7 quick hacks to calm you instantly

I’m no stranger to anxiety, and stimulation hits me harder than many. Poor snowflake.

But, I’m grateful because decades of this taught me everything about staying calm.

Mental ‘wellness’ is maintained through sound physical health and thought management — which is developed, over the long term, as a practice.

But, if you find yourself uptight at stressful times, we need a short term strategy.

Here are some exercises I use to calm down quickly in any context:

Shallow in and out nasal breathes.

In Patrick McKeown’s excellent book: ‘The Oxygen Advantage,’ he reveals the issue with the advice we frequently hear to ‘take deep breaths if we’re nervous.

The problem here is — because of the way our bodies take in and process carbon dioxide (CO2) — we inadvertently absorb more CO2 when we take deep breaths.

To calm down, our bodies and brains need more oxygen, which is deprived when we anxiously hold our breath.

Take eight long, slow and shallow nasal breaths (5–9 seconds in-breath and 5–9 seconds out-breath) and allow your entire body to relax via the out-breath.

Do this, and everything changes.

Read 3 pages of fiction.

Reading is like an active form of meditation.

We’re using our thoughts very differently when we read than when we over-analyse. Read a story and immerse yourself in your own imagination for a few minutes.

Play with your ability to conjure a scene in your mind. Hear the sounds, taste the environment, be there.

Reading soothes because you can’t overthink and read at the same time.

Relax.

I know this seems too obvious, but it’s crazy how we can forget to do this.

Many of us stay tight as a tin toy truck because there’s a belief somewhere that says we need to be rigid to be safe. No.

The more physically tense we are, the more stress we’ll feel. Tension is the antithesis of performance in any context.

The solution? Drop your shoulders.

Breath through the gut and into your groin (I just blushed). Scan your body and get back into your senses. Let go. It makes all the difference.

Core tension-release exercise.

Something I learned from Elliot Hulse, which helped me time and again, is a tension-release exercise that loosens the belly.

When we get anxious, a typical response is to tighten here. This is a result of millennia of protecting the torso from attacks and punches. But we still tighten up even with no threat.

Do this: stand up, bend backwards slightly using your central hip area as a hinge — hands on hips. Now breath in and out through your mouth and into your belly.

The out-breath should be a raspy and loud HAHHHH. You want your stomach and body to shudder as you do this.

Adjust your position to encourage more shuddering while you breathe. This is tension releasing from your belly.

Focus on listening.

When we get anxious or panic, we have all our attention on ourselves. We’re judging our performance, or we’re anxious about the anxiety itself.

We create pressure.

Can anyone relate?

Yep. So our priority is to put our attention outwards. I find focusing on listening to people, and our surroundings (if you are able) does this well.

If you’re out, put your attention on the birds, the sounds of cars, etc. When we prioritise listening, our minds still, and we can better process what others are saying.

This connects us and centres us.

Go for a short awareness walk.

There’s nothing like a walk to get out of our heads and back into the sensations of movement.

Calm always increases in awareness and decreases in self-consciousness. I.e. when we overthink, we become agitated.

So, when we walk, our attention is more on our environment, especially when we are more conscious about doing this, and we slow our movements when we walk.

Even a five-minute stroll can be calming.

Ask yourself:

‘What’s funny, curious, enjoyable, or interesting about this moment?’

Questions are very effective in directing the trajectory of our thoughts. When we’re anxious, we’re writhing in a quicksand of chaotic and meaningless thoughts.

When we ask a question, particularly one that prompts us to look for the beauty in the world,

We become a new person.

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