If you are anything like I used to be, you probably put mornings right up there with death on the scale of things you most dread. I used to wake up in a fog, feeling just as tired as when I went to bed, and immediately I began to fear the inevitable feeling that creeps into your stomach and throat.
I had always heard about how the most successful people like Tim Ferriss and Ben Franklin had daily, morning routines that helped them wake up energized and ready to take on the day. But in the midst of my anxiety, the thought of waking up at 4 am to hustle was the last thing on my mind.
I needed to find a way to model the morning routines of the most successful people in business in a way that was focused on decreasing my stress & anxiety. Life has a way of creating anxious moments. It might be waiting for the results of an exam.
It might come from rumors of layoffs at work. It could be as simple as your pay check will not get you through the month. Life creates many anxious moments. But when the pressures of life continually increase, you may feel anxious all of the time. The pressure can be so great that you wonder if you will be able to carry the load of anxiety even one step further. In the Bible, the Apostle Peter gives those of us who battle anxiety great hope.
He tells us “Cast your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Knowing that God cares for us and that He can lift us out of our anxiety is life-changing.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” –Steve Jobs
Things you can do to ease your anxiety
1. Don’t set resolutions
Everyone talks about change in the New Year like you have to. Like a new year on the calendar marks a time where you are suddenly going to wake up and choose to be a different person. So you set goals, you have expectations and hopes. You hold onto hope that this will be the year you change or something in your life will. Join a gym. Lose weight.
Eat healthier. Stop drinking. Stop smoking. Be in a relationship. Get over your ex. save money. Try a new hobby or join some group. Travel more. You write down resolutions (some you won’t achieve.) Then you feel slightly defeated when you don’t amount to it or a month goes by and suddenly its Feb you haven’t seen the results you wanted or the outcome you were hoping for. When you focus too much on where you want to go rather than where you are, you’ll never get there.
Just because the calendar changed doesn’t mean suddenly you are going to. Change doesn’t happen overnight. But when enough times passes, one day you are going to look back and realize where you were maybe six months ago, maybe a year ago and then you’ll either see you’ve made progress or you’re in the same place.
2. Make a good music playlist
Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions. Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck.
According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song, “Weightless” resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable. Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so.
The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
3. Help other voluntarily
It’s generally understood that helping out others makes a person feel nice, but that experience goes beyond just the feel-good glow of altruism. Studies have found that helping others has tangible benefits, both mental and physical, from lowering your blood pressure to reducing feelings of depression. Volunteering is a free, low-risk, simple tool that people could fold into their mental health care, why aren’t doctors recommending this as much as any other lifestyle changes, like exercise?
4. Prepare a coping box to deal with your anxiety
Coping skills are techniques used to deal with stress and anxiety. These can be positive or negative in nature. The ability to contrive positive, good coping skills and begin implementing them into your daily life takes effort and practice. There are countless lists you can obtain searching online or asking a mental health professional but coming up with ones that work best for you can be a process.
Looking over ideas and lists of positive techniques is a great start; thinking about activities or objects that are calming can lend to best practices as well as asking a friend or family member. One you have a handful of skills that help during stressful times it is prudent to take note. This is where making a coping skills toolbox can be extremely helpful. Breaking those skills down into categories can help give options when you find yourself in varying situations.
For example, you may not be able to use the same coping skill in the privacy of your own home that you would need in a crowded party or sitting at a desk in school or work. By creating your own coping skills toolbox you have access to your most useful techniques all in one place. This makes it easier to remember those skills and to use them vs. resorting to negative coping skills out of habit.
5. Develop an attitude of gratitude
Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. Practicing gratitude is one of the most reliable methods for increasing contentment and life satisfaction.
It also improves mood by enhancing feelings of optimism, joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, and other positive emotions. Conversely, gratitude also reduces anxiety and depression. “Research has shown that individuals who engage in a regular practice of focusing on those things in their lives for which they are grateful can help to ease feelings of anxiety and worry,” psychologist Dr. Carol O’Saben told POPSUGAR. Grateful people are generally more helpful, generous of spirit, and compassionate. These qualities often spill over onto others.
6. Reflect on the best aspects of your life
It’s New Year’s Eve; it’s the perfect time of year to look back and reflect on what you’ve done right this year, to learn from what you’ve done. If we don’t reflect on our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. And that’s not very smart. However, if we reflect on those mistakes, figure out what went wrong, see how we can prevent them in the future; we can use our mistakes to get better.
Mistakes, then, are a valuable learning tool, instead of something to feel embarrassed or upset about. Reflection is an important way to do that. If you reflect on the things you did right, on your successes that allow you to celebrate every little success. It allows you to realize how much you’ve done right, the good things you’ve done in your life. Without reflection, it’s too easy to forget these things, and focus instead on our failure.
7. Download Meditation Apps
Squeezing meditation and mindfulness exercises into your day is much easier when you use an app. Meditation can benefit your health in many ways, from improving your concentration to reducing health and anxiety. It’s a small lifestyle change, but one that can reap big rewards.
There are plenty of calm meditation apps out there to help you deal with anxiety and stress in your day-to-day life, from HeadSpace to Buddhify. Read on to discover an app that suits you. Apps like Headspace or Calm have guided meditations that can assist people to calm down when they’re feeling really anxious.
8. Join the support group
Join the support group and express you thoughts with the people around that understand your conditions. Its a blessing to have someone who listen you, and feel your pain. The support group mostly have people with same health condition which contribute in the uplift and help you to vent. You can also join our support group “Living with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Illness”
9. Laugh:
Try to adopt the habit of laughing, as its the world best medicine for curing every illness. Laughing help you to relieve stress and negative emotions.
10. Exercise
Exercise help in relieving tensions and stress. So adopt a habit of daily exercise of 4,5 mins. You can also do Yoga to give a peace to the mind.
Reference: Its a reproduced version of PopSugar Article, Originally appeared on MSN, health, wellness.
