10 Ways to Reduce Anxiety

In my "Secrets of Happy Families" book, I include a chapter called "Breathe." Unless we take care of ourselves, we can't take care of our families.

Ten Ways to Reduce Anxiety (That Don’t Involve Drugs)

1. Keep moving. Studies show that people who engage in regular physical exercise have lower levels of anxiety. A study of over 1000 men by Wales et al (2007) showed that those who participated in high-intensity leisure time activities had reduced levels of anxiety and depression five years later.

2. Hug! Physical contact increases levels of oxytocin, which is associated with calming and bonding. Just 20 seconds can significantly change your brain chemistry for the better.

3. Hum. Humming relaxes the vocal cords, and helps induce relaxation in the body. Sit quietly, making elongated vowel sounds (of either “M” or “N”). Do it before you have to talk to someone, and you’ll notice your voice sounds less stressed. A study of Pranayama (combination of yoga positions and breathing that includes humming) produced a significantly greater increase in perceptions of mental and physical energy and feelings of alertness and enthusiasm than either visualization or relaxation excercises.

4. Tense up your thigh! Progressive Muscle Relaxation, or Deep Muscle Relaxation, is a proven technique that psychologists teach in order to reduce anxiety. The technique involves tensing different muscle groups, and then allowing each muscle group to "let go." During the relaxation phase, calming chemicals are released into the bloodstream, reducing feelings of anxiety. However, if you don't have time to march through each of the muscle groups, your thighs and buttocks comprise the largest muscle group, and by tensing for a count of five seconds, then releasing, you can begin to feel some increased feelings of relaxation surge through your body.

5. Take a flight: visualization exercises allowed tobring to use its wonderful imagination in order to bring you to a place of tranquility and serenity. In order to use visualization, it's important to not only picture yourself in a place that's relaxing (such as a bathtub, the beach, or an ocean cruise line), but use your other senses, such as smell, hearing, taste and touch to bring your imagination to a place of comfort and repose.

6. Breathe: years ago, the Beatles promoted the use of transcendental meditation as a way to bring inner peace. New research has shown that many of the same physical and emotional benefits associated with transcendental meditation can be gained through simple breathing exercises. By learning how to control your breathing, you shift your attention from panic to peacefulness. The technique is simple, although it takes practice. .
When you have a moment to yourself, sit in a comfortable, quiet place. Breathe in deeply through the nose, using your diaphragm (the muscle under your ribcage), not your chest, to move the air. The intake of breath should be deliberate, and you should make a point of feeling the fresh, oxygenated and pure air enter your nose. As the intake breath lasts from four to six seconds, visualize the air filling your lungs. Hold for a second or two.
Then, through pursed lips (to make sure the air doesn’t rush out too quickly), slowly breath out, imagining that the exhaled air is expelling impurities and tension from your body. Again, breathe in the fresh, invigorating air, hold for a moment, and follow with a deliberate and slow release of the used air from your lungs.
If you do this breathing exercise for several minutes each day, you will learn to control your breathing during times of stress, and this will reduce the effects of the invasive stress hormones.

7. Distract: Anxiety will bother you a lot less if you don’t pay attention to it.
In studies of people who were anxious about exposure to snakes or spiders, their anxiety levels increased when they thought about possible exposure. Those who distracted themselves with activities managed to stay calmer.
Many people have anxiety reducers right I their pockets or pocketbooks—their cell phones. Playing a video game on your cell phone (such as bejeweled) can help distract your mind from the anxieties dwelling inside of you, and keep your attention sharp at the same time.

8. Reach out to friends. The best predictor of good emotional health is the number and quality of friends around you. People who are socially disconnected are between two and five times more likely to die from all kinds of illnesses. Having friends around you provides you with a sounding board, cheerleaders, and may help you to keep perspective. Their positive attitude toward you when you are feeling lack of confidence will help you to deal with your self-doubts.

9. Rethink things: When people are prone to anxiety, they tend to think of all the negative things that they are confronted with, and focus on that. Selectively paying attention to the bad makes you more prone to pessimism and anxiety. Thinking about possible good outcomes, and forcing yourself to consider the possibility that good things might also happen is part of a form of therapy called “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” (CBT) Many studies comparing people who receive general supportive therapy, medication therapy and CBT shows that often CBT can work as well as medication. General supportive therapy, on the other hand, doesn’t work much better than placebo to help people recover from panic.

10. Delegate! Give your worries to someone else. You don’t have to own everything that you worry about. And you don’t have to take on the weight of the world. Making a list of the things that worry you is a good start to feeling less overwhelmed. Next, look at the list and see where others might pitch in. Perhaps your husband can pay the bills this month, or your kids can bring out the recyclables from the kitchen. Maybe your sister can arrange the family vacation this year (or a travel agent) rather than you having to be saddled with all the responsibilities. Remember, though, if you give up command of a problem that means you can’t expect everyone else to do it to your exacting standards. But letting go of exacting standards can be another way to reduce stress.