3 Ways to Help Reduce Anxiety Levels

Anxiety

We all experience feelings of anxiety from time to time. However, some people can have these feelings daily, and in severe cases, people experience feelings of anxiety most of every day. Dealing with anxiety can feel hopeless. Below are three ways that can help you manage anxiety.

Meditation

Meditation, when used regularly, can help reduce anxiety levels. Even if you can only manage a few minutes at first, keep going, and you will feel the benefits. You will start to notice that regularly practicing meditation will not only help reduce anxiety levels, but the benefits will spill over into other areas of your life. Because meditation helps slow your mind, you will become an observer of your thoughts and worries rather than feeling that they are a part of you. You are not your thoughts.

Affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements that we say to ourselves. They help us by altering our subconscious mind. Said regularly, we will start to believe them. After all, the more we hear something, the more likely we are to believe it. Using anxiety affirmations can help you take back control so that you can think rationally. Using positive anxiety affirmations in the morning is best because they help calm the mind ready for the day. 

Journaling

Journaling can be a powerful tool for examining and shifting thoughts from anxious and ruminative to empowered and action-oriented.

Something you may instinctively do when you have anxious thoughts is to deny them. This will only suppress them. Writing them in a journal can feel like you are transferring the thoughts out of your head onto the paper. You can use your journal to vent those negative, anxious thoughts onto the page, leaving you feeling lighter and relaxed.

Feelings of gratitude boost happiness hormones in our brains. Why not use your journal to express any feelings of gratitude you have? Every night before bed, write in your journal three things that you are grateful for. You can write anything, such as food, water, house, etc. I try and write different things each day, such as ‘someone held the door for me’ or ‘hearing my son’s laughter’. It is best to write what you are grateful for and really sit with the feeling of gratitude. Having feelings of happiness and gratitude helps to relieve levels of anxiety.

I use meditation and daily affirmations, and I journal a few times a week. I have found that using these helps to ground me, which makes it easier to focus.