How to Cope with Stress and Anxiety

Are you struggling with stress and/or anxiety? Almost everyone in the Western World is struggling with these to some extent. It may be stress because of work, stress to get good grades or anxiety when taking tests. Maybe it’s paralyzing anxiety that keeps you from going out in public or from being able to eat certain foods or from picking up the phone to talk to people.

Stress and anxiety come in many forms and vary in intensity. Do you know how to ease your stress and anxiety? Are you able to bring the intensity down to a moderate or manageable level?

Why is it that we still struggle with how to cope with these when it seems as though everyone is affected? When it comes to stress and anxiety, we need to attack it in 2 different ways; proactive and reactive.

Let’s talk about proactive approaches for a moment. If you are the kind of person who experiences anxiety often or perhaps there is a situation that is coming up that is known to cause anxiety for you (perhaps a test), it’s important to take proactive measures to help reduce the stress. Basically, being proactive can increase your resilience to stress and anxiety.

In case you don’t know, Resilience basically means your ability to bounce back from things that hurt you in some way. Think about most kids, they may trip and fall, perhaps even scrape up their knees, but they’re back up and playing pretty quickly. That’s because kids are often much more resilient.

Ok, now what do I mean by being proactive? I’m referring to self-care. I know it sounds basic and like something that is more of a luxury than a basic need, but it is not. We need to make self-care a priority every single day. This may be meditation for you, yoga, taking a bath, reading a book or watching your favorite movie, etc. Here’s more about how Self-Care can help you.

Reactive approaches include your coping skills. These are the coping skills you apply once you are already impacted by the anxiety/stress (or whatever negative emotion you’re experiencing). For example, let’s say your anxiety manifests physically and you start to have excess energy that makes you jumpy. Some form of movement may be a helpful coping tool to get that excess energy out; go for a walk, get a punching bag, do jumping jacks, etc. Another coping that really can help, especially in anxiety, is focusing on your breath and using breathing techniques. This is discussed in the video below, but you can also research different breathing techniques to see what works for you. Other things to try is sipping cold water slowly, splashing cold water on your face (it shocks your body and signals that it needs to come back to normalcy, so it triggers a physiological response - this is especially good if you get jittery or heated with your anxiety) or drawing.

Another video that you may find helpful is the following which talks about proactive and reactive approaches to anxiety that are all natural.

I would encourage you to look up different coping skills online. There are endless resources and suggestions. I suggest writing down 3 things that you think could be helpful and next time you experience that type of anxiety, try them. You may find some don’t work as well for you, so cross those off the list and find new ones. Over time, you will get a nice long list of coping skills that are effective for you.

I hope you found this post helpful! If you know anyone else who could benefit from reading this, please share with them. If you have any questions, concerns or requests for future posts, please leave a comment or message me privately.

I wish you less stress and anxiety on your journey to finding your State of Balance!

Also, check out my Youtube Channel for more inspiration!

You may also like these posts:
​Creating Space
Do I Need Medication?