Each one of these eight tips listed below has been tremendously helpful for me. I've been using them for years and I plan to continue using them. I find that each one is very effective and easy to use. This is why I keep them in my wellness toolbox so I can reach for them whenever I feel low.
If you’re not suffering from anxiety, these tips can still help you because they are universal to everyone. I'm sure you’ll find something (or maybe a few things!) that speaks to your soul.
Alright then, let’s dive right in…
According to the world health organization (WHO), we have 7.6 billion people living on the planet and 300 to 400 million of them suffer from anxiety and depression.
The majority of the world's population will live their entire lives in a deep state of sadness and despair not knowing that they are holding the tools within themselves to change how they are feeling in 5 minutes or less.
I'm no stranger to anxiety. I’ve been struggling with it since I was a child. I was nine years old when I first encountered it. I remember feeling a sharp pain in my chest that caused me to fell to my knees clutching my chest. I was so terrified because I struggled to breathe and I thought, "this is how I am going to die! Alone on my bedroom floor."
I had no idea what was happening to me, all I knew was that the pain in my chest was unbearable and it was a struggle to take small gasps of air. I also didn’t want to cause myself any more pain. Eventually, I was able to breathe normally again without the pain, but the experience left me feeling uneasy. I don't think I told anyone about what happened to me that day. My home environment was extremely volatile. My mother was extremely physically, verbally and emotionally abusive and her husband, my stepfather, was sexually abusive to me. So it's fair to say I did not trust them to share what was happening with me with them. As a result, I lived in constant fear and stress. I often woke out of my sleep terrified because of recurring nightmares.
I left my abusive childhood home at age 16, but my anxiety and light bouts of depression followed me because my unpleasant feelings were inside of me and when I left their home, I took them with me. They would only leave me when I decide to face them and work through them, Jon Kabat-Zinn says it best, “Wherever You Go, There You Are”.
Eventually, my anxiety and depression made me feel like I wanted to die so at this point, I knew it was time for me to get help. My doctor decided to put me on a heavy duty medication, which had me feeling groggy and tired all the time. I did not like it one bit. Plus, I didn't feel like the pills were addressing my real issues – I felt like it was masking the problem. A few months after I decided to take myself off of them for good. (If you're on medication to help you manage your depression or anxiety, I don't recommend that you stop cold turkey as I did. Talk to your trusted healthcare professional before you do anything rash).
All of this happened around the same time I received my first Iyanla Vanzant book, One Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days and 40 Nights Toward Spiritual Strength and Personal Growth. This book was the start of my healing. It empowered me to look deep within my own self for the answers. The concept of “self-help” was new to me, but it lit me on fire and gave me a new lens to see myself in to do the difficult inner work needed to change my life. Change will not come overnight, it took time and effort to rewrite our old belief patterns, but it will come. I now know that this work is a lifelong commitment to my overall well-being.
Living your life with anxiety is not easy at all. But know that you can overcome it and transform your life – even in the midst of your pain. These tips have helped me tremendously to feel better quickly. I think they can be super useful for you also and for someone else you may know and love.
1. Control your breath: When it gets too tough to manage your emotions, it's time to breathe deeply. A. Take a really deep breath in through your nose and hold it for a count of 10 B. Exhale your breath out through your mouth and hold for another count of 10. C. Repeat this four more times. Deep breathing helps you with slowing down and finding balance.
2. Meditate, meditate and meditate: Meditation helps us to get quiet and still so that we can connect with our soul and the God within us. It also trains our awareness to turn inward and look at our thoughts and feelings with nonjudgmental eyes. A study was done on 2000+ adults by Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert they followed these adults around in their day-to-day activities and found that 47% of the time, their minds were not focused on what they were engaged in doing. They found that when people's minds were wondering, they became less happy. Meditation has been found to reduce symptoms of anxiety and panic in individuals who are suffering.
3. Be Mindful and Present: To be Mindful, you must be hyper-aware of how you're thinking and feeling each moment. The key is to learn how to quickly recognize when you're veering out of your present and into your past or future. Mindfulness will bring you back into the present moment.
4. Watch your thoughts: Stop worrying and stressing about the things outside of your control. Gaur Gopal Das says it the best. He ask, do you have a problem in life? And if you answer no, he then ask, then why worrying? He goes on to ask, do you have a problem in life? And if you answer yes, he then ask, can you do something about it? If you yes, he then ask, why worrying? There is no sense in worrying about something you can't do anything about. Worry leads to stress and stress can land you in the hospital with life-threatening health concerns like cancer, autoimmune disease, heart disease and mental illnesses like anxiety and depression
5. Going back to nature: Nature's natural healing tools help a lot to remove the toxicity from your body and help to rejuvenate your cells healing. You can use fruits and vegetables, energy healing, essential oils, crystals healing, sound healing, yoga, healing herbs, massage, reflexology and acupuncture to name a few to connect you back to the source.
6. Find support: Talking through your struggles with a professional can helped tremendously. Either a therapist, coach, healer, therapist, counsellor or supportive friends or family members will be able to guide you properly. It's a way better option than keep all your emotions bottled up inside of you, which can cause you real harm.
7. Sleep is your best friend: If you have trouble with falling asleep try switching from a shower and take a warm bath instead. You can add lavender essential oil and some Epson salt to the water then get in and allow the lavender oil and the Epson salt to relax your muscles to put you in a calming state. Once you’re fully relaxed get out and head to your bed. Put some lavender oil on your pillowcase and add some to a diffuser and have it running in your room. You will fall asleep in no time.
8. Accept where you are and how you’re feeling right now: When you do this you will be able to get beyond your unpleasant feelings. Be patient, gentle and loving towards yourself. I recommend journaling, particularly, gratitude journaling, which will help you to focus on everything that brings you joy. Get yourself a special notebook for this purpose. Then carve out about 5-10 minutes every night to sit and write what you're grateful for; small or large. When you're finished writing read them over, then read them over again in the morning before you get out of bed.
I hope these tips were helpful and I hope you’ll give them a try, maybe not all but at least two or three of them. Remember, it takes consistent effort for change so don't give up. You'll need to commit to showing up for yourself every day.
I deeply believe you can positively transform your life, with committed and consistent efforts.
Now it's your turn: What tips have you used to help you along your healing journey? Share them in the comments below!
Love you munch,
Kerry-Ann Ingram
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@kerryanningram
