Mental Health Awareness Week

Anxiety can occur anywhere, but typically when we are faced with stressful situations ranging from open or small spaces, meetings or difficult people to social situations and presentations where that destructive inner voice can whisper in our ear ‘you don’t belong here’, or ‘you are not enough’.

🌬 B – Breathe. When feeling anxious, our breath becomes short and shallow, starving the brain of much-needed oxygen. By turning our focus to the breath we shift our attention inwardly and by regulating the breath we create stability. By breathing out for longer than we breathe in we stimulate the parasympathetic system (responsible for rest and digest) which is the counterbalance to the sympathetic system (responsible for activation, or fight and flight)

🚶‍♀️ E – Exercise. Getting up and moving around when feeling anxious releases muscle tension and lowers the body’s contribution to the overwhelming emotion. Also, when moving your body, you naturally release feel-good neurochemicals into your brain such as dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline and endorphins – the rest and revive chemicals.

👌 A – Accept. Taking control of your inner voice and changing the language helps the rational part of your brain step in. We can typically only focus on one internal message at a time, so changing the dialogue from self-deprecating to a non-judgemental message that allows emotions to wash over it eases the pressure we put ourselves under.

👣 T -Transcend. When feeling overwhelmed or out of control through anxiety, taking a minute to mindfully engage with all five senses grounds us to the present moment – we all like a bit of control and when experiencing a panic attack or spell of anxiety the fear of not knowing where the emotion is going can cause more upset.

So next time you feel the rising tide of an emotional response that might lead to feeling anxious, practice the above process and BEAT it into the ground!!!