Anxious thoughts, constant ruminating, worries of the future – here’s how to kill them and live your less stressed, most disciplined life.
Anxiety.
It’s like having a crackhead squirrel as a personal life coach.
Here are 3 tools to beat anxiety as soon as it rears its dumb ugly face.
Get outside and participate in exercises that incorporate forward motion and induce lateral eye movement. Aka, exerc-EYES.
No, don’t record yourself being shot out of a cannon. But if you do do that, definitely record it and send it to me cuz that sounds pretty badass.
Cycle around your neighborhood, run on a track, walk through the park. These activate the parietal network in our brain which snatches resources from the amygdala– the part responsible for processing stress and panic. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but serving no jail time cuz Peter ain’t no snitch.
One of the coolest parts? This has the same effect as anti-anxiety meds.
Anxiety keeps us going back to the future without needing Doc or a weird but still cool silver flying car. Instead of tripping over the future, we need to walk tall and confidently in the present.
A great way to do that is through the 5 senses. Wherever you are in the moment of anxiety, identify:
This helps you regain control of your thoughts and strengthen your mind for the battle against anxiety.
If anxiety is superman, then gratitude is that fucker’s kryptonite. Studies show that a single act of gratitude produces an immediate 10% increase in happiness, and a 35% reduction in depressive symptoms.
It releases happy chemicals of dopamine and serotonin from our brain which lowers blood pressure, eases anxiety, and even helps alleviate chronic pain.
Pull up a blank doc on your laptop, open a blank note on your phone, write with a quill and fucking scroll– doesn’t matter! Just write out all the shit in your life that you’re grateful for. Because at the end of the day, and the beginning, and middle, and all other times of the day– you have a lot to be grateful for.
…like this blog post.
We want you spending less time stressed and more time living with purpose. So if you feel that anxiousness creeping up, just remember, you can absolutely (legally) murder it. You got this!