When experiencing anxiety, particularly during panic or in the middle of the night, ask yourself, “Am I safe in this moment?” or state, “I am safe in this moment.” This practice anchors you in the present, where anxiety (which relates to future worries or past trauma) cannot exist, offering immediate relief.
Shift your approach to anxiety by focusing on using your body to calm your mind, rather than attempting to use your mind to calm your body. This involves actively engaging with physical sensations to break the alarm-anxiety cycle.
When stressed, perform a modified physiological sigh: take two deep sniffs, expand your chest, hold for 2-3 seconds, then exhale slowly through closed teeth with a hissing sound, imagining an over-inflated tire relaxing. This technique helps to calm the autonomic nervous system more effectively than mental rumination.
Regularly practice calming techniques, such as the modified physiological sigh, for at least five minutes daily even when you are not anxious. This consistent practice trains your autonomic nervous system to relax, making these techniques more effective during actual stressful situations.
When feeling anxious, instead of getting lost in thoughts, direct your attention to your body to identify where you physically feel the “alarm” (e.g., solar plexus, throat). This helps to separate the body’s physical alarm from the mind’s anxious thoughts, which is key to breaking the anxiety cycle.
Once you’ve located the alarm in your body, describe its physical characteristics by asking yourself about its temperature (hot or cold), size (e.g., grape, baseball), color, and texture. This process helps create an emotional signature of the trauma, translating the body’s feeling into a more understandable form.
Understand that constant worry and mental rumination can serve as a coping mechanism to avoid feeling deeper, unresolved pain or “alarm” stored in your body, often stemming from childhood experiences. Recognizing this function can help you redirect your energy from mental dissociation to body-based healing.