How to Stop Feeling Anxious immediately: Tips for Quick Anxiety Relief

Sour Candy

Sour candy disrupts our brain and body’s experience of anxiety. The intensity of sour candy takes our focus off the anxiety-inducing thoughts and physical sensations. Take your time when ingesting the candy and really feel the sour, bitter, sweet tastes.  When you really experience the vastness of the taste, feel, and smell, you ground yourself in the present moment, not in the future (which is where anxiety lives).

Cold Water

Cold water exposure activates the parasympathetic nervous system aka the system in our body that enables us to feel calm and relaxed after stressful events. You can do this by running cold water from a faucet on your hands, drinking cold water, holding something cold, splashing cold water on your face. 

Heated or Heavy Blanket

For some, anxiety invokes feelings of fear and doom. Wrapping ourselves in a blanket helps us feel safe and comforted, radically diminishing the fear we feel. If a blanket is not available, you can wrap your arms around yourself (self-hug) or get a hug from someone you love.

Going for a walk

Walking helps put our mind and body at peace. The fresh oxygen and blood walking brings to the brain helps regulate mood and thoughts. Additionally, walking reduces activity in the part of the brain most responsible for our anxiety response.

Reminiscing

When anxious thoughts are bouncing in our head, it is hard to take our mind off them. We often try to combat this by making up things to think about, but because our brain is busy spending energy on the anxious thoughts, it’s incredibly difficult to think of things to take our mind off our anxiety. So instead of trying to think about new things, think about things that have already happened. Reminiscing also produces feelings of peace, joy, and relaxation. Here are some prompts. Think about the last great movie you saw. Think about your favorite thing to do as a child. Think about the first date you and your partner went on. Think about your last vacation.

Muscle Relaxation

If you are anxious right now, I would bet your body feels pretty tight right now. Your jaw is clenched, neck is stick, shoulders are tensed, and back is slouched. What I need you to do is sit/stand up straight with your shoulders back, unclench and wiggle your jaw, drop your shoulders, and take a big deep breath (so deep that your upper body lifts up when you breathe in and drops when you breathe out).

Controlled Breathing 

How we breathe heavily influences how we feel. When we are anxious we often forget to breathe. We hold tension in our chest, getting minimal air into our lungs. In doing so, we unknowingly make our anxiety worse. So, when you feel anxious, try this breathing technique; breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for a beat, breathe out for 8 seconds.