Some simple techniques to help calm your anxiety down:

When we feel anxious, stressed or angry, our primitive brains are dominant. The primitive brain is responsible for the fight, flight, fear response and is vital when we face a genuine threat and when activated, it releases stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) into our bodies. However, in our modern lives, that response is often activated in response to things that are not direct and genuine threats but things that we nonetheless find stressful or worrying. When we experience anxiety there are lots of techniques that we can use to help us regain intellectual control and stop the primitive brain from dominating. These are not meant as a long-term solution for persistent or chronic anxiety but they certainly can really help in the moment when you feel that anxiety rising or a sense of panic beginning.

Here are a few of my favourites; why not give them a go?

· Name 3 things. Notice, name and think about 3 that you can see, 3 that you can hear, and 3 that you feel or touch. The process of noticing, naming and thinking about each of these things forces you to operate from the intellectual brain and therefore helps to calm our anxiety down. You can repeat this as many times as you like, noticing different things each time.

· Breathe calmly and slowly, exhaling for loner than you inhale. You’ll see lots of versions of this which suggest numbers like the 7 – 11 or 4, 7, 8 etc. In fact, as long as you breath calmly and make sure that you breathe out for longer than you breath in, this will help to calm your anxiety down. Breathing out for longer activates the parasympathetic nervous system and makes it more dominant than the sympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system helps to relax your body during or after periods of stress or anxiety. I use this technique at the dentist when any drilling is involved and it really helps.

· Think about a favourite place or experience and imagine or recall all the details you can. This can be helped by having a photo on your phone of a time that you really enjoyed; something like a picture of you or your family on a beautiful beach on holiday. You don’t have to have a picture, it can just be a memory but it’d important to try to recall all the details and sensations of that moments…..the sound of waves rolling in, the smell of salt in the air, the sensation of the sun warming your skin. This works in the same way as the ‘name 3 things’ technique but it has the added benefit of remembering something we enjoyed or treasured.

· Go for a walk! Walking has so many benefits and it’s free. It benefits your posture, your digestion, your blood pressure and helps to build strength and stamina. Walking is also very good for mental health and well-being and when you feel stressed or anxious, it can really help to calm our anxiety down. Even a short walk will do this and whilst it might be lovely to walk in the countryside, even a quick stroll around our neighborhood or near our workplaces can be a great benefit. While you walk, notice the things around you, the sights and sounds and smells.

· Scale your anxiety. On a scale of 1 to 10, decide where your anxiety is. Just by doing this, you’ve put an upper limit on how high your anxiety is, rather than thinking things like “It’s through the roof” or “off the scale”, you’ve put an upper limit of ten on it. Next, think about what would feel more manageable and how that would feel. You might think, well, it’s about 9 now but I could cope with 6. Then think about and describe to yourself what 6 would look or feel like. You might describe your heart not racing as much or your breathing becoming slower and calmer. As in other techniques, the very act of thinking and describing helps us to regain intellectual control and be better able to think more rationally.