Conquering Anxiety: Coping Skills
Hi everyone! Thank you for following our Conquering Anxiety Series. We are in week 3! Last week we covered the cycle of anxiety. Please review the post here if you have not yet. The way this series is planned, it is important to follow the posts in the right order to benefit from the series. So if you stumble upon a random post, I recommend going back to the master and catching up in the right order.
In the last post, we talked about the cycle of anxiety! How the choices we make can weaken or strengthen the cycle. But the reality is, just knowing that we are doing the right thing does not make it any easy. It is still so hard to stand up to anxiety. This is why coping skills exist! These are ways you can make your anxiety manageable, and activate your parasympathetic nervous system. They should not be used with the intent to run away from anxiety as that is only going to strengthen the cycle of anxiety. Instead, think of them as your support system while you tackle your fears.
Here are some effective and simple coping strategies
Grounding Techniques
The 5-4-3-2-1 Method
This is one of the most used methods where you ground yourself. Here is how it works:
Look around you and identify
🔎 5 things you can see around you (clock,laptop, phone etc)
📲 4 things you can touch around you or are currently touching (your phone, floor etc)
📢 3 things you are currently hearing (fan, AC, birds chirping, traffic etc)
🌼2 things you are smelling (coffee, your perfume etc)
✨1 emotion you are feeling (Happy, sad, anxious)
It is a good way to take your mind off your intense feeling of anxiety and helps you focus on what is in front of you.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Also known as belly breathing or abdominal breathing. The best way to understand how to do it is through watching a video such as the one linked below.
If you find this challenging to do while sitting up, try it while lying down and it is a lot easier to do! Once you get used to it, it becomes easier to do it sitting up. This technique can help relax you during times of distress but you should not wait for anxiety to kick in and instead make it a point to practice this for a couple of minutes day and night and make it a part of your routine.
The 4-7-8 Method
These numbers may be easier to remember and use compared to the first numbers technique as this is relatively simpler. We are again focusing on our breathing like the last method, however, it's fine if you can’t do it through your belly just yet!
Here is how you do this
- Let go of any air you are holding (empty your lungs of air)
- Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds
- Hold up to 7 seconds
- Exhale through your mouth, through the lips, and make a whoosh sound (whoosh sound is optional, it's okay if you can’t)
- Do it for 4 cycles!
Remember that this is what we want to work our way up to, it's fine if you can’t hold for 7 seconds yet or exhale in a controlled way, with practice this becomes easy, just do what you can!
The second thing to note is that when we get anxious air feels scarce, and some people don’t want to take deep breaths, in that case, you may not like the Diaphragmatic Breathing in times of heightened anxiety but this 4-7-8 method can work as you don’t have to take deep breaths, just follow the second's rule, focus on that instead of how deep the breath is or where it is going.
Now you have these three techniques, make it a point to practice them again and again so that they become second nature to you and when you do feel the anxiety rising, you don’t have to try and remember what the tools were. Some individuals may prefer one or the other and that's okay, find what works for you!
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Technique
Leaves on a stream
We have learned how to ground ourselves and reduce the intensity of the anxiety we are dealing with. However to be able to do that we need to understand that thoughts are just thoughts, just because you think something does not mean it's true. You can view your thoughts without passing judgment or engaging with them.
To practice this skill, there is a meditation called ‘Leaves on the Stream’
❗Tasks for you
- Go through all three of the grounding exercises and complete them.
- Completes the leaves on the stream meditation
Share with us how these exercises made you feel and one way you can incorporate at least one of these into your daily routine
Further Reading
- Diaphragmatic Breathing
- 7 deep breathing exercises to help you calm anxiety
- How to use 4-7-8 breathing for anxiety
I have a couple of different things I try when it comes to grounding because what works one time might not work the next. Sometimes nothing works
The breathing exercises I use often. They're more useful and helpful the sooner I notice any changes in breathing. The numbers often vary
Meditation is harder because often it's hard to stay fully present during. But it was nice to imagine leaves floating down the stream :)
@Hope I tried out all the techniques mentioned in your post and I think they make me feel a lot more relaxed right now, maybe because I just did all of them just right now. The 4-7-8 method was quite nice and helpful and I'll try to do it daily.
I think the 5-4-3-2-1 method helped me look around a bit and observe what's around, but it didn't help with anxiety a lot because I was still quite distracted in my thoughts and worries and feeling tensed even as I tried to list those things. I guess the diaphragmatic breathing method might be nice, but it needs quite a lot of effort and it's hard. I tried to do it lying down and it was easier than sitting up but still quite hard.
I was quite reluctant to do the leaves on the stream exercise because I usually never do well with meditation techniques, but I was forced to try it for this series, and it wasn't that bad. Does make me feel a bit calmer and relaxed, even though I still have a lot of worries going on in my mind. I might try to do it again when I can and try to incorporate it in my daily routine.
Thank you for this post and thank you for forcing me to try the leaves on the stream meditation, lol.
@exuberantBlackberry9105
I am glad you found them relaxing. It is expected that some methods work better than others, it differs from person to person.
haha I am glad the meditation helped
@Hope I am glad too, haha.
@Hope
I have utilized all the ground exercises and the leaves on the stream meditation before. The ones that help me the most are the Diaphragmatic Breathing and the leaves on the stream. The Breathing gets my whole body to calm down, while the Leaves on the stream slow down my mind. Using the 5-4-3-2-1 Method has been helpful in situations where I do not want others to know I am working through grounding exercises. It has helped me stay in the present moment. I have also used the 4-7-8 Method, which has helped when I do not remember other grounding exercises.
@Hope Ive tried all these methods and they are quite relaxing. I use the 5-4-3-2-1 method regularly when dealing with overwhelming thoughts and emotions, it is extremely helpful. I am trying to incorporate the breathing techniques ib my daily life as well.
@Hope
Share with us how these exercises made you feel and one way you can incorporate at least one of these into your daily routine
The exercises made me feel gratified, fortuitous and effervescent. One way I can incorporate at least one of these into my daily routine is to add them to my Finch app.
And here's another good, cute picture of a frog.
@Hope
Upon completion of all of these exercises, I felt exhilarated and in control of myself, but calm. I think the 4-7-8 breathing is probably the easiest and most accessible for me to incorporate into my daily routine and life.
Leaves on a stream reminded me very much of a meditation that my therapist introduced me to. She said that the thoughts I have that start my cycles of compulsions and activate my OCD are similar to someone going fishing- like I am the fish, swimming calmly and peacefully under the water. Then, an intrusive or stressful thought is like someone casting their line and it plops into the water. It ripples and affects the water, and if I choose to take the bait, then I am fighting for my life, thrashing in the water, being pulled in directions I don't want to be. But instead of taking the bait, I can observe the thought plopping above me, and choose to just keep swimming.
@Hope
I did all the exercises & meditation too!
I have tried grounding technique & meditation before too.
Meditation helps me mostly, but I couldn't visualize anything while meditation, idk how some people do that : 0
..and grounding technique is helpful sometimes & sometimes not.
But, Diaphragmatic Breathing & the 4-7-8 Method worked the best for me! I'm definitely going to add them to my routine! I have tried Diaphragmatic Breathing for the first time, but it was the best. 💗💗
@Hope I like the leaf meditation best. I use this when teaching others to meditate and for anxiety relief. The 54321 method I think works well when either you are with someone who is having anxiety and helping them - or they are helping you. the diaphragmatic breathing kind reminds me of childbirth...
@Hope
most grounding techniques don't work for me. for the most part, I forget about these techniques when I'm having anxiety. i more so try to challenge my thoughts.
