Here’s 5 simple lifestyle changes you can make to ease anxiety. I hope these help!
🏃🏽♀️ Exercise. Most of us know that exercise elevates moods by stimulating the body’s release of endorphins but it’s not just the chemical aspect of exercise that can help feelings of anxiety.
Exercise can increase self-confidence, feelings of empowerment and help to enhance social connections. Just getting out the door can be enough to elevate mood!
🧠 Meditation. Incorporating mediation and mindfulness into the day can greatly reduce levels of stress and anxiety.
By focusing on the present moment, it counteracts the act of worrying about the future. Mindfulness also encourages us to respond to stress with awareness rather than reacting with emotion which can help us to feel much more in control of our feelings and mind.
🙏🏽 Gratitude. Expressing gratitude on waking and throughout the day is a great way to centre thoughts and reduce spiralling. By taking a few minutes to think about what you are grateful for, you will see reality more clearly, slow your heart rate and change your outlook to a more positive one.
💤 Sleep. During sleep our body replenishes and restores but without enough rest time, the neurotransmitters needed to support mood cannot be adequately replenished. Research shows that sleep deprived people perceive neutral images as negative so even every day tasks and experiences can seem frightful and overwhelming. Aim to get 8 hours of sleep per night.
🌳 Nature. Not only does nature reduce feelings of anger, stress and fear but even lowers blood pressure, heart rate and the production of stress hormones. Mounting evidence shows that spending time in nature reduces cortisol levels in the body which in turn lessens our ‘fight or flight’ response.
In addition, much of nature (trees, mountains, coast line, clouds) displays fractals (repeated and increasingly complex patterns) which are thought to change how a persons nervous system responds to stress. Studies have shown that patients able to see out of a window heal faster than those who aren’t.
Which of these will you implement into your daily routine? Let me know!
Art by @positivelypresent
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