9 Ways To Soothe Troublesome Anxiety

Anxiety is completely and utterly normal. It is an emotion just like anger or happiness – every single person holds it.

But, there’s a cut-off point. Once anxiety begins to impact your quality of life, that’s when it is no longer ‘normal’.

That, ladies and gentleman, is when it’s a problem.

I watched a video about anxiety earlier, and the presenter described anxiety being like a sensitive car alarm. For most cars, their alarms go off when there is danger i.e. someone breaking into them. But, there’s always that one car in the street that is set off from something as simple as a gust of wind – this car’s alarm has been unnecessarily turned on. A person suffering from anxiety is much like this car, their anxiety being the alarm.

If you are suffering from intense anxiety, or even an anxiety attack, here are some calming activities that I believe may relieve you of that horrible tension.

1. Take yourself somewhere calming and comfortable. If you’re lucky enough to be at home, then try your bedroom.

2. Accept how you are feeling and stop fighting it. Dedicate an hour of your time to calm down and continue with your day afterwards.

3. Turn off any unnatural lighting and embrace the natural light from outside.

4. If you own a diffuser, then throw that on. Right now I’m loving Organic Defence by Neil’s Yard mixed with Orange Blossom by Tisserand.

5. Music, music, music. Throw on some chilled background music to set a nice relaxing environment. A couple of suggestions are Trapped in a club by Sales and The Bend by Real Estate. In fact, create an entire playlist dedicated to your relaxation time.

6. Confide in someone. Whether it be to a best friend on WhatsApp, a partner over a phone call or someone at home, it really puts your worries into perspective and takes a large weight off of your chest.

7. Eat some feel-good food – a fair few chunks of dark chocolate and green tea seems to do the trick for me.

8. Submerge yourself into a warm, candle lit bath. Fill it with salts and oils and allow yourself to relax.

9. Stay away from any poisonous social media. I find browsing Pinterest or watching Ben Brown’s vlogs to be calming and very positive past times.

It is perfectly fine to not be ok all the time. It is perfectly fine not to be ok most of the time. What counts is that you don’t give up. What counts is that you are strong enough to trudge through these foggy times and make it out the other side.