How to stop worries and racing thoughts.
Stress, anxiety and worry can make us extremely tired, forgetful and unwell. It can be hard to get through day to day life when our minds are so active with unhelpful thoughts. There are things we can do to help calms our minds when we get these thoughts and to lower the stress from them.
• Take time out of each day to relax and de-stress. This could be 5 minutes meditation, 5 minutes breathing exercises or just simply 5 minutes listening to music and clearing all thoughts from your head. If you plan out your day make time on your routine to do this.
• Try out some breathing exercises to calm the anxiety. Breathe in with your nose and out with your mouth on a count of 7 both times. Do this slowly and put all attention into your breathing. You can also count to 3 as you breathe in and 5 as you breathe out, do whichever one makes you feel most comfortable.
• Use a mantra to calm yourself down when your thoughts start to race. You can say something like “Everything is ok,” “Everything’s going to be fine,” “I’m doing good.” Repeat the phrase over and over, focusing your thoughts only on your mantra.
• Write your feelings down in a diary, a book or in a message. (Anyone can message me at anytime). You’ll be surprised how helpful writing your thoughts down can be. I do this all the time on my blog as I find it’s a great way of coping.
• Our mind usually worries about things it is convinced are true but, most of the time, are actually not true. When you get a worry in your mind try to come up with a positive outcome to the situation instead of a negative one. For example, “I have a meeting today, I know I’m going to mess it up” or “I have a meeting today, it’s going to go really well and I’ll come home happy.”
• Make sure you’re getting enough sleep at night. If you didn’t sleep well you can always take some naps through the day when you’re not busy. If you have trouble getting off to sleep you could try reading a book, drawing, listening to an audio book, listening to meditation or listening to relaxing music. (There are lots of apps you can download that include most of these things).