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Here are 8 simple activities to reduce your anxiety at home.
Breathe
Don’t underestimate the power of the breath. Focusing on the breath is a core part of yoga and an important component of mindfulness. Research has found that bringing attention to the breath reduces stress and brings you back to the present. Coming back to the breath helps to remind the brain that right now we are safe and so there is no need to be in fight/flight mode. Pay attention to the way breathing feels, watch your belly rise and fall, and feel your heartbeat. You’ll immediately feel more grounded, and more connected to your body. You don’t even need to take deep breaths or change any of your natural patterns. Just being aware of what your body is doing will deepen your ability to connect to the moment.
Digital detox
Be mindful of your exposure to social media and the news. Instead of them making you feel connected and reassured they can make you feel even more anxious and overwhelmed. When you’re feeling stressed it’s hard to rationalise what you’re seeing or reading. Try limiting or fully detoxing your time spent on sites that trigger you.
Gratitude
Research has shown that gratitude can lower levels of stress and even improve sleep. Simply starting the day with a positive outlook can be huge. Use gratitude as a way to start the day by trying to think of at least ten things you are grateful for. If you have children, this is something you can do together as a family (and hearing their responses can be really eye opening!). You can also use gratitude in times when you’re starting to panic to help both ground you and appreciate how much you have in this uncertain time.
Move your body
Exercise is an amazing way to combat stress. Whether it’s going outside in nature for a walk, doing an online yoga class or dancing around the living room to your favourite playlist. It doesn’t matter how you move, just do something you love. If you find a way to exercise that you love it becomes easy to fit into your life instead of a chore. The added bonus is that exercise releases endorphins which are feel-good chemicals reducing anxiety and enhancing self-esteem. Exercise can also improve your sleep quality which can be negatively impacted during times of stress and anxiety.
Grounding techniques
If you feel like your mind is going 100mph one of my favourite grounding techniques is the five things game. Notice five things you can see, hear and feel. Sounds very simple but it helps to bring you back to the now. Another helpful technique is counting backwards from 400 in 3’s or 7’s. I find this one useful if I wake in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep.
Sensory pleasure
Lighting a favourite candle, using essential oils or running a scented bath can help to reduce your feelings of stress and anxiety. Some of my favourite calming scents are lavender, rose, geranium, neroli and orange blossom.
Smile
Research has shown that smiling can actually make you happier, it isn’t just the other way round. The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness. When you smile you release dopamine, endorphins and serotonin which help lower stress, boost your immune system, lower blood pressure and increase longevity!
Body Twists
On a purely physical level, the benefits of twisting are extraordinary: the organs are compressed during a twisting, pushing out the blood filled with metabolic byproducts and toxins. When we release the twist, fresh blood flows, carrying oxygen and the building blocks for tissue healing. Therefore, from a physiological point of view, the twists stimulate circulation and have a cleansing and refreshing effect on the organs of the trunk and the associated glands. It is a bit like when, after washing the floor, you squeeze the cloth to let the dirty water come out, so that, afterwards, the cloth is ready to accept cleaner water.
Twists in yoga are also miraculous for our spine and used joints such as hips and shoulders. Unfortunately, many people lose full spinal rotation over the course of a sedentary life.
If the muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia (connective tissues) are not stretched at least a few times a week, they gradually shorten and limit the mobility of the nearby joint. In the case of torsion, the limitation is usually in the soft tissues around the spine, abdomen, rib cage and hips. Twists in yoga work primarily on the Manipura chakra, which is the 3rd chakra, known as the solar plexus, which is around the stomach, and sits above the sacral (2nd chakra) and base or root chakra (1st chakra, a tthe bottom of the spine). From this chakra we derive much of our confidence and sense of personal capacity. When energy flows freely through and from this chakra, we tend towards optimism and a healthy degree of ambition. Physically, our appetite will be balanced and digestion optimal.
Conversely, a blocked third chakra inhibits the source of self-esteem and confidence. Often our eating habits reflect this; low self-esteem can lead us to dietary substitutes to replace the internal highs, further eroding our sense of self-determination and will. Similarly, an overactive manipura chakra, which manifests as a lust for power and ambition, can be related to an intense diet and self deprivation; an uncommon method of exercising self-control. Among the energies that we draw from this chakra are vitality, courage, will, concentration, positive transformation and the ego. The ego, which has its seat in the solar plexus, is in fact a sneaky enemy. It can make us vulnerable, attackable from the outside and is often sprinkled with wounds and scars (victimhood is a symptom of a great ego). The ego can also make us super-men, arrogant beings. Yoga asanas help us rise above this and release the energy into a postiive form.