches its maximum peak, and then disappears little by little. It is very annoying, but it ends up disappearing”.
Techniques to Reduce Anxiety in just a Minute:
The important thing to overcome anxiety – even if it does not reach the level of an anxiety attack – is to detect it and have tools to help you reduce it. Several psychologists with a lot of experience in the subject offer us effective techniques on how to relieve stress and anxiety and we are pretty sure that it will not take you more than a minute!
1. Improve your Breathing:
“When we have an anxiety attack, one of the most annoying symptoms is hyperventilation because the excess oxygen that we inhale when we breathe more agitatedly causes us to feel dizzy and depersonalized.
A good trick is to slow down the breath, lengthening the exhalations. A rhythm of two seconds of inspiration and four of expiration is optimal to reduce the effects of hyperventilation”. (Recommended by, Laura Palomares, a psychologist at Avance Psicologos).
However, in a stressful situation, it is quite complicated to turn your concentration towards the breathing process, but if you succeeded in doing so, you will get fruitful results.
2. Question the Thoughts that Come:
Once you detect the symptoms of anxiety, psychologist Adrain Quevedo explains that it is important to question whether your thoughts really correspond to reality or to an alarm that has been activated in your mind without foundation.
What do you care about?
Are you really in the now or are you in the past or thinking about the future?
Answering these questions will only take a few seconds and can help you relax.
3. Meditation in a Minute:
Sit in a comfortable posture, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing. Your mind will likely go elsewhere several times during that minute. It is normal. Do not be sad. The important thing is that you channel it and bring it back to your breaths. After 60 seconds you will find yourself much more relaxed. However, once again, it is not easy to get started in meditation, but it will become easier for you to achieve it.
4. Choose an Object:
A quick relaxation technique is to select an object and, each time you see it, take three deep breaths in a row while feeling all your muscles relax. This visualization technique is also an excellent way to quickly relieve stress and anxiety.
5. The Piece of Fruit Exercise:
“Direct your attention to the present moment with self-instruction ‘I realize’ by attending to your five senses,” proposes the psychologist Palomares. A mindfulness exercise that can help you achieve this is to take a fruit (or any other food), look at it carefully, and look at its characteristics: its color, its shape, its test, its size. Then close your eyes and analyze its texture (it is soft, rough, etc.). Finally, smell it and put it in your mouth to analyze and enjoy its flavor. If you can concentrate on this activity, your body will return to calm. Once a challenging activity but nothing is impossible and you can easily revert your mind towards this activity.
6. Do Exercise:
Playing sports is another good way to combat anxiety and feel more positive. You only have a minute, so use yourself thoroughly. Do a set of squats, start running like crazy without leaving the site (skipping), jump rope, do push-ups. Choose a physical activity that requires effort, but does not demand too much concentration. You will see how quickly you are going to relieve tensions.
7. Find a Mental Refuge:
“One of the quick exercises that you can do when the situation overwhelms you is to resort to that place, which can be imaginary or real, where you feel good. It is about recovering pleasant sensations. If, for example, you like to walk around the beach, imagine the ideal day for you, the temperature, the breeze, you can even look for sounds of waves that suggest you even more and make you evoke those pleasant days in your mind. The mind is capable of the best and the worst. Travel with the imagination is great and the cool thing is that you decide where with all the details, where will you do that mental weekend getaway?” proposes Gonzalo J. Sánchez, (Author of the most popular book Organizing Independence).
8. Greetings to the Sun:
Disciplines such as yoga, pranayama, and tai chi are good allies to relieve tension and relaxation. If you don’t have time to complete a full routine, do a one-minute sun salutation or some simple yoga asana. It can help you clear your mind, recommends Adra¡n Quevedo.
If you haven’t started yoga yet, find out how to salute the sun. It is quite simple!
9. Practice Connecting with the Senses:
“If you notice that you start to agitate, try to connect with your five senses,” says Quevedo. “Describe everything you perceive: notice the rhythm of your breathing, describe something that you are touching with your hand, feel the air hitting your face, and recognize the smells that surround you: These exercises will help you focus your attention and make your mind goes out of survival mode, which is the one that is activated when anxiety appears”, concludes the professional.
10. Put on Music:
As the popular expression says, “music soothes the beasts”. Put on melodies that calm you down to tame the beasts that haunt your head.
Have you ever heard of the frequency of happiness?
Some experts argue that through the sound frequencies contained in the music, it is possible to heal and improve the human body.
Apparently, a concert in 432-hertz frequency can have very positive effects on our consciousness. Find a melody with that frequency and see the effects it has on you. If it works for you, always carry it with you in case you ever notice anxiety symptoms beginning.
So, if you notice that anxiety is taking over you, activate any of these protocols. I am pretty sure; they will not take you more than a minute and will help you regain your peace of mind.
What do you do to relieve stress and anxiety?
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