5 Best-Ever Relaxation Techniques for Anxiety

Using these Relaxation Techniques for Anxiety will help slow your heart-rate quicker, regulate your breathing, and come back to the present moment much faster than ever before. They are simple anxiety tools that you can keep in your back pocket to use any time you’re feeling uneasy or anxious in any way.

There are so many things going on in our world today, that it is no surprise that many of us are looking for relaxation techniques for anxiety. 

I want to start by saying, I’m sorry that you are experiencing anxiety. It is one of the worst feelings in the world, and I don’t wish it on anybody. We’ll talk a little bit about what anxiety feels like in a minute.

Also, I want you to know that you are not alone. At all. Anxiety disorders are the most common of mental illnesses in the United States, affecting over 40 million adults! I know that it may feel like a lonely and isolated disorder that no one could ever understand what you’re going through, I have been happy to find that others often feel the exact same way. It’s just a matter of people not always talking about their fears and anxiousness, so we aren’t aware of how others feel.

And with illnesses, political mumbo-jumbo, and natural disasters in the world right now, it is completely normal to feel some sort of unease or anxiety.

Just to share a brief bit of my background with anxiety, and how I came to write this post:

I have always been a bit of a control-freak, getting annoyed when things don’t quite go as planned. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to feel a bit more than just annoyance. A loss of control. A feeling of tightness and overwhelm. 

And then last year my son started Jr High School. The week leading up to the first day of school, I began to feel a quickening in my breathing any time I thought about sending him off. My heart would race a bit. And I was so nauseous all the time. Over time, that did calm down once I got comfortable with the new normal, but of course, that took some getting used to.

At that point, I really had a hold on my anxious thoughts and feelings for the most part. So I never really considered myself to be a person that suffers anxiety. That is, until my physical body was tested in a way it never had before. It was forced to fight, flight, or flee.

Utah Earthquake 2020. 5.7 Magnitude. The scariest day of my entire life. I was alone with just me and my dog. And I continued to replay the earthquake over and over the entire day through each and every aftershock. I couldn’t sleep. I was scared to do the simplest of tasks. Shower. Use the bathroom. Move from the couch. Take even one step. Everything was terrifying, and I was experiencing a type of anxiety and trauma I had never felt before.

One day I hope to talk about the actual experience of the earthquake and how it felt without experiencing anxiety. But until then, I’m just learning to manage the fear of the PTSD I’ve been dealing with as a result of going through a natural disaster.

There are few things I want to mention about Anxiety and PTSD

All of your feelings are valid, NO MATTER WHAT.

I’ve seen one or more comments regarding the earthquake that made me feel like a crazy person and that I wasn’t handling the situation like a normal healthy human being.

“It was only a 5.7. That’s nothing compared to the quakes of California.”

And there are so many variations of this that may make you feel like you’re over-reacting or that you shouldn’t feel so upset. For example:

“Oh, he only smacked you on the ass? At least you didn’t get raped!”
“Yeah – sucks that you lost your dad, but at least you didn’t have to watch him beat your mom like mine did.”
“Oh poor baby. Try spending a year in Iraq.”

There are so many things that people could say that make your feeling of anxiety feel invalid, and I want you to know that they are not. What you feel is real! What you feel is justified. By nobody but yourself. And that is the only justification that you need to validate your feelings.

And let’s talk about what it is you’re feeling.

What Anxiety Feels Like

This may be different for everyone. And the feelings will be in varying degrees from person to person.

• Elevated Heart Rate – your heart may feel like its pounding and that it’s going to jump out of your chest. Plus it may feel much faster than your normal resting heart rate (which of course, you don’t normally notice on a regular basis).
• Quicker Breathing Pattern – You may find it hard to take a complete, full, and deep breath when you’re suffering from anxiety. Your breaths may be shallow. They may be quick. 
• Nauseousness – You may feel a sense of knots in your stomach. Decreased appetite. Just a feeling of unease in your gut.
• Sweaty Palms and Feet – This is a common physical reaction to anxiety you may experience (I know I have been the last few days).
• Headache – it’s very common to experience a headache as you’re feeling anxiety. 
• Restlessness, Fatigue, Difficulty Concentrating – all very common symptoms of anxiety

You can have some or all of these feelings. And like I said before, they can come in varying degrees in each person and in each situation.

Now that you know how to identify anxiety, you want to know if there’s any way you can treat it yourself. So many are quick to just pop a pill, and I’m not gonna lie – it was super tempting for me to call my dr and ask for some Xanax to get me through this.

But I do feel strongly in healing the mind and emotions and doing the hard work for the best long-term healing.

How Can I Reduce Anxiety Naturally?

I will go more in depth on each of these relaxation techniques for anxiety in the printable handout below, but just to introduce you to the ideas:

• Grounding technique
• Using all of your senses
• Spelling backward and forward
• Tactile soothing
• Relaxation body scan

These anxiety tools are meant to be taken with you everywhere you go. They are meant to distract and calm your mind, your heart rate, and your breathing.

When talking to my therapist and telling her my heart had been racing for at least 30 minutes after each after-shock, her goal was to give me these tools in order to reduce that time down drastically.

Here’s the thing. It is your body’s natural reaction to react to fear. Even if it’s an unrealistic fear that you have made up in your head. It’s still a fear that you have created. That is normal, and our bodies are made to react. It’s how we survive.

These techniques are going to help reduce the time your body is spent trying to survive against the fear.

I’m sure you’ve also heard that exercise is best for anxiety, and that is true. Let’s talk about that.

What type of exercise is best for anxiety?

Exercise and other physical activities release endorphins. Endorphins are great because they are natural pain-killers, improve the ability to sleep, and reduce stress. These three things together could drastically reduce the anxiety you’re feeling.

Even just 5 minutes of aerobic activity can begin to stimulate anti-anxiety effects.

There are so many ways you can exercise for anxiety-reduction:

• Running
• Cycling
• Dancing
• Rowing
• Weight-lifting
• Aerobic Classes
• Tennis
• Walking
• Swimming
• Really any way you can get your heart-rate up!

We’ve talked about what Anxiety feels like. 
We’ve talked about how NORMAL anxiety is.
We’ve talked briefly about how to calm your anxiety naturally. 

Now I’d like to dive deep into those anxiety tools for you and help you start practicing them.

Suggestions for using the relaxation techniques for anxiety

1. Practice these techniques often and under normal circumstances. You want to be really good at these techniques when the time comes that you’ll need to use them. When the anxiety hits, you want to feel confident that you know exactly what each of these tools looks and feels like.
2. Choose the tool you’re going to attempt to use when you have your next anxiety attack. Some of these tools may not resonate with you. Try them out. See how they work out and jive with you. And then decide which one feels the best. That way you’re not scrambling through the list to figure out how to get through an attack.
3. Print out the Relaxation Techniques and take them with you everywhere. I mean that. Right now, as I’m dealing with heightened anxiety that can literally hit me anywhere at any time. Damn right I’m not getting caught without my list of tools to turn to. So I have my notebook where they’re written down, and as of right now, it goes everywhere with me. You could also jot notes in your phone if that would be easier than taking a notebook or piece of paper with you.

Now that you know how to manage your anxiety by using these 5 Relaxation Techniques, please feel free to share on social media, tagging me so I can hear about your progress.

IG & Pinterest: happyfoodholly

Hang in there, my friend. So much love your way, and again, you are not alone. 

Reach out with any questions or let me know if this has helped you down in the comments.