12 Powerful Ways to Reduce and Calm Your Anxiety

Today I want to share 12 tips that have been really useful for me to calm my anxiety in everyday life.

Because if you’re anything like me you have been there many times.

You’re sitting in a waiting room. Or just waiting somewhere.

Soon it will begin.

Your leg is starting to shake nervously. Your hands are starting to sweat and maybe your mouth feels a bit dry.

Your thoughts are becoming jumbled, it is hard to focus and to think as clearly as you usually do.

Maybe you have an important test in school. A job interview. An appointment with your doctor or dentist.

A date that you are looking forward to but at the same time you are scared to make a fool of yourself on.

Whatever it may be it is making you anxious.

Now, these self-help tips are for relieving low or medium levels of anxiety. They are not intended for anxiety attacks or anything that serious.

I know nothing about such things and would recommend that you seek professional help in such situations.

1. Breathe.

Sit down, in a quiet place if possible.

Breathe a little deeper than usual and do it with your belly and not with your chest.

For just a minute or two focus on only the air going in and out of your nostrils. Nothing else.

This will calm your mind and body down.

And it will bring your attention back to the present moment instead of it being lost in overthinking scary, future scenarios or bad memories from the past.

2. Get good knowledge.

Dispel the clouds of uncertainty and vague fears by researching what you have anxiety about.

By talking to people who have done what you are about to do or want to do – or by reading what they have written – you can build a more realistic roadmap with both positives and negatives of how things are likely to go.

And learn how to improve in the area that gives you anxiety.

Do research on the best ways to become better at and less nervous when – for instance – doing public speaking, job interviews or presentations at work or in school.

3. Do a quick workout.

I like to lift heavy weights for about 15-25 minutes when I feel worried, stressed or anxious.

It makes me feel stronger both in mind and body. It releases inner tensions and relaxes me.

Others go out for a quick run, walk or bike ride when they feel anxious.

Find a way to exercise that fits you and lets you reap these benefits and counteract anxiety.

4. Focus on something else.

Sometimes it is more helpful to simply redirect your mind instead of thinking about what creates your current anxiety.

Especially if you have no control over the situation that causes the anxiety like for example an upcoming appointment with your doctor or the dentist.

So focus your attention somewhere else for a while and recharge it with something positive.

Watch a couple of episodes of your favorite sit-com or TV-series. Browse your favorite social media feeds. Have relaxing or upbeat night out with friends.

Do something that takes your mind off the situation that causes anxiety, even if it is just for a few hours.

After that recharge you will not only likely feel better but you will also be in a better headspace and at a higher energy level to handle and think about the anxious situation.

5. Don’t forget to eat.

When I forget to eat because I am stressed and anxious then that only tends to worsen my state of mind.

It becomes harder to think clearly and negative scenarios more easily pop up in my mind.

So even if you don't feel that hungry keep an eye on the clock and if you may be running low on fuel.

6. Change your focus to what you can do right now.

When you ask yourself questions that make you feel powerless or like things will only get worse and worse then you take away your personal power.

Empower yourself by instead asking yourself:

What is one small thing I can do to improve upon this situation today?

Write that question down and brainstorm answers for a few minutes. Then take action on one of the answers you find.

It doesn’t have to be a big action, just one small step forward. And when you are done with it then take another one.

This movement forward will make you feel like you are starting to regain control over your life again, it will make you feel at least a bit more confident and it, in my experience, tends to reduce the anxiety.

7. Question your worries and anxiety.

Look to your own past and ask yourself:

How many situations that I have been anxious about in the past have turned out to be exaggerations or me making a mountain out of a molehill in my mind?

Question your anxiety and worries instead of letting them roam freely.

8. Remember: You have handled tough situations in the past.

When you are standing in the middle of anxiety and fear bubbling up within then it is easy to get dragged down with it.

To lose faith in yourself and your abilities.

When that happens focus on your breathing first to calm and clear your mind. Then look to the past for a bit of strength and confidence in what you can do.

Doing this helps me to go from feeling powerless to feeling like I am standing on firmer ground again.

9. Let the feeling in to let it go.

Sometimes an anxious feeling can feel sticky and vague.

You don’t know exactly where it is coming from or what is causing it. It can be hard to get rid of.

A bit of an odd solution that has worked well for me in such situations is this:

When you feel a negative feeling then allow and accept that feeling. Don’t try to keep it out. Don’t try to fight it.

Even though many of us have learned to do those two things to negative feelings throughout life.

Instead, this time, just let it in and observe the feeling in your mind and body without judging it.

If you let it in and just observe it for a couple of minutes something wonderful happens.

First it may feel uncomfortable and more intense.

But then the feeling loses power. It weakens.

Often to the point that it just vanishes. Or so you can let it go without much effort.

Because when you accept the feeling and let it in you stop feeding it with more energy (as you would when you tried your hardest to keep it out or to fight it).

10. Let it out into the light.

When you keep something inside of you then your head can become an echo chamber that magnifies and doubles the anxiety and fear in a situation.

So let it out instead.

Talk to someone close to you about the situation at hand. Just venting to someone who will listen can help you to get a more grounded view on what's happening.

Or the two of you can discuss it and help you to reclaim your power by making a small, initial plan for how you can reduce the anxiety about this situation by taking some kind of action.

11. Stay in the present moment.

Anxiety is often a fear of something you think will happen in future.

One way to reduce that anxiety is to simply stay with your attention in the present moment as much as you can.

Perhaps you make a small plan in advance to help you out but you choose to deal with the anxiety-creating situation when it happens.

Instead of spending hours each day with imagining and fearing the future and creating monsters in your mind.

The breathing technique at the start of this article is one of the best techniques I have found for returning to the present moment when you get lost in the future.

Another one of my favorites you can try is this one:

Take 1-2 minutes and focus only on what’s right in front of you.

Or around you and on you. Look at what’s right in front of you.

Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes. Feel the warmth of the spring sun on your skin.

12. Remember: There is a brand new day tomorrow.

This reminder helps me when today or the last week may not have gone so well.

Because there will be a brand new day tomorrow. A day when you can begin again.

A day when you can take a new step to move towards what you want and likely have a bit more luck.

And when it will be easier to see that this difficult time is only temporary and not permanent (even if it might feel that way right now).

 

21 Quotes to Help You to Stop Overthinking (+ My 5 Favorite Tips)

One of the most common things that gets people stuck in inaction and in not doing what they deep down would like to is the destructive habit of overthinking.

You can overthink a small problem or challenge until it looks like a huge and undefeatable monster.

Or overthink something positive in your life until it doesn’t look so positive anymore.

And sometimes you may even be zapping a simple moment happening here right now out of all it’s joy and magic by overanalyzing and dissecting it.

I’ve done all three of those things. All too many times.

So in the first part of this week’s post I’d like to share 21 of the quotes that I’ve found the most helpful myself when I’ve gotten stuck in overthinking.

And in the second part I’d like to share 5 of my own favorite tips. The ones that have helped me the most to stop overthinking in the past 10+ years.

1. “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.”
   – Napoleon Bonaparte
2. “Thinking too much leads to paralysis by analysis. It's important to think things through, but many use thinking as a means of avoiding action.”
   – Robert Herjavek
3. ”Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.”
   – Brian Tracy
4. “Rule number one is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it's all small stuff.”
   – Robert Eliot
5. “Don't get too deep, it leads to over thinking, and over thinking leads to problems that doesn't even exist in the first place.”
   – Jayson Engay
6. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
   – Martin Luther King, Jr.
7. “Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.”
   – Leo Buscaglia
8. “If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.”
   – Dean Smith
9. “Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, “What else could this mean?”
   – Shannon L. Alder
10. “We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.”
    – John Newton
11. ”People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.”
    – George Bernard Shaw
12. “The more I think about it, the more I realize that overthinking isn't the real problem. The real problem is that we don't trust.”
    – L.J. Vanier
13. “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
    – Winston Churchill
14. “It's a good idea always to do something relaxing prior to making an important decision in your life.”
    – Paulo Coelho
15.  “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
    – Napoleon Hill
16. “In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
    – Theodore Roosevelt
17. “Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”
    – Erma Bombeck
18. “Trust the still, small voice that says, “this might work and I'll try it.”
    – Diane Mariechild
19. “Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
    – Benjamin Franklin
20. “A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
    – Karen Lamb
21. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
    – Mark Twain

How to Stop Overthinking: My Top 5 Favorite Tips

1. Use a reminder to save yourself from winding up there in the first place.

Staying aware of your negative habit and catching yourself as soon as you start falling into that trap of overthinking as you go about your day can be a big help.

But just trying to keep it in mind at work, in school or in your private life tends to not work that well in my experience. Because we forget all the time.

So what’s needed for this to work a lot better is a reminder.

When I focused on getting a handle on my own overthinking I used a whiteboard on the wall in my home office. The message I wrote on that board was this:

Keep things extremely simple.

This helped me greatly to more often and quicker snap out of overthinking and reduce the number of times that the destructive habit grabbed a hold on my thinking.

Two other kinds of effective reminders are in my experience:

• A small note. Put a post-it or something similar with your reminder somewhere where you cannot avoid seeing it every day. You may even want make a few copies and put them in strategic places like your workspace, bathroom mirror and on the fridge.
• A reminder on your smart phone. This is the kind of reminder that I use the most these days. I use the free Google Keep app and usually set a reminder to pop up 1-3 times a day to help me to stay on track.

2. Reframe the situation and see it from a wider view.

When you’re thinking and thinking about something then ask yourself:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even in 5 weeks?

Zooming out in this way will help you to see things with clearer eyes and from a more level-headed perspective.

It will help you to not let medium-sized issues become something that causes more stress or concern than is necessary.

And to more quickly let go of situations where you’re honestly making a hen out of a feather (or out of simply nothing) and to not waste any additional energy on them.

3. Get out of your own head.

When you’re stuck in your own head and thoughts then it can be hard to break out of an overthinking loop about something.

A simple solution that works well but can be a bit counter-intuitive is to then direct your focus fully outward instead of inward.

Two good ways to get outside your own head are:

• Help someone else out. Listen and encourage someone close to you that is in a negative situation. Help a friend to plan for a party or for an upcoming meeting or date. Or help out physically by for example lifting moving boxes as your friend is moving into a new house.
• Exercise. I find that lifting weights or going somewhere on my bicycle and simply focusing on the exercise and my surroundings and nothing more to be a great way to get out of my own head and to find new energy and a sharper focus once again.

4. Simply small step it.

If overthinking becomes a way to procrastinate or to not face the fear of getting out of the comfort zone you’re in then small step it.

Find just one small or tiny step you can take to move forward. One small action that takes 1-5 minutes. Do that and focus only on that one step until you’re done.

This will get you moving, build momentum and often leads to more small steps being taken (as the first step is most often the hardest one).

5. Just realize and accept that you can’t control everything.

Not even if you think a situation through 50 times or more.

To try to control everything or cover any possible eventuality through overthinking so you don’t risk making a mistake or looking like a fool can be appealing. It has sometimes been the biggest reason for why I’ve thought things through all too many times.

But I’ve also learned that accepting that it simply doesn’t work is the honest truth. To prepare and plan is helpful but going overboard with it isn’t.

A better and healthier way forward is in my experience to understand that making mistakes, failing and sometimes looking like a fool is natural part of stretching your comfort zone.

It has happened to everyone that has wanted to live life fully and to anyone you may admire.

And for most of them those experiences have been very valuable.

Because such situations have helped to them to learn game-changing lessons, to grow and are often invaluable ingredients to their success.

 

21 Small Ways to Make Life Simpler

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Leonardo da Vinci

“The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

I love simplifying my life. It makes me more effective and life less stressful. It makes me calmer and happier.

But where do you start? Or continue if you are already on your way?

In this week's article I’d like to share 21 small habits that help me to live a simpler life.

Pick one of these to get started and keep doing it until it sticks and becomes just another normal part of your life.

1. Breathe.

When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out.

This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again.

2. Do one thing at a time.

You’ll get better results and feel better and less stressed while doing those things.

3. Write it all down.

Use your mind for better things than remembering what to do. And the mind is often like a leaky bucket.

So write down all your great ideas, insights and thoughts before they go missing somewhere and add what you need to do to a to-do list.

4. Do all your food shopping once a week.

You’ll save time, energy and – in my experience – money.

5. Stop trying to do things perfectly. 

It will only get you stuck and drain your self-esteem.

Go for good enough instead and when you are there you are done. Get things all the way to done this way and then move on to the next thing.

6. Stop doing what you don’t like doing anymore.

Life changes and so do you.

If you don't like doing something anymore then stop doing that (even if it may take some time before you can do so by for example switching jobs).

7. Pack your bag before you go to bed.

Then you don’t have to get stressed out by that in morning and you are less likely to forget something.

8. Throw out the things you haven’t used in 1 year.

Go through what you have and ask yourself if you have used it in the past year. If not, give it away to charity or a friend or simply throw it out.

9. Ask yourself simplifying questions every day.

Questions like:

• What is the most important thing I can do right now?
• What is one small step I can take to simplify this situation?

10. Keep everything in its place.

If everything has its own place then it is whole lot easier to keep your home reasonably ordered and decluttered from day to day.

This also helps you with your inner stillness as the outer environment affects how you feel on the inside.

11. Cook more food than you’ll eat. 

We usually make four or more servings of what we're about to eat. This cuts down on time that you spend on cooking and you’ll have to do less washing up in general.

Plus, it’s good to have portions of food to bring to work to save some money.

12. Write shorter emails.

I tend to write emails containing only a few sentences, usually between one and five. If you focus on keeping it short and focused then you’ll probably discover that this is a good solution in most cases.

13. Ask instead of guessing.

Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate.

This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste of time and energy.

14. Use a minimalistic workspace.

My workspace contains a big monitor and a laptop on an adjustable standing desk. I use a comfy chair and there is room for my glass of water beside the computer.

That’s it. There are no distractions here. Just me, the computer and the water.

15. Check everything just once a day.

I check my email inboxes, blog statistics, my online earnings, Twitter and Facebook just once a day.

I combine all that checking into one small daily ritual at the end of my workday so I don’t slip and go checking it more during the day and waste my energy and attention.

16. Choose small daily acts of kindness.

Instead of small acts of judgment and criticism towards the people around you (and towards yourself).

17. Stop trying to please everyone.

There will always be people who you don’t get along with or that do not like you for some reason.

18. Don’t make mountains out of molehills.

Before you start thinking too much about something and building it up something big in your head, ask yourself: “Am I making a mountain out of a molehill here?”

And if you get lost in victim thinking then ask yourself: “Does anyone on the planet have it worse than me right now?”.

19. Spend 10-15 minutes each Sunday or Monday morning to plan out the week.

Write down your plans for the week, organize your prioritized to-do list and get ready for the week before you are in the middle of it all.

This will help you to find more clarity, get more of the most important things done next week and minimize stress.

20. Cancel subscriptions for things you rarely get around to watching or reading anyway.

21. Spend more time with the people that help you to keep things simple.

And spend less time with the people that drag you down into overcomplicating everything and creating unnecessary drama.

 

How to Say No: 10 Powerful Tips

How do you stop saying yes when you honestly just want to say no?

Well, it’s not easy. I used to have a lot of trouble with it.

And so I’d become frustrated and angry with myself and others who had asked me about a favor or help.

While at the same time working on someone else’s goals instead of my own and wasting too much time and energy on that.

Things simply had to change.

So I set out a handful of years ago to learn how to become better at saying no.

Here’s 10 of the best tips, habits and strategies I learned.

1. First, keep in mind why you’re saying no.

When you are about to say no then remember why you are doing it.

Focus on the positive things it will open up in your life such as more time for your family, for your writing or other hobby or simply for relaxing so your stress levels will go down.

Because you need to say no to things to be able to say yes to the things you want out of your life (there isn’t enough time and more importantly energy to do it all).

This positive motivation will help you to go through with your decision even if it feels tough.

One simple way to keep your focus on what’s important in your life both when you need to say no and to just stay on track and not get distracted in your daily life is to ask yourself this:

What are the top 3-5 priorities in my life right now?

It could be spending more quality time with your daughter, your photography hobby, reducing your debt and so on.

Write those top 3-5 priorities down on a post it-note or as a daily reminder in your smart phone (I use the Google Keep app for the reminders on my phone).

This will keep your attention consistently on what truly matters to you.

2. Kindly disarm and then state your need.

It becomes easier for people to accept your no if you kindly disarm them first. You could for example do that by saying that you are flattered and that you appreciate the kind offer.

And be honest about whatever you say.

Then you can, for instance, add that you do not have the time for accepting and doing what they want.

3. Add how you feel about it.

Some pushy people might want to overcome your objections and sell you something or convince you to do something even if you first say no with a valid reason.

Then try this: state how you feel as a reason for saying no.

For example say that you do not feel that this offer is a good fit for your life right now. Or that you feel overwhelmed or your plate is already more than full and so you cannot do whatever they want.

Or that you feel you truly have to keep all your focus on your main project right now.

The point of telling someone how you feel is not only to make them understand your side of the issue better but also that it is a lot harder to argue with how you feel rather than how you think.

How you feel is your thing and no one can really come up with good counterarguments to that.

4. Help out a bit if possible.

To leave the conversation where you’re saying no in positive way see if you can help out a bit.

Recommend someone that you think would be a better fit and that could help in better way than you can. I do this pretty often when a reader or someone in my life needs help I can’t provide or knowledge that I lack.

5. If you feel a bit guilty then that’s OK.

But just because you feel a bit guilty because you said no doesn’t mean that you have to act on that emotion. Just be with it instead.

When you are with that emotion and allow it to simply be then after a little while it will start to lose steam and become smaller and smaller. And so you can move on.

6. Simply realize that you can’t please some people.

The fact is that with some people you just can’t win. They won’t be pleased. No matter what you do.

Because it’s not about you with this person. It’s about him or her.

It’s about him being in an unhappy marriage, having a bad month healthwise or being dragged down by money worries.

Or about her having a sick pet, being sick and tired of her job or that she doesn’t have a good chemistry with you.

Realizing this and that you can’t get everyone to like you no matter if you say yes every single time can help you to put a stop to your people pleasing habit.

And to start focusing more on what YOU deep down want to say yes or no to.

7. Improve your self-esteem.

If you don’t value yourself then you won’t value your time very much either.

This has been very true in my experience.

The most powerful thing I have found – besides keeping my attention consistently on what truly matters to me – to make it easier to say no was to improve my own self-esteem.

With better self-esteem the time and the energy I have has become a lot more valuable to me and I do not want to waste it.

And my sense of what I deserve in life has also gone up and I’m much less tolerant of or likely to give in to other people’s negative ways of persuasion.

Like guilt-tripping, being really pushy or simply trying to take advantage of me.

8. Reminder: you teach people by how you behave.

This is one powerful reason why it’s important to say no when you need to.

Because if you’re assertive about what you don’t want by standing up for yourself and saying no then people will pick up on that.

And over time you will encounter fewer and fewer situations where people try to be pushy or steamroll right over you. This will make life and relationships simpler and more respectful and by being assertive you’ll also improve your self-esteem.

9. Realize that the world will go on.

Remember that just because you say no to something doesn’t mean that the world will stop.

They will find someone else that can do what they want and they’ll manage and life will go on for all of you.

So don’t let a feeling of being almost irreplaceable or words to that effect influence you into saying yes when you really want to say no. That has led many people down a path of resentment, anger and in some cases eventually into being burned out.

10. Celebrate and analyze your successes.

You may not be able to say no to everything you’d like to say no to in your week or month. Even if you use several of the tips in this article.

Don’t put too much focus on those situations though. It will only bring your self-esteem and motivation to cultivate the no-habit down. Learn what you can from them and then move on.

Into focusing mostly on your successes.

You may just have said no in one or a few small ways this week. That is still something new and great in your life so feel good about it. Pat yourself on the back and celebrate in some small way what you have accomplished and how you have grown as a person.

And think a bit about what went well in those interactions and what you can learn from them for the future (and repeat to get the result you want).