5 THINGS that HELP CALM ANXIETY

Anxiety isn’t just “worry.” It’s a full-body, full-mind experience that can feel like your brain is on fire and your body’s bracing for disaster. Heart racing, mind spiralling, jaw clenched — and yet, nothing is actually happening. Sound familiar?

The truth is: anxiety isn’t all in your head. It lives in the body, hijacks the nervous system, and creates looping thoughts that make it hard to feel safe, calm, or clear.

The good news? There are effective, body-based ways to help reduce anxiety — the key to change is daily attention and practises to help calm your nervous system. It's committing to the change you want and doing the work and watching the shifts happen over time. They will happen but you do have to invest in yourself.

Here are 5 powerful tools that help calm anxiety — rooted in both neuroscience and lived experience.

• 1. Breathe Like You Mean It

  I know you have read a million blogs that tell you to breathe deeply. It's hard to explain the power of breathing in such a way you will understand and commit to it. You have to experiment and find that space where you drop away from worrisome thoughts and into your body. The relief and healing in this simple exercise done properly and regularly can be profound.

  
  

  It's about creating a practise of deep breathing. If you have long term anxiety you will be a shallow breather. Take time to do deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing — it tells the nervous system it’s safe to down-regulate.

  Try this:Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6.Repeat for a few minutes and feel your heart rate drop. Do this regularly, not just when you are on the verge of a panic attack.

  In addition - start bringing your attention to your breathing during the day, slow it down, regulate it, breathe deeper, change your relationship to your breath in a profound way. You ay be surprised by the power of this simple change.

  
  

  2. Move Your Body (Even Gently)

  When you’re anxious, your body is in fight-or-flight. Movement helps burn off stress hormones and regulate your nervous system. You don’t need a gym — a short walk, shaking out your limbs, or light stretching works wonders.

  Bonus: somatic movement (like trauma-informed yoga or intuitive shaking) helps release stored stress.

  
  

  3. Name the Feeling. Don’t Fight It.

  Anxiety often grows louder when we resist it. Watch anxiety - dont' move against it and don't be afraid of it, or even try and stop it. Ironically, naming your experience reduces its grip. “I’m feeling anxious right now.” “This is tightness in my chest.” Label it like a weather report — no judgment, just observation. Where is the feeling in your body? Tune in. That feeling in your body has history, drop your worry thoughts and simply listen to your body. Put our hand on that feeling and away from thoughts, just be with the feeling.

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  Your nervous system calms when it knows it’s being listened to — even by you.

  
  

  4. Ground Through Your Senses

  When anxiety has you spinning in future catastrophes, sensory grounding pulls you back to now. This is a go-to for anyone with panic attacks or racing thoughts.

  Try the 5-4-3-2-1 technique:5 things you can see4 things you can touch3 things you hear2 things you smell1 thing you can taste

  It rewires the brain from survival mode to present-moment awareness.

  
  

  5. Get to the Root — Not Just the Symptoms

  If anxiety keeps coming back, it’s often not about what you think it is. It’s old patterns, past experiences, or unmet emotional needs looping in the body. Therapeutic tools like hypnotherapy, EMDR, or somatic therapy help heal the root cause — not just manage the surface symptoms.

  This is where deep, lasting relief happens.

  
  

  Final Thoughts

  You don’t have to live in a constant state of alert.You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through life. And no — it’s not all in your head.

  Anxiety is a physiological, emotional, and neurological experience — and when you learn to work with your body, not against it, real change happens.