Being home 24/7 can be stressful. Very stressful. Trust me I get it 100%. There is something very calming and joyful about being able to be a part of the world and interact with people other people. And I say this as a HUGE introvert!
However, I also believe there is something very peaceful and powerful about being able to exist comfortably and truthfully in your own space.
As a homebody and somebody who experiences high levels of anxiety, I’ve learned a few techniques allow me to recognize my reasoning for the space I am taking up at the moment. These techniques help me better manage my anxiety.
It’s so important that we allow ourselves to exist truthfully in those moments when our anxiety may be getting the best of us. This is because by doing so we able to take a step back, acknowledge all that is happening not only with ourselves but in our environment as well, and then begin to manage the situation.
All too often we take for granted our power, our self-worth, and our ability to take up as much space is needed for us to reach our full potential.
This is why I believe it’s so important to have a multitude of techniques that can help you center yourself at any time during the day, and for any situation, good or bad, you may find yourself in.
And we’re going to dive deep into these anxiety reducing techniques now.
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1. Have a routine
I cannot stress this enough! Routines help us to stay balanced and create consistency in our lives. Routines are by far the easiest anxiety reducing technique that we can implement. This is because everything in is our control.
We don’t have to worry about doing things we don’t want to do, or having other people try to manipulate the activities taking place. Instead we can design a routine that best meets our personal needs.
The best part is that creating a routine doesn’t really require much effort. All you really need is a specific time during the day that you can dedicate to yourself, and a short list of activities to complete during that time.
I have both, a morning and nighttime routine. This is mainly because I’ve come to recognize that my needs are very different in the morning compared to what they are at night. If you need an example of what a daily routine can look like, here’s my current morning routine.
- 6:00am – waking hour
- 6:10am – morning workout (15-30 minutes)
- 6:40am- morning shower
- 6:55am – morning meditation
- 7:00am – write/check planner
- 7:30am – breakfast/ready to officially start my day
This routine helps me meet my need of practicing self-love. This routine also sets me up to be as productive as I possibly can during the day while experiencing as little stress as possible.
2. Take space for yourself
This is something that we don’t do too often and I personally believe we need to do a lot more of. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking up space.
For nearly my entire life I was always told to take up as little space as I possibly could so that others will have more room to be expressive. Little did I know that I was giving others permission to grow and reach their full potential but not myself.
Which means that if you’re giving yourself permission to take up space, and to not make yourself appear as small as you possibly can, you will grow and evolve exponentially. If you do the opposite well, the opposite occurs and we never have the opportunity to become better versions of ourselves.
This can be a major anxiety trigger.
I want you to strive to reach your higher power so that you can grow into your full potential. The best way to do so is by taking up space for yourself.
Acknowledge when you need that time alone, when you need space to express yourself without judgement, or when you just need room to breathe and hear your own thoughts. Finding solitude within yourself isn’t loneliness, it’s power.
Not too many people have the courage to be alone with themselves, their thoughts, and their emotions. This is the seed that will eventually become a vicious flower known as anxiety.
If there has been anything valuable that I have learned in the past 3 years it’s that we only grow and evolve in ways that we allow ourselves to.
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3. Find your person
This is so important. The one thing that we all need is someone to confide in. When we have such a solid support system like this it can help reduce our anxiety significantly.
This is because we are not burdening ourselves with all our emotions and thoughts, or even all the things we may be experiencing throughout the day. Instead we have someone to lean on and to lift us up in ways we can’t do ourselves.
If we take on the world, all our thoughts and emotions by ourselves we’ll never get far. All of it will just pile up high on top of one another and before we know it, we’ll come crashing down. Our anxiety will take over which will make it that much harder to get back up.
If you have someone that you can turn to in moments when you need it, and even in moments when you don’t, it helps to soften the blow. Having someone to talk to takes away the responsibility to take everything on for ourselves, and instead gives up space and permission to be just as human as those around us.
4. Hear your own voice
This is so crucial. When we become uncertain about something, we don’t feel confident in our ability to do something, or fear of the unknown completely takes over us, we immediately shut down and begin to look to others for guidance.
This can be troubling if you make a habit out of it. This is because we begin to lose sight of our own vision and listen less and less to our own voice.
We stop trusting ourselves, we begin to ignore our instincts, and we learn how to operate in a constant state of fear. Believe it or not by doing so you’re slowly losing grip of your power.
This will only spike your anxiety that much more.
To reduce it and bring it back down to something that you can manage you have to trust that you know what is best for yourself. Don’t focus too much on whether it’s the right or wrong decision. Instead, focus on what you are telling yourself in that moment.
Are you sad? Are you angry? Did you not get enough sleep? Are you still upset with someone? Ask yourself, “what’s going on with me”?
Acknowledging emotions like these, and being brave enough to ask yourself the hard-hitting questions, gives the voice in your head the courage to speak up. Only then you can begin to heal and move forward.
5. Take care of yourself
I’m a firm believer in the idea that we can’t take care of others if we don’t take care of ourselves. When we find ourselves trying to meet the needs of others, not realizing that our own needs have not been met we can often times project.
In other words, we can often times come across as less helpful to others because we are projecting the fact that our own needs have not been met. When we do this, we don’t make others feel seen, heard, or validated. Instead we come across as insecure, erratic or needy, and in some cases selfish.
To avoid this, you have to make sure that you are taking care of yourself.
This means to practice self-care daily and ensure that within those self-care practices your mental, emotional, and physical needs are being met. This is where having a routine can come in hand.
You can use that time to practice self-care and make a habit out of doing so by consistently engaging in those self-care practices that help you center yourself. Even if you choose to engage in self-care outside of a routine that is fine. The goal is to remember to care for yourself so that you can better care for others.
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6. Find your solitude
Love, love, love this. Solitude is really such a simple thing. It’s knowing, trusting, believing, and loving the company that you keep most, which is yourself. We get so caught up with being the presence of others that we often times forget about the little things that make us happy.
I don’t know about you but for me a big trigger for my anxiety is the lack of participation in things that genuinely bring me joy.
I get so caught up in caring for others, looking out for others, and making sure that everyone around me is ok that I forget to do all these things for myself. After a long period of doing so I hit a wall and have a mental breakdown and find myself back at square one.
Over the past year I’ve picked up one trick that helps me to stop, slow down, process everything around me and that’s happening to me, before moving forward again. This trick is something that I like to refer to as using the 5 senses as a way to reset myself.
What do I do and what does this look like? I’ll break it down for you.
I like to count down from 5 to 1 and relate each number to a specific sense. This helps me to regulate my breathing and take in my environment. As you can imagine this allows me to be able to process everything that is making up my environment. It goes a little something like this…
- 5 – Identify 5 things in the room that you see
- 4 – Touch 4 things in the room that are within reach of you
- 3 – Identify 3 sounds that you can hear in the space that you’re in
- 2 – Notice the scent of 2 things in your environment
- 1 – And finally find 1 thing that you can taste and identify what that taste is
Such a simple act that has such a huge impact. Before I know it, I’m returning back to the present, and giving myself the time needed to process what triggered my anxiety spike to begin with.
7. Make T.I.M.E for yourself
Simply put make yourself a priority. I LOVE this idea of T.I.M.E from former monk and motivational speaker Jay Shetty. Jay identifies T.I.M.E as:
- T – practicing thankfulness
- I – being intentional
- M – meditating whenever possible
- E – exercising often
I love this because it’s the bare necessities of self-care. What I love most about T.I.M.E is that it takes away the pressure of having to do something good for yourself. Instead just sort of sets the expectation of what you need in order to succeed.
This process is designed to help you focus on the things that you can control.
Practicing thankfulness is all about appreciating everything that you have. Being intentional is exactly as it sounds, don’t half-ass anything. Instead give it 100% every single time. Meditate as a way to keep yourself in balance and to check-in with yourself often. Finally, exercise because not only do our bodies need it, but it better allows us to take care of others.
8. Do things that make you happy
Last but not least do things that make you happy. I don’t care how silly, ridiculous, weird, childish, or out there it may be. If it puts a smile on your face then it’s worth doing.
Anxiety operates out of fear. For me personally it’s always the fear of the unknown. For others it may be the fear of something else. Whatever the trigger is for your anxiety it’s important to acknowledge that it’s fear-based.
The one tactic that I believe rings true for every single person is that when fear strikes our natural instincts are welcome in light. How do we do that? By turning to things that make us happy and feel safe.
So, no matter how bad your day may be going, how upset you may be, or how uncertain you may feel, trust your natural instincts. Trust that you can always choose to push aside any fear by intentionally choosing to not be afraid.
Choose to do things that make you happy in spite of how something negative may make you feel. Afterall, life is way too short to do anything else.
I hope these tips help you find better ways to manage your anxiety. What are some things you do?
-Xo
Kimora