You’re reading 4 Easy Tips to Cultivate Calmness, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

The ability to cultivate a sense of inner calm is an important factor when it comes to coping with anxiety. Anxiety, often times, creates physical side effects on one’s health, and the cultivation of calmness and relaxation in both body and mind can serve as a form of release from mental anxiety. Minute changes in your lifestyle and habits can bring unanticipated, positive effects on your wellbeing as a whole. Here are a few easy tips on how you can instill calmness in your daily life.

Develop a calm morning routine, instead of falling prey to a stress-induced morning rush.

A morning ritual can instill a sense of calmness into your life and set the stage for a more relaxing, less anxious day. Although many individuals start off their day in a mental and physical rush, this fast-paced environment is more prone to increased stress levels. It may be helpful to plan out your day the night before, simply by setting aside a few minutes to write down a to-do list or reminders to your future self.

Developing a morning ritual does not have to take up a lot of time; rather, it can be a relaxing exercise to jot down things to remind yourself of doing. It is also helpful to sleep early and set up multiple alarms, so you will not worry about sleeping through only one alarm. Preparing the night before for a potentially stressful day can also evoke peace of mind; for example, you can meal prep for the week during the weekends when you have time, or you can plan out your week’s work, so you do not have to plan as you go. Although this is not necessarily a morning routine, getting into the habit of doing things can exponentially reduce your anxiety and allow you to lead a less rushed life.

Pay attention to how you react to a stressful event or individual.

Self-awareness is key when it comes to handling your anxiety. Often times, our body reacts harshly to stressful situations or even individuals. Although you can never completely avoid stressful situations in your daily life, it is helpful to recognize whenever those events occur, and do your best to prepare on how to cope with them. You might not necessarily be able to control your reaction to an event, but being aware of a potential stressful situation and recognizing the scope of your reaction to it can improve your anxiety in the long run.

Paying attention to your reactions can also help you come up with a plan in case your anxiety might get triggered by certain situations. There are different kinds of triggers in our daily lives — it can be a natural or invisible trigger. For example, a natural trigger can be a stressful workplace situation that you can not necessarily avoid, but an invisible trigger can be if you’ve had too much time to dwell on a concern. Being aware of these natural and invisible triggers are helpful, and you can figure out more effective coping mechanisms.

Develop an attitude for gratitude, and be thankful for the little things in life.

Maintaining positive thoughts, although at times a difficult task, can ultimately be helpful for your anxiety. In order to develop an attitude for gratitude, you don’t have to spend a lot of time dwelling on aspects of your life you are thankful for. In fact, you can spend a few minutes of your day jotting down thoughts of gratitude towards a certain situation, individual, or even natural occurrence.

Many frequent journal-ers have a gratitude notebook to help them put life in perspective, and although this might not directly target your anxiety, journaling can have calming effects on your mind and body. Simply listing down what you are thankful for can evoke a strong sense of gratitude and peace of mind; you don’t have to dedicate a specific allotted time each day to write what you are thankful for — instead, you can list things out as the day progresses, and find that this exercise can also keep your mind healthily occupied as well as boost your mood.

Instead of multitasking, dedicate your mental and physical energy to completing one task at a time.

Although multitasking is often praised in our fast-moving society and workplace, dedicating your energy to a single task at hand is also useful, especially when it comes to managing your anxiety. If you often try to multitask and find yourself overwhelmed at the work you have to do, this could exacerbate your stress levels and be a trigger when you attempt to accomplish them.

Multitasking, although it seems like a relatively normal skill, can be stressful at times, and on days where you are feeling especially stress-induced, it is important to slow things down and take one task at a time, especially in the workplace. Creating a list of things you have to do can also release your stress, as you can cross off each task you have accomplished when you have completed them.

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About the Author of this Post
Terry Nguyen writes articles and blogs for Red Cup Agency. Her other writings about health can be found on the Getting Past Anxiety Facebook page. To experience one woman’s journey through anxiety and how she gets past it without medication, check out Melissa A. Woods’ novel Getting Past Anxiety.

You’ve read 4 Easy Tips to Cultivate Calmness, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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