10 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Anxiety
Written by Marci Renée
Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash
“My soccer team dissolved,” our 15-year-old son told us solemnly, as he leaned against the doorframe of the living room.
“What?!” I exclaimed. “You just signed the paperwork, and we just paid.”
I could feel the heat and anger flushing through my body. My son was upset and disappointed, and I was too.
Turning to my husband, sitting across from me at the dining room table, I said, “What are we going to do? He already left his other club. The soccer season has already started.”
As I sat and pondered the situation some more, hives slowly began to form on my cheeks. They itched, and I scratched. It felt like my skin was crawling.
Nerves. Stress. Anxiety. It’s overwhelming.
It wasn’t just about my son’s soccer team; it was an accumulation of stressors that were bombarding me from all sides.
My workload was bigger and heavier than my shoulders could carry. Arabic language study was more challenging than I ever could have imagined—the progress was slow and hard. My marriage was strained. My family’s needs, with four kids of all ages, were unrelenting. Life’s daily demands of laundry, homework, housecleaning, and meal prep seemed never-ending.
Did I mention the added stressors of constantly facing cultural differences, language barriers, and separation from family and friends on the other side of the world?
Sometimes, it feels like I’m hiking uphill—a steep, never-ending hill—with a backpack stuffed to overflowing with stress.
It’s heavy, and I’m weary.
What am I to do?
How to Manage Our Stress
Thankfully, we don’t have to live forever under this heavy load of stress. We can make some intentional changes and learn to manage our stress—even reduce it!
“Being able to recognize common stress symptoms can help you manage them.”
10 Simple Ways to Cope
Here are 10 stress management strategies that are relatively easy to implement:
1. Get regular physical activity. This can be as simple as setting an alarm mid-morning to take a break from work for a quick, 10-minute walk around the block to release some pent-up stress and muscle tension. Consider taking a local friend on a walk on the beach for some extra language practice. Exercise reduces the levels of stress hormones in our bodies.
2. Practice relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, mindfulness, prayer, massage, or relaxing music. This allows you to bring your thoughts back to the present—the here and now—rather than allowing your mind to dwell on the negative past or to be anxious about the unknown days ahead. Consider ways to practice deep breathing mindfulness in practical ways, like while doing your dishes or folding laundry.
3. Keep a sense of humor. Watch a comedy movie or find some “America’s Funniest Home Videos” to enjoy. Dance wildly or make faces at yourself in the mirror. Laughter fires up our stress response, and then quickly triggers the relaxation response in our bodies.
4. Spend time with family and friends. Loneliness can intensify our stress. Call a distant family member. Invite a friend out for coffee or to take a walk with you on the beach. Enjoy small talk about life, or if the time is right, tell your friend how you are feeling and process some of the stress you are experiencing.
5. Set aside time for hobbies, such as reading a book, doing a craft, or playing an instrument. Invite a friend to join you for some fun! Hobbies give our mind something fun and positive to focus on and calms our stress response.
6. Take care of yourself. It might seem selfish, but this is a time to focus on what your mind and body needs. This may require putting aside others’ demands for a season until your stress load diminishes. Doing so can re-build your reserves so you can focus more fully on others’ needs when you have more to give.
7. Rest your body. Make sure you are getting the amount of sleep your body needs at night. If you need to, give yourself the freedom to nap during the day.
8. Watch your diet. Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet. Avoid tobacco use and excess caffeine and alcohol. These stimulants can cause more stress to your body and mind.
9. Take a much-needed vacation. Sometimes just getting physically out of your home or work environment can do wonders to decrease your stress level. For those still restricted, you could take a “virtual vacation” to your “dream place,” do a “stay-cation” in the comfort of your home (without devices and with special treats and activities), camp with the kids in the backyard, or even take a long day drive on a scenic route by the Mediterranean Sea.
10. Get a professional debriefing. Sometimes our stress level is too heavy to carry alone. Some of us live in remote, isolated areas or don’t have family and friends around to talk to. Having a safe place to share your story can release a lot of built-up tension in your body and mind. Physical, mental, and emotional relief can be found when someone listens to what you are going through and helps you to process it well.
To understand more about debriefing, read, “What in the World is Debriefing?”
In addition, it’s important to look for active ways to manage your stress. “Inactive ways to manage stress — such as watching television, surfing the internet, or playing video games — may seem relaxing, but they may increase your stress over the long term.”
For example, it is proven that electronic screen activity changes our heart rate and blood pressure, muscular activity, and cortisol levels.
“Computerized games can impair blood sugar control and delay digestion.”
Screen time is also associated with narrowed vessels in the back of one’s eye, high blood pressure, overeating and obesity, and faster, but less accurate, cognitive responses in teens.
When Do I Need to Seek Professional Help to Help Manage My Stress?
1. If you have tried some of the stress management tips mentioned above, to no avail, or if you aren’t sure if stress is the cause of your symptoms, it is best to see a doctor. Your healthcare provider can check for other potential physical causes.
2. Consider seeing a professional counselor who can help you identify the sources of your stress, as well as help you to learn new stress-management tools and coping mechanisms.
3. Seek emergency help immediately if you have chest pain, shortness of breath, jaw or back pain, pain radiating into your shoulder and arm, sweating, dizziness, or nausea. These may be warning signs of a pending heart attack, rather than simply symptoms of stress.
Stress Relief
I knew that I needed help. The stress load was too heavy for me to carry alone. The short walks around the block, the mindfulness practices each day, adequate sleep at night, and a healthy diet were helping. However, I really needed someone to talk to.
After a few debriefing sessions, I could feel more of the stress and tension leaving my mind and body. Yes, I was still facing stressful challenges in my life, but I seemed to get “unstuck.” It was as if I’d been in that “fight or flight” mode for a few months, and I needed to deactivate it. I needed to turn off the switch in my brain!
Yes, stress is normal and can be good . . . but it can also be abnormal and unhealthy. If you aren’t sure what kind of stress you are experiencing, we are here. Reach out to us, and we will find a way to come alongside you and help you SEE BEYOND your current experience.
Works Cited:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11874-stress
Guest author, Marci Renée, along with her French husband and four boys, is a global nomad who has traveled to more than 30 countries and has lived in the United States, France, Morocco, and Spain. She loves to travel, speak foreign languages, experience different cultures, eat ethnic foods, meet people from faraway lands, and of course, write and tell stories. She is a published author of children's picture books, memoirs, short stories, and poetry.
You can find Marci and her books on her website.
"The Cultural Story-Weaver," at www.culturalstoryweaver.com