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5 Unconventional Habits to Relieve Anxiety

Over 18.1% of Americans over 18 years suffer from anxiety, making it the most prevalent mental illness in the US. The good news is that there are many treatments available to relieve anxiety. The bad news is that only 36.9% of people seek out treatment.

“Treatment” is an extremely broad term that encompasses all means of curing and/or treating this illness, including from cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness meditation, and hopping on some magic pills that alter your brain chemistry. While many treatments are beneficial, they each attack anxiety from a different angle.

This variable angle approach is necessary, given that feelings of anxiety can stem from work stress, chemical imbalances in your brain, behavioral habits you’re acquired over the years, or simply your environment. From this list, it’s clear some many are malleable based on your behavior, while others are not.

Unfortunately, I have no magic pill to change your biology (psychiatrists may be able to help with this). Neither can I go back in time and change your upbringing that helped induce your anxiety. Also, I won’t regurgitate the typical mantra of sleeping eight hours, lighting candles, exercising regularly, and breathing deeply when you’re having a panic attack. Don’t get me wrong, these can all be excellent additions to your arsenal but treating anxiety requires more.

Treating anxiety requires a shift in paradigms that will alter your mindset and lifestyle.

The five methods I’ll be discussing today focus entirely on what is in your behavioral circle of influence, an idea coined by Steven Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. These methods take grit and effort to complete. As a warning, forging these habits will tire you out mentally initially, as they’ll likely be big lifestyle changes.

1. Follow a Routine

Anxiety is fear of the future and unknown outcomes that may be outside of your control. Predicting the future and controlling everything around us isn’t something humans do. The next best thing is setting up a routine that helps hedge some of that discomfort. This is also an excellent foundation for many other habits to further relieve anxiety. Small things you add to your routine make a huge impact.

There are no secret behavioral additions to your routine to make your anxiety go “poof” into thin air and you suddenly forget about the crippling panic attack you were in the middle of. Instead, focus on what makes your day go smoother. Consider these two situations:

Situation #1 — Anxiety-Inducing Routine:

Set your alarm clock to 6 am with an aggressive tone to jolt you awake, even though you don’t need to be up until 7 am. That hazy hour between 6 am and 7 am is spent fading in and out of consciousness with the snooze button by your side. Roll out of bed, pour a double shot of espresso, hop on the crowded commuter train to work, and start feeling your heart rush in response to the blinding fluorescent lights illuminating every detail of the tightly packed commuters resembling sardines in a can. It’s hard to swallow. You feel warm. Your panic attack has started and you start your regimented deep breathing cycle.

Situation #2 — Anxiety-Reducing Routine:

Set your alarm clock to go off between 6:30 am and 6:50 am with a gentle alarm using a sleep app that monitors your sleep cycle, waking you when your mind and body are most ready (I highly recommend Sleep Cycle). No need to snooze because you got that extra 30 to 50 minutes of sleep and had a smooth wake-up. Use the extra 10 to 30 minutes to gradually get through your morning and fit in some meditation and have a cup of tea, then and opt to bus or bike to work, which feels far less like a sardine can. Breathe in peace and arrive to work ready to tackle the day’s challenges.

Both routines follow the same route — wake up and get to work. However, minor adjustments change the direction the day starts on entirely. The first situation creates a negative cascading effect. You slept poorly, so you needed additional coffee to get your eyes open. Couple that with lodging yourself between a bunch of commuters like a sardine, you feel the panic attack brewing. Your battle with anxiety is lost there. Thankfully, the war is not over. The second situation starts off on the right foot — more sleep, a smoother wake up, more time to get ready and incorporate some behavior to relieve anxiety and choosing a different commuting method.

We’ve all heard the cliché discussions of how good foundations are needed to build anything great. Your morning routine is the foundation for a productive and smooth day ahead.

Related Article: The Secret Benefit of Routines

2. Drink Caffeine Strategically

Caffeine is everyone’s go-to when it’s time to do anything requiring brainpower. Unfortunately, caffeine is often used as a crutch when you’re not engaged enough by the work itself. Caffeine is also anxiety’s best friend, kicking your body into high gear and keeping tossing and turning all night, which induces that dreaded cascading effect. On the other hand, some people dismiss caffeine entirely. They preach it will always increase anxiety and cause you to spiral into a panic attack.

Yes, if you chug your triple shot espresso latte, you’ll feel those 200 milligrams of caffeine pumping through your veins. You’ll flush, sweat, your heart will be offbeat, and you’ll likely spiral into an anxiety attack. In fact, this will likely happen if you chug a single-shot espresso latte in 10 minutes too. You need to find your balance to treat and relieve anxiety.

In my experience, an extremely slow, sustained drip of caffeine helps keep anxiety at bay and your productivity at a maximum. A slow drip allows you to focus better, taking your mind off everything else around you but isn’t overdone to the point where your mind is trying to do everything at once. If you know you have a high-pressure meeting or presentation, cut back on the caffeine entirely. Your natural anxiety should give you enough energy as it is. Don’t allow that cascading effect to begin.

I know, we all have those seemingly endless, strenuous days or we simply crave that warm, frothing cup of coffee. There is no reason to break up with coffee and caffeine entirely, we simply must be conscious of its potential impacts on our psyche and it’s affinity to kick-start the cascading effect.

Related Article: Coffee and Caffeine May Actually Help Decrease Anxiety

As a final note on caffeine, there are supplements that help take the edge off caffeine. Whether you’re drinking large amounts or doing a steadier drip, one of the most promising supplements of there is L-Theanine. Typically, a caffeine to L-theanine ratio of 1:2 is employed. Simply put, if you drink a cup of coffee (~50mg), you should take 100mg of L-theanine to reap the benefits.

Related article: What You Need to Know About L-Theanine

3. Learn to Focus

Staying focused implies being present and mindful of the task at hand. It’s easy to get lost in your head, start daydreaming or planning the rest of the day while the present moment escapes your grasp.

When you are fully immersed in a movie or book do your thoughts spiral out of control? No, your mind is focused on what’s in front of you — it’s occupied, the movie relieves anxiety. Similarly, we can extrapolate this skill to the work we do and then to everyday tasks. As we hone our ability to focus on a task or situation at hand, we become more present in the moment, thus reducing anxiety. It’s the cascading effect, but this time away from anxiety, rather than towards it.

You may be dismissive of this saying “well, anxiety is what prevents me from focusing,” which while may be true to some degree, is the wrong approach. You’re putting something entirely in your circle of control (your focus) outside of it by saying your anxiety is responsible for the lack of focus. Maintaining your attention on the task at hand is a skill, not a talent — it’s malleable.

One book that helped me hone my focusing skills is Cal Newport’s Deep Work which details means and methods to remain focused despite the distractions around us. Alongside this, using a timer to allocate a time slot of uninterrupted work is a great way to help reinforce this skill to help relieve anxiety. Start with 20 minutes of work followed by a 5 to 10-minute break. The 20 minutes of work means no phone, no emails, no Slack messages, no nothing but the single task you’re working on.

Increase this time gradually until you can remain focused for hours at a time. The goal is to set the timer longer than you tend to focus, to train your ability to focus for extended periods of time. Toss the timer once you feel you’ve become capable of extended periods of focus, as all the timer will do later on is buzz you out of your deep flow state.

Related Article: Hacking Productivity

4. Go Socialize

Humans are social creatures; we require human interaction. There’s a reason why solitary confinement is the ultimate punishment in prison — it takes away a basic human need. Anyone suffering from some degree of anxiety knows it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by daily activities. The day saps your energy and come evening time you avoid meeting up with friends or introducing yourself to new people to relax.

Relaxation is great, everyone should make time to chill out and have some alone time, just don’t sentence yourself to solitary confinement. You won’t relieve anxiety doing that. If you haven’t seen any friends for a week or more, make a conscious effort to get out, meet up, and laugh it up over a few drinks. Chances are it will take your mind off your everyday worries and you feel more connected to the world at large.

Everyone has their sweet spot — some people feel optimal when they go out once a week while others need to be around people nearly every day. Personally, I function at my best by spending three days a week with people, whatever that may entail — grabbing drinks after work, catching up with friends after my workout at the gym, or sweating it up on the dance floor at a concert. It doesn’t have to be a grandiose event like Lollapalooza, just get out of the house. Your mind will thank you.

Related Article: Having Friends is Good for You

5. Get Uncomfortable

Last is the idea of getting uncomfortable, or as psychiatrists and psychologists call it, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Anxiety is a learned characteristic from avoiding certain situations enough that your mind begins to make false assumptions regarding the outcomes of these avoided situations. One of the best methods to relieve anxiety stemming from the fear of such situations is not to avoid them but to dive headfirst into them. In fact, CBT has been shown to be just as, if not more, effective than anti-anxiety medications.

The cognitive aspect of CBT is being conscious of your thoughts and how you’re reacting to them. You have a “fast thought process,” which are gut reactions that are often wrong and completely out of context, and a “slow though process,” which is more logical and assesses the situation based on what it is rather than what it appears to be. In short, the “fast” process is what induces your anxiety, while the “slow” process has the power to relieve anxiety. Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking Fast and Slow, dives into this in quite a bit more detail.

The behavioral aspect of CBT is simply going out and doing precisely what you’re afraid of. Scared to ask out that cute barista who keeps smiling at you? Follow Nike’s advice — just do it. Afraid to negotiate with your boss for a raise? Just do it. Fearful of flying? Just do it. As you go through these events, you can gradually learn to reason that all your fears are imaginary — the event is never as scary as once thought and life goes on.

It’s extremely important to take note of this every time you put yourself out there, to ingrain it in your mind. Eventually, your mind will say “hey, we’ve done this before. It’s not scary. No need to induce anxiety today.” Better from the previous effect of “I’m such an idiot. They’re probably making fun of me for this right now.”

CBT is an extremely well-researched process and utilized as the first line of defense for most anxiety cases. The above is simply a brief overview of the subject and by no means exhaustive.

Related Article: Quick Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

There Are No Short Cuts

Shortcuts don’t exist. At least not ones that get you to where you want to be. Meditating for 5 minutes each morning won’t relive anxiety overnight. Neither will lathering on lemon lip balm, nor sleeping nine hours a night or whatever else promises quick results. Many of these habits are excellent tools to add to your arsenal to relieve anxiety but don’t expect results overnight.

To truly tackle anxiety, you must become self-aware and present of your mind.

We don’t control everything our mind spits out, especially during anxiety attacks. Thankfully, we can become better at regulating our thoughts, which helps control our responses. This requires exiting your comfort zone, setting aside time for introspection, and the willingness to put the effort in.

Finally, I encourage everyone to accept and appreciate the journey of overcoming this issue. Don’t look for shortcuts. Understand that great changes take great effort. To progress, you must learn to dance with your anxiety rather than repeatedly trying to shove it under your bed.