The Calming Process

– A Step by Step Guide to Calming Ourselves

The last time I talked about how anxiety is felt and experienced in the body. Today I will share some tips about the importance and ways of calming the body down.

I call this the Calming Process.

Here is seven step guide to how you can calm yourselves during stress and anxiety.

Calming Education

Anxiety is basically a state of agitation in the body and the mind. When we are agitated, common sense tells us that we need to calm ourselves. But even before that we need to know and accept that we are anxious and then and only then we can take the steps to calm.

In my E-U-C protocol for anxiety management, I always start with the education part of it. Unless we are educated about anxiety, unless we understand clearly what causes anxiety, what causes panic, how our body reacts to it, it is very difficult to start actively taking action to calm ourselves. It is important that we start in this education process much earlier or at least do that when we are not having an anxiety attack.

I call it ‘Calm Education’ because just educating ourselves about anxiety, the fight-flight response and the nervous system response is an act of gaining back control. When we feel a little bit more in control, we have already started the anxiety calming process.

Calming Observation

In this step we start noticing the effects on our body in an observer like fashion. Be sure to do it non-judgmentally. Try and pretend that you are observing someone else’s body. That might help keep it non-judgmental.

Identify what is happening in your body by giving a name to the physical sensations. For example, you can say, ‘My heart seems to be beating really fast’, ‘My neck and shoulders are hurting’, ‘I am unable to focus on my work’ and so on.

Calm observation helps you really understand what is really going on in your body. This helps prevent you from jumping to disastrous conclusions like, ‘I must be having a heart attack’ while in reality you are experiencing anxiety.

Calming Reminders

Once you observe your body is going through some of the anxiety symptoms, calmly remind yourself that ‘this is only anxiety‘ and that ‘it will pass away soon‘.

Some affirmations we can say, ‘This is only anxiety. It will pass away soon.’ ‘This is a temporary situation. I am experiencing a fight-flight-freeze situation.’

A calming reminder helps you take away the fear of something far worse happening.

Calming Breath

Now we can start taking some slow breaths to physically calm the body. Slow and deep breaths can stimulate the relaxation response and turn off the triple-f response (fight-flight-freeze response).

Breathing is one of the most potent ways to calm ourselves. All schools of anxiety management, therapy and mindfulness use this simple yet profound technique regularly.

I prefer to do a counting breath, breathe in for a count of 4 breaths and breathe out to a count of 8. You can start with 3-6 and slowly move to a 4-8 count. Try and see which count is most beneficial for you. Do this at least 10 -20 breaths at a time to see some good results. You can repeat as needed.

The goal is to lengthen your exhalation because that is what kicks start your vagal response and soothes your nervous system. The longer your exhale, the calmer you feel.

Calming Movement

Once you have calmed yourself a little bit by using your breath, it’s time to move.

Movement is a wonderful method of countering anxiety. You can try simple stretching, exercise, dance, walking or yoga or any other movement that appeals to you.

Try some simple stretches to start this. Some stretches you can try:  flex your fingers and wrists, move your neck sideways, stretch your shoulders up and down.

Calming Mindfulness

Mindfulness by itself is calming. When we use mindfulness as a technique to calm our body during anxiety, I refer to this as ‘Calming Mindfulness’.

This is a great way to ground yourself and bring your focus back to the body and to your surroundings.

Look around and say aloud what you see. For example, ‘I see a chest of drawers in front of me, I see clouds forming in the sky’. Identify at least 3-4 things that you see and say it aloud.

Now say aloud what you hear. For example: ‘I hear the fan sound, I hear the sound of cars in the road’. Identify at least 2-3 sounds you hear and say it aloud.

Now say aloud at least one thing you can smell. Example: ‘I smell the aroma of today’s lunch’.

When we focus on the other senses and saying it aloud, that forces the mind to get detached from the anxious thought and come back to the present reality.

Calming Words

By this time, you would already be feeling much calmer than before. To strengthen that calm, try repeating some phrases or affirmations.

Some examples can be: ‘I am getting better and better at managing my anxiety’ or ‘I am slowly teaching my nervous system to calm down’ or ‘With every breath I am getting more and more calmer.’

Focusing on a phrase like this can help focus your mind and reassure it.

It is important that you choose the phrase beforehand and not at the moment of panic.

To summarize this was a seven-step process of calming that will help restore your body and mind to a more relaxed state. Each of these steps has an active component to calm but the combined effect of using all of these is very powerful and will help you get into a state of calm, ease and relaxation much more quickly.

But mind you, you have got to try it to experience it. Remember, to ‘BE – CALM‘