Commit to Calm Day 9

Living with anxiety is stressful. This week I implemented two quick techniques to squash the anxiety and increase my level of calm.

I live with anxiety. Whether I like it or not, it is part of who I am. In good times, it is manageable. It is always with me, but buried deeper under the surface. In bad times, it explodes to the surface, flaring into a constant fear of impending doom. It makes me overwhelmed, distracted, and stressed. Anxiety can make it difficult to rest, deny me fun, and trap me inside my own head. The pandemic did not help. In the last year, my anxiety has been the highest in my life. This week I worked on decreasing the anxiety and had some successes with two quick techniques.

Anxiety and my Commitment to Calm

A huge part of my motivation to Commit to Calm is to find more tools and techniques that decrease the anxiety and increase the calm in my life. This week I felt anxious with the boys returning to school but found comfort in a few brief meditations, connecting with nature, and revisiting my gratitude journal. These activities relieved stress and helped me feel more content. But I noticed two things in particular this week that were most effective for decreasing my anxiety quickly: keeping busy and coming home to my breath.

Anxiety technique: Keeping busy

As I mentioned before, I used to facilitate training for Dale Carnegie. As part of the “Skills for Success” course I led employees through developmental training focused on public speaking, interpersonal, and leadership skills. The training is based on Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People, one of the best-selling and Time’s most influential books of all time. The training also draws on his book How to Stop Worrying & Start Living, in which Carnegie offers advice for decreasing stress. Although I wouldn’t recommend this book as a clinical, evidence-based approach to anxiety, it does offer some compelling, anecdotal advice. It’s like the old school version of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

Carnegie’s first rule for breaking the worry habit is the one I find most useful.

Rule 1: Keep busy. The worried person must lose himself in action, lest he wither in despair.

Dale Carnegie

Carnegie gives multiple examples of people who were either forced to stay busy or threw themselves into an activity. As a result of keeping busy, they did not have the time nor the attention span to worry. He cites the fact humans are incapable of multi-tasking to back up his argument. Carnegie was definitely onto something here, as ample evidence has since proven humans just cannot do two things at once.[1]

I often find this rule applies to my experienced levels of anxiety. If I give a lot of attention to the worried thoughts as my anxiety initially ramps up, the anxiety only worsens. At times when I find something to do, I often feel less anxious within a few minutes. For example, this week I was feeling anxious while waiting at the after-school pick-up location. I remembered a list I had meant to make earlier in the day. I pulled out my phone, opened a Google spreadsheet and started to record my list. It killed a few minutes before the kids were dismissed and forced me to focus on something more productive than the anxious thoughts.

analysis blackboard board bubble
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A word of caution

Throwing myself into a task or activity can be helpful a lot of the time. However, this rule has limitations and should be taken with a grain of salt. There are times I need to relax and don’t want to busy myself or focus on a task. I don’t want my to-do list to kill my fun. It’s not helpful to think I need to keep busy ALL the time, that would result in burnout. In fact, I would argue constant busyness, distraction, and multitasking are a huge part of my stress and anxiety. Instead, I advocate for purposefully putting your attention towards a task you find worthwhile or enjoy. Give your attention to something more worthwhile than anxiety.

In addition, if my anxiety is already spiraling out of control it is difficult to find the mental bandwidth to focus on an activity. In these instances, the anxiety makes it impossible to focus, and I need to try a different tactic. Thus, if the anxiety is already out of control or if it’s keeping me from being able to relax, this advice doesn’t work for me. Despite these limitations, there are plenty of times I’ve implemented it with success.

Photo by Michelle on Unsplash

 Anxiety technique: Coming home to my breath

I’m not sure if it was the act of meditating (even briefly!) this week or the advice I discussed here, but I was more aware of and in touch with my breathing this week. The reminder to notice my thoughts and bring my attention back to my anchor (or breathing) was effective for me. Several times I noticed my anxiety starting to bubble to the surface. I told myself “come back to your breathing,” took a few deep breaths, and felt more relaxed. I was able to move past the anxiety without more than a minute of focused breathing.

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.

Amit Ray

For example, I was driving the kids to school and feeling stressed. I noticed the usual anxious thoughts starting to pop up. Whenever this happens, my breathing becomes quicker and shallower, only serving to reinforce the anxiety. I was stuck in the car and unable to switch tasks or keep myself busy with something more compelling. Instead, I reminded myself to breath. Practicing just a few breaths brought me back to normal. This was quick and worked in a pinch.

Therefore, noticing the thoughts and coming home to your breath can be a quick and efficient technique to squash the worry. Both techniques are difficult to implement if the anxiety is already too far gone. The key for me is to be able to pick up on the anxiety early and try one of these techniques before it dominates.

Do you have other quick techniques for stopping your anxiety? I’m always looking for good ideas! Leave me a comment.

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[1] https://health.clevelandclinic.org/science-clear-multitasking-doesnt-work