It can be easy to calm down quickly. It just takes practice and training as any other skill. Regardless of what is happening around us, we have a choice to be free from stress or anxiety. It’s important to learn how to calm down quickly so that these negative emotions don’t become addictive. The longer we engage with them, the harder it can be to detach. There are many pathways to becoming free of negativity. This article is based upon principles that offer easy steps for lowering stress and anxiety. Here are some effective steps to calming down, feeling better about yourself, and finding that calm in the midst of a storm.
Open The Opportunities Within
We are all endowed with many resources hidden within us and many of them we have yet to discover. When there is stress in our lives, we often look outside ourselves when the best answers are contained within us. In order to access our innate abilities, we must stop looking outside ourselves and being dependent upon others. When we take responsibility for our inner world, thoughts, and beliefs we can change them to create the space we want to live in. As we turn our attention within, we discover our true selves and begin enjoying our alone time, rather than avoiding it. As we begin to uncover the hidden gems within us, we are able to find calm.
Focusing Your Attention
What we think, we become. We are what we think about the most and what we focus our attention on. When we are overly focused on a person, thought, or situation, it is easy to become so attached to self-centered and obsessive negative thoughts. Our brains are wired for negativity as a method of defense. Our brains believe that stressing and focusing on the negative, will somehow keep us safe. Logically, we know that this isn’t true but once the fight, flight, freeze response is triggered by our amygdala all logic is lost and our emotional response center takes over. Whatever we focus on, grows, so the more attention we focus on negative or upsetting things, the more power it has over our lives. The good news is, this can be counteracted once you locate and use the tools we have within us.
The first step in taking control of our attention is to notice what we are thinking about most of the time. Awareness is the first step towards choosing a different thought.
- What are you spending most of your time thinking about?
- Is it positive?
- Is it constructive?
- Is it what will help you accomplish your goals?
The next step is spending time each day developing concentration skills. Some call this meditation, some call it mindfulness or concentration practice. Whatever you choose to call it, mindfulness requires daily practice. Try sitting in a comfortable position that you can stay in peace without having to move or readjust. Close your eyes and begin by noticing your breathing. Breathe naturally and just notice and be aware of each breath as it flows in and out. Allow your mind to focus on your breath. Random thoughts will flow in and out of your mind. Let them. View these thoughts as background noise as you continue to bring your thoughts back to your breathing. This may be difficult at first, but with daily practice, this will become easy. Try this for 5 mins, then 10 mins, then 15 mins, and longer as this becomes easier. The physical stillness helps us to bring our minds to a place of stillness and peace.
Ending the Negative Narrative
Our minds jump from one thing to the next and prefer to focus on the negative as the default mode. Negative thoughts can be fears, stressors, incomplete tasks, finances, relationships, or past losses in our lives. This is what creates our inner reality. These thoughts create suffering, fear, and negative patterns of behavior. By owning our focus and turning those negative thoughts into background noise, we can create inner calm and peace. As we do this regularly, we are no longer carried away by passing feelings and thoughts. Through regular, daily practice, we can discover an inner calm and peace that we can turn to when we need it.
Amplify Strengths Rather Than focusing on Weaknesses
When we focus upon our strengths, rather than our weaknesses we lessen the fear, anxiety, and depression we feel. By being mindful, we lower the stress hormones in our bodies and allow our minds to provide more logical solutions to our problems. We accomplish this by centering our minds and practicing our focus. When we begin to feel overwhelmed, we need to ask ourselves: What am I focused on? What am I thinking about? Am I in the present moment or am I focused on the past or in the future? Am I in a mindset of gratitude or am I feeling sorry for myself because I am focusing on the things I don’t have?
The only constant in life is change and movement. Each new day presents us with new opportunities, challenges, and adventures. Ask yourself: Are you in touch with the reality around you? Sometimes we get so lost in our inner reality we forget to connect with the reality that exists outside of ourselves. Are we focused on our gratitude and on what we can give to those around us? By making a conscious choice to take ownership and responsibility for our focus, we remove the root cause of our panic, overwhelm, suffering, and anxiety – our thoughts.
Take Action That Matters
Now that we have responsibility for our minds, we can use our thoughts to compel us to take constructive action. By calming the storm within us, we create room to see the reality around us more clearly. We make better decisions and create better outer realities and outcomes for ourselves. We are able to show up better at work and in our personal relationships. We can take decisive, conscious action. We can move without hesitation. We can live in the present moment and focus on the simple actions that will propel us faster into the future that we can consciously create.
Once we have clear and focused minds we can let our deeds, not our words, be the evidence of our character. When we commit to serving others and giving our gifts in a generous way. When we bring our focus back to the reality around us, rather than the storm within us, a deep and lasting transformation happens in our lives. Once we have calmed our inner world, we are able to be better contributors to those around us. As we focus our lives on helping and serving others, encouraging and supporting others, our internal anxiety, panic, and stress dissipate and create space to bring more joy inside ourselves. When we help others, we create a deeper sense of our life’s purpose and develop self-respect and resilience.
When we suffer from anxiety and depression it is often a direct result of low self-esteem. We have low self-esteem when we have thoughts of feeling not good enough or worthy enough. When we can take pride in our actions and see how our actions can improve the lives of others, we increase our self-esteem. When we fill our lives with positive and helpful actions, we naturally enhance our self-worth. Self-esteem and self-worth naturally develop when we take actions that make those around us feel good and we can see the results of our positive contributions. These experiences help us develop grit, perseverance, and resilience to handle any situation that is presented to us in our lives. Not only does calming our inner world create peace for ourselves, but it also opens the opportunity for us to focus more on being a positive contributor to the world around us. We become better people and better world citizens who enjoy a stronger, more positive, connection to ourselves and the realities of the world around us.