Practicing Mindfulness Helps Anxiety

Mindfulness can be a helpful tool for coping with anxiety. Mindfulness is something I have become more familiar with and increasingly utilized over the years as I have practiced it as a strategy for managing my anxiety.

When I am anxious, my immediate stress response includes an increase in my heart rate. I also typically start shaking and trembling. I tend to feel tense throughout my body, I start sweating, and I may even feel dizzy. I also become agitated and sometimes even experience a need to escape my surroundings.

How Mindfulness Helps Anxiety

So how does mindfulness help me? First, I will say that practicing mindfulness meditation, specifically, tends to be very beneficial in my experience. However, I also know I do not always have the opportunity to retreat into a quiet area where I can experience several minutes of peace and calm.

And therefore, being mindful on a daily basis and intentionally using mindfulness when I am anxious can help reduce my anxiety symptoms. Additionally, something I have found is that by practicing mindfulness every day, I have been able to turn to this strategy when I experience stress unexpectedly and I feel overwhelmed by the physical signs of anxiety.

In other words, practicing mindfulness has helped to reduce my emotional reactivity. I've found that, since intentionally using mindfulness strategies, I am less reactive and better equipped to approach a stressful situation logically.

Lastly, mindfulness pertains to focusing on the moment. This is in contrast to anxiety, which, by its nature, is associated with worrying about what might happen in the future or focusing on difficult memories in the past. When I practice mindfulness, I focus on the present instead, not on what happened before or what might happen tomorrow.

How I Practice Mindfulness to Reduce My Anxiety

While it may be ideal in many situations to take the time to meditate, being mindful throughout the day and in stressful situations can have many benefits. These are how I practice mindfulness each day:

1. The first thing I learned to do was focus on my breath. As I have learned, it is always there, present, and something I can access. So, something that I practice every day is focusing on my breathing.
2. By focusing on my breathing, I can slow down and focus on what my senses are taking in from the world around me. This allows me to stay in the present moment.
3. Lastly, when my mind wanders, I bring it right back to the current moment and focus on my breath. Any thoughts I have, whether positive, negative, intrusive, or troubling, I allow to pass by without judgment and without dwelling on them, and I bring my focus back to breathing.

I have found mindfulness to be impactful in helping manage my anxiety. Below, I've shared a video in which I discuss the positive benefits of mindfulness.

Is this something you practice? If so, share your mindfulness strategies in the comments below.