Stress is inevitable and when faced with an overwhelming situation, it helps to pause and regulate. Here are 10 psychologist approved practical ways to regulate:
- Literally ground yourself. Find a quiet, comfortable spot on the floor, lie down and allow the heaviness of your weight to sink into the ground. This sense of being anchored reduces overwhelm and prevents rumination. When we are stress, our posture is often affected. Lying on the ground prevents this. You can just close your eyes and focus on your breathing for as long as you need to.
- Rock gently from side to side or back and forth to self soothe. The rhythmic motion helps calm the nervous system and reduces cortisol levels. This is very helpful for anxiety and panic attacks.
- Give yourself butterfly hugs by interlocking your thumbs and placing your palms across your chest. Then tap one side at a time like a butterfly motion. This alternate tapping uses bilateral stimulation to calm the amygdala (fear centre of the brain). Because the alternate tapping engages both sides of the brain, you will feel balanced and grounded.
- Choose a colour and then look for and name ten things around you in that colour. You could even do a colour walk where you take a mindful walk, looking out for objects in your chosen colour. This helps your focus on the present, thus interrupting intrusive or unhelpful thoughts that are fuelling your anxiety.
- Humming creates vibrations that stimulate your vagus nerve. This moves your body out of fight or flight response to a rest-repair state, thus reducing cortisol.
- Hold an ice cube in each hand. When you are particularly overwhelmed, the temperature of the ice cube will keep your mind in the present moment, thus preventing irrational thoughts or catastrophising.
- Pause and notice the sky. Noticing the vastness of the sky (or the sea) can help us gain perspective and make our problems seem less overwhelming. The changing nature of the sky (e.g. moving clouds) can symbolise our ever-changing emotions, which come and go – they do not remain forever.
- Shake it off. Literally shake parts of your body to release tension and get rid of excess adrenaline. This calms our flight-fight response as it signals that the danger has passed, while releasing endorphins at the same time.
- Do a brain dump by just writing down every thought and worry that enters your mind. This helps clear mental clutter and interrupts rumination. Find a quiet space, decide on a time limit and then write whatever comes to mind without judgement. It doesn’t matter how jumbled and chaotic it appears. You can then organise these thoughts into some order of priority and decide what you can let go off. Seeing things on paper can make them feel a lor more manageable than when it’s taking space in your head.
- And my person favourite – blowing bubbles. This not only makes you feel like a child again, but it forces you to slow down your breathing, which in turn activates the parasympathetic nervous system. You can also pair this with diaphragmatic breathing, where you inhale slowly and then exhale to blow a big, controlled bubble. Blowing bubbles helps you remain mindful.
You don’t have to practice all of these, but choose what works for you and add it to your stress toolkit.
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