Alleviating Anxious Thoughts in 5 Simple Steps
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Everyone experiences times throughout their lives when an increase in anxious thoughts occurs. Perhaps it’s due to stress at work, or there is fighting in a relationship, or there is too much going on all at once. However, you may notice a lot more nervous energy during those times.
Victims of childhood trauma will sometimes battle with grounding because of the chaos during childhood. They learned to stay under a specific amount of emotional dysregulation, and relaxing activities may feel stressful.
For some people, grounding techniques can increase anxiety because of the amount of focus and quiet involved; occasionally, it is vital to start with a more active interest to reduce anxious thoughts.
5-Step Exercise to Redirect Anxious Thoughts:
- Think of the first song to come to mind. It doesn’t matter what song, but it’s simpler to start with a well-known pop song with easy t0 following lyrics. Then, sing the lyric that comes to your mind, only stopping when you can’t think of more words.
- Continue by singing a lyric with the last word sung from your previous song. You can start anywhere if the word of the previous song is in the new one. Keep singing until you can’t remember any more words. Then, you can try and hum the comments if you can place the sounds and not the terms.
- Please keep it going until your silliness reaches maximum potential. It is even more beneficial to laugh. It is good when you mess up and don’t know where to start back over, as this signifies that you’re focusing your energy on the song. The laughter creates endorphins that help alleviate stress, well-improving focus on the task, and dramatically decrease anxious thoughts.
- By the end of it, feel the feelings in your body. Do you recognize a decrease in anxious thoughts? Perhaps your jaw or shoulders are more relaxed. Maybe you forgot about it, perhaps only for a few minutes, what you were feeling anxious about. Your laughter increases your serotonin levels, with known antidepressant effects that help decrease the negative feelings and thoughts you are experiencing, even if it is just for a little while.
- Repeat if needed.
