It’s 2:07am flashing on your phone in the middle of the night. Your heart is beating fast, eyes pacing at the ceiling, tossing and turning rustling the sheets and your head continues to go over the day ahead as your mind is on over drive to plan ahead. The conversation you’re preparing to debate, the encounter you know you’re bound to run into, the truth you need to face, or the impending deadline you are hesitant to follow through with.
I’ve been there, on all of these situations at varying times of the day and night. Anxiety is a creepy emotional drain that can come out of left field ready to suck your positivity and “go-getter mindset” out the window in a flash.
Where Anxiety Comes From
Life can be simple, yet us humans love to complicate things. Myself, an over-thinker and planner, I’m typically seven steps ahead of actions and prepping for multiple outcomes and scenarios. This skillset makes me an awesome producer, troubleshooter and entrepreneur; however, it’s not so great for the creative endeavors, including acting.
Why? Because I need to be present in order to connect with the character, the other actor(s) and the emotion. Switching between the two mindsets and roles has been a toolkit in the works, but I’ve noticed the more I complicate life the less it goes with flow.
At its core, anxiety is a fear of what is to come in the future that has yet to happen. It’s said going through high stress and trauma when you’re really young is likely to have quite an impact. Being honest, no matter how good our parents were, I believe we all have inner child work that could use a bit of listening to, being heard and loved and seen to better improve who we show up as adults on a day-to-day basis. Inset, our personal updated self-soothing toolkit.
3 Tools To Calm Anxiety
It’s life, anxiety and stress happen. In those moment, here are the top tools I’ve found useful to ease anxiety rapidly:
1.Breathe
Inhale four, hold for four, exhale six. Repeat that 4-6 times, or as many repetitions as you find necessary. The extended exhales lower our heart rate and stress levels incredibly fast with focus.
2. Mantra
A personal mantra I use is “You are doing enough. You are on the right path.” Perhaps that resonates, or you can come up a phrase to battle your own inner demons. The key is to understand what is causing some of your stress and counter with a phrase that calms it.
3. Object Mindfulness
When my anxiety really kicks into high gear, I need to make an instant shift to stop the spiral, and fast. Looking at animate objects in the room are powerful, taking me out of my spinning head and into the present to focus my mind. For example, I’ll look around the room and start saying outlaid or in my head “painting…plant…trash bin…pen…watch.” This shifts my head from future thinking and a spiral to present moment objectivity.
Action steps: which one of these examples can you resonate with? And, which tool will you implement in the moment you need to put anxiety to bed?
