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How to Reduce Anxiety Naturally

How to Reduce Anxiety Naturally

Have you ever been harsh or critical with yourself? 

Learn how to reduce anxiety naturally and instantly.

Anxiety is something most of us will struggle with at one point or another in our lives.  The sudden sensation of racing heart,  fast shallow breaths, the mind starting to race, body tensing and the wave of emotions that takes over.

A little while ago, this is exactly the feeling I was struggling with.

The wave, of anxiety, would just hit. I would feel the surge within my body, breathing, and mind.  Honestly, when anxiety takes over it is difficult to get back control.

You feel like you are in a constant state of fight or flight. The mind pulls you in with thoughts that amplified the anxiety. You feel completely overwhelmed

in your body and mind. It is like being pulled in and not being able to disconnect from what going on within you.

There are many ways to manage the feeling of anxiety. Did you know that you have a remedy that is safe, inexpensive, and effective?

“Your breath”. The breath has amazing powers to calm anxiety naturally.

Your breath is one of the best calming remedies for stress and anxiety and best of all it’s free!!!

When someone is experiencing anxiety the breathing pattern changes. The breath starts to become shallow the person generally takes small breaths and uses the upper chest rather than their diaphragm to move the breath in and out of their lungs. This style of breathing causes feelings of increased anxiety.

By controlling the breath or Pranayama practice as it referred to by yogis.

Yogis have now for centers the amazing powers of the breath.  Now medical science is discovering the benefits and effectiveness that controlled breathing has on mental and physical health.

This includes

  • Reduces feelings of anxiety
  • Lowered blood pressure
  • Improved heart rate
  • Reduced levels of stress hormones
  • Balances the  levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide
  • Improved immune system functioning
  • Increased physical energy
  • Increased feelings of calm and wellbeing.

When you’re in a state of relaxation your breath through the nose slowly gently and evenly. When anxiety takes over the breathing pattern changes rapidly it is generally the opposite of relaxed breathing.

To give you a guide I have put together four breathing practices. These practices are effective for calming yourself gain back a sense of control.

The Balancing Breath for Anxiety

Balanced breathing is nature’s gift to help work with anxiety, by deliberately focusing on inhalation and exhalation.

Steps:

1  Begin to focus on your breathing, connect with the inhale and exhale as it is naturally, not changing anything just notice for a moment.
2  Now focus on slowing your breath and deepening it slightly.
3 Inhale for 5 counts.  Hold for the count of 2 Exhale for 5 counts. (this is one cycle)
4  Continue for 10 cycles

Benefits of Balancing Breathe

The benefits of balancing breath include:

-Regulation of your stress response.
-Regulate your emotions
-Clears the mind to improve your thinking and processing abilities.

Alternate Nostril Breathing.

This breathing practice is great for relaxing the body and the mind. It creates a feeling of balance and grounding. It also helps to reduce anxiety and promotes overall mental and physical wellbeing.

Steps:

  1. Sit in a comfortable position, sit up straight with your spine in alignment.
  2. Using your right hand bring your thumb to rest your right nostril.
  3. Place ring finger on the left nostril.
  4. Begin by breathing in through both nostrils. And then breath out through both nostrils.
  5. Close the right nostril with the thumb and inhale through the left nostril
  6. Close the left nostril ring finger and breathe out through the right nostril.
  7. Inhale through the right nostril.
  8. Close the right nostril and breathe out through the left nostril.

This is one cycle. Continue to repeat alternating nostril breathing until you feel balanced and clean.

Benefits:

Balances the brain. This is a great practice to do throughout the day to help rebalance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. It clears the mind and that foggy feeling !!! and helps with balancing emotions.

One Minute- Mindful Relaxation  Breathing

Let’s face it feeling of anxiety is mentally exhausting. By using mindfulness to focus your attention on the present moment helps calm the mind and reduce anxiety. This breathing practice brings a sense of calming when the sudden wave of anxiety or stress takes hold.

Steps:

1:Tune into the breath: just notice the breath without changing anything for a moment.
2: Focused on the breath and start to change the rhyme of the breath. Inhale slowly and say to yourself “breath in” – fill your lungs with the breath. Then exhale completely: say to yourself: ” breath out ” -as you fully empty your lungs.
Continue for one minute.
3: Complete the exercise by placing your hand on your heart and saying thank you to yourself. Thank you for taking the time to breathe and be calm.

Benefits of mindfulness practice:

  • By focusing on the here and now you are less likely to get caught up in worrying thoughts
  • Being mindful helps to take pleasure in life as it occurs
  • Mindfulness improves mental health
  • Improves physical health
  • Mindfulness can help improve sleep
  • Mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety and other mental health issues.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

When you experience anxiety your breathing becomes shallow and contracted to the upper chest area. By using diaphragmatic breathing, it allows you to fully in inhalation and exhalation.  This type of breathing helps to breathe deeply with focus and bring about a sense of relaxation

Steps

1.  Sit comfortably with your spine in alignment.
2.  Place your left hand on your upper chest and the right hand below your rib cage on your belly. Relax and breathe normal noticing the breath for a moment.
3. Then focus on the  Inhale through the nose taking a long slow breath in.  Feel the hand on your belly move up with the in-breath. As you exhale notice the hand move back down towards your spine.
4. Focus on controlling the breath. The hand on your belly should move up and down with each breath while the hand on your chest should remain as still as possible. Experiment until you get the breath right.
5. Now you have a feel for belly breathing include the following count: Inhale for 5 counts and exhale for 5 counts. (1 full round = 10 counts)
6 . Repeat for  5 full rounds.

The benefits of belly breathing included:

– Regulation of your stress response so you’re less reactive.
– Regulation of your emotion Improves thinking and processing abilities.
– Effective in helping with mental health conditions such as stress, anxiety, and depression.

“The Breath” is a simple tool that can be used any time to promote physically, mentally and emotional health.
In challenging, stressful and anxiety proving situations one of the best things to do is to turn to the breath.
By taking control of your breath, it helps to naturally calm anxiety.

It is also like hitting the reset button for your body and emotions. Remember the breath is one thing that is always available to you and best of all you can draw upon it anytime you need it to calm anxiety. I truly hope this helped you with some practical ways to manage your feeling of anxiety.

If you need more, support with anxiety or further exploring breathing practices learn more about how I can help you Here.

Please note these practices are intended as a guide to be used in combination with professional mental health support.

If you want more free resources to support your mental health, I have created some beautiful free  resources for you HERE

 

 

HOW TO RECONNECT WITH YOURSELF

HOW TO RECONNECT WITH YOURSELF

Developing a sense of connection to ourselves is about having a stronger sense of awareness of who we truly are.  Our unique strengths, gifts, and ideas.  It means going within and not looking outside of ourselves to fill the sense of connection. Often we look to the outer word to fill the void we are feeling within.

We are so busy, distracted, stressed, overwhelmed. We connected to our phones, our email, social media. We are living in a world of information overload. We are looking externally for connection and validation. The external ways of connection are getting stronger and stronger. It can be easy in these times to feel a loss of connection to ourselves.

Take a moment to disconnect from the busy world around you. Stop to ask yourself to do you feel connected to yourself. Do you go within to connect to who you truly are?

If you feel an urge to reconnect with yourself read on! I got five practices for you to get you back on track and feeling more connected to yourself.

Connect with you
A simple practice to use to reconnect with yourself:
Place your hands and your heart and take a few deep breaths.
Close your eyes and go within.
Come back into balance with you. Feel yourself in your body.
Feel the connection with your mind and spirit.

Allow yourself to breathe for a moment.
Reconnect with yourself relax and allow yourself to have this moment of connection to you.

Ask yourself:
What I am feeling at this moment? Just noticing as you become aware of how you feel in the moment.

Asking How does my body feel at this moment? Again, just noticing the body at the moment.
Take some time to breathe and connect with yourself, your soul, and the deep sense of yourself.

Connect with your mind

Becoming aware of your thoughts is a powerful way to reconnect with your mind.
Are you filling your mind with useless thoughts that get you nowhere? Become aware of the thoughts that are going through your head.
Connect and listen to the constant chatter of the mind.

Lately, I have been setting a reminder in my phone to check in with my thoughts 3 times a day. I have become more aware of the useless through that were going through my mind. Once I connected with my mind and become more aware of my thoughts it’s easier to start replacing the thought with more useful ones.

Try it for yourself.
Put a reminder on your phone to connect with your thoughts 3 times a day.
Just listen and be aware of what you are saying to yourself.
Then start replacing the negative thought with a more positive thought.

I love to replace my negative thought with complete opposite positive thoughts.

Connect with your feelings.
It’s easy in our busy lives to push our feelings aside and not be aware of our true feeling. We distract ourselves with the external that often we can forget to check in and feel what is going on inside of us.

To connect with your feeling try this.
Find a quiet place to take some time for yourself.
Become aware of your feelings. Connect with how you truly feel.
Allow yourself to feel and be aware of what you are feeling.
Notice where you feel the feeling in your body. Notice how it feels in your body.
What emotions are you feeling?
Connect with all the aspects of how you feel. Go within and feel what you need to feel.

Now breathe deeply and allow yourself to release and let go.

Allow your body to release the feeling through the breath.
Allow the breath to calm the emotions.
Allow the mind to become clear with the breath.
Just keep breathing deeply until you become aware of the feeling moving through the body and releasing.

Connect with the breath.
Connecting with the breath is a powerful way of reconnecting with yourself, it’s your life force.

Try this simple practice to connect with the breath.

Place your hand on your abdomen.
Start by observing your breath as you feel your belly rise and fall.
Breathe deeply – drawing in energy in through your navel.
Feel your abdomen expand and contract as your breath.
Feel your chest rise and fall.
Continue to breathe slowly and deeply. Paying attention to your breath.
How does the breath feel?
Allow yourself to breathe deeply to connect with the breath- your life force.
Breath and feel the connection.

Write about it.
Journaling is a powerful way to connect with your inner self. Journaling allows you to connect to your inner thoughts and feelings.
Take out your favourite journal, notebook or a blank piece of paper.
Find a quiet place and give yourself some time to go within to connect with yourself.

Ask yourself what I need to know.

Free write
Try not to edit or overthink.
Allow the words to flow out of you and onto the page.
If you can’t find the words, try drawing. You don’t have to be an artist. No judgement!! Just allows what needs to flow on to the paper to come out.

Enjoy this time to connect with your inner being.

A beautiful reminder about connecting to finish with
“Disconnect to reconnect”.
Let’s try to disconnect from the external world occasional so we can reconnect with ourselves.

I hope this served you and helped you bring more harmony into your life.

I have recorded a special gift for you on my resource page.
You can download you’re a free guide to practice that will help you reconnect with yourself. Reconnect with yourself