3 Mindfulness Exercises to Reduce Anxiety

Last week, I taught you all about mindfulness — what it is, how it works, and how it impacts your physical and mental health.  Today, let’s start putting mindfulness into practice with three exercises designed to reduce anxiety.  

EXERCISE 1: Connect to Your Breath

Take a moment to connect to your breath.  Take a few slow, deep breaths and then allow your breathing to return to normal.  Tune into your breath.  Don’t do anything in particular to change your breath, just feel it flowing naturally.  

Where do you feel your breath?  In your nose, in your throat, in your chest?  

How warm or cool is your breath when you inhale?  What about as you exhale?  

Are your breaths even or choppy?  

As you notice your mind wandering away from the exercise, gently note that your attention drifted and return your attention to your breathing.  

What sounds do you hear as you breathe?  

Notice the continuity in your breathing.  As one breath ends, the next begins seamlessly.  

EXERCISE 2: Pause

Take a moment during the day to pause and scroll through your five senses.  Stop what you’re doing and connect to yourself.  Notice what you can hear around you.  Listen for the quietest sounds you can hear.  Notice what you can see around you, and try to find something of every color.  Notice how the light hits objects and creates shadows.  Take a deep breath and notice what you can smell.  Notice what your hands are touching.  What does it feel like?  What temperature is it?  Is it soft or hard?  Is it smooth or rough?  Check in with your mouth.  Can you taste anything?  Now, take in as much of your entire experience as possible, noticing all the details happening just outside your awareness.  

EXERCISE 3: Label Your Experience

As you notice anxiety creeping up, stop for a moment and tune into yourself.  Listen to your thoughts.  What words are you hearing in your head?  What pictures are floating through your mind?  Don’t try to change the thoughts or silence them or judge them, just notice them.  Label them as thoughts.  Now check in with your emotions.  Label what you’re feeling emotionally.  As your emotions change, label the new feelings.  Notice how intense the feelings are.  Notice any physical sensations you’re experiencing.  Is your neck or jaw tense?  Are your hands clammy?  Can you feel tingling in your fingers or toes?  Can you feel your heart beating?  Label each of these sensations.  Continue to watch your experience and label your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations as they capture your attention.  

Tips for Mindfulness for Anxiety

These exercises are meant to be short.  Try them out for 3 to 5 minutes.  If that feels too long, shorten the exercise to 1 to 2 minutes and try to increase the time as you get some experience and practice with the exercises.  As you’re able, work up to doing them for 10 to 15 minutes at a time.  Repeat them often.  A couple of times per day is ideal, but work up to that.  

What to Keep In Mind As You Practice Mindfulness for Anxiety

Some types of anxiety treatments are focused on reducing or eliminating your anxiety symptoms.  Mindfulness is different, though.  It acknowledges that some amount of anxiety might be permanent, and that’s okay.  So instead of fighting against it and being upset that you can’t eliminate it altogether, mindfulness teaches you how to change your relationship to your anxiety.  

Here’s an analogy.  If you live in a place that’s miserably cold in the winter, you can’t change the temperature outside.  So you can either choose to be miserable and hate how cold it is and complain about it all the time, or you can change your relationship to the cold — accept it as something you can’t change, put on a coat, and go about your regular business.  Your anxiety is the cold, and mindfulness is your coat.  It doesn’t change the temperature outside, but it makes it easier to tolerate and experience.  

These exercises reduce the activation of your nervous system and help you learn that the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings you’re having are just that — just thoughts, just feelings.  They’re not dangerous, they’re just uncomfortable…just like the cold.  

Coming Up Next…

Next week, more strategies for managing anxiety naturally. 

Hopefully you’ve already checked out my 9 ways to manage anxiety without medication — that article is loaded with strategies to help you manage your anxiety whether you’re taking anxiety meds or not. 

And hopefully you’ve gotten started rewiring your anxious brain and getting your overthinking under control. 

Next week, I’m bringing you 5 things you need to know about weighted blankets — have you been curious about whether they actually work for anxiety?  I’ll tell you what the research says next week.  Don’t miss it.

Talk to you soon,

Dr. Finch

P.S.    Remember, this is education, not treatment.  Always consult with a psychologist or therapist about your mental health to determine what information and interventions are best for you.  See the disclaimer for more details.