Decrease Your Stress and Anxiety | Hadonica's Photography

4 Ways To Decrease Your Stress & Anxiety Levels

Stress and anxiety are, unfortunately, a part of many women’s lives. We are constantly juggling work, family, and social obligations. It can be hard to find time to relax and de-stress. When we do have a few minutes to ourselves, we often feel guilty for taking them. However, finding ways to decrease your stress and anxiety levels is important. Here are a few tips to help you do just that.

1. Identify Your Stress Triggers

One of the most important things you can do when managing stress is to identify your stress triggers. There are several different ways to identify your stress triggers. One way is to keep a stress journal. For a week or two, write down every time you feel stressed. Include what was happening at the time, how you felt physically and emotionally, and what you did to cope.

Another way to identify your stress triggers is to pay attention to your body. When you feel yourself getting tense or anxious, take a moment to check in with your body. What physical sensations are you experiencing? Where do you feel it?

2. Be present in your body

When you start paying attention to your body, you’re expanding your capacity to be aware and attentive to your bodily cues. All too often, our mind can spiral down “what if’s” and replay the triggering moment over and over. Any perceived danger will result in our body reacting to it as if it’s actually happening. 

Grounding yourself in the present moment is important to remind yourself that you are safe. This will help relax your mind and body.

3. Practice deep breathing.

Breathing exercises steer your mind away from the stress inducer and towards counting and how air flows in and out of your body. There are many different exercises that can help with anxiety. For a basic exercise, you can check out our previous mindfulness blog here.

4. Watch how you talk about yourself

Language can shape our reality of ourselves. Repeated exposure to a certain language and type of thinking is more powerful than you would think.

Instead of saying “I’m depressed” or “I’m anxious” try saying “I’m feeling depressed/anxious.” This will help reinforce that this is a temporary state you’re going through. Even if you are clinically diagnosed, your diagnosis is not your identity. You are so much more than your mental illness and symptoms.

You can choose to express kindness towards yourself as well. We fall into the pitfall of saying “I should be over this event” or “That shouldn’t bother me.” That type of language can invalidate our feelings and make situations worse because we don’t acknowledge the mental and emotional toll certain stress triggers have on us. 

Empowerment comes from within. There’s never anything wrong with accepting help and admitting you can’t do things alone. However, we all have a responsibility to ourselves to listen to our bodies and increase our awareness when we start feeling stressed and anxious. Outside forces may provide the tools and resources for us to start our self-healing journey, but we’re the ones who have to take the first step.