Last week, you discovered techniques for practicing positive self-talk. Your investment in improving the relationship you have with yourself tells me that you want to have a calmer mind and a more peaceful existence altogether. When your mind is a restless mess of anxiety or stress, you’ll feel overwhelmed and end up spending much of your time spinning your wheels (remember all those strategies you learned about how to stop self-sabotaging?). To actually move forward in your life, it helps to have a calmer, more peaceful mind. Here are 10 ways to calm, soothe, and center your mind (without meditating!).

How to Calm, Soothe, and Center Your Mind

1. Slow Down Your Breathing

Normally, we breathe between 12 and 16 times per minute. When we’re stressed or anxious, we tend to breathe more quickly and more shallowly. Calm your mind by slowing down your breathing to 5 breaths per minute. Channel America’s favorite pancake restaurant and try the IHOP method: Breathe In for 3 seconds, Hold it for 3 seconds, breathe Out for 3 seconds, and Pause for 3 seconds. Repeat for 2 minutes (10 breaths).

2. Hug

Hugs calm our bodies and our minds. Bonus points for hugs with skin-to-skin contact (even cheeks touching) and for hugs that last more than 6 seconds. If you don’t have someone around to hug, try hugging yourself. The pressure is calming physiologically.

3. Look at Pretty Art or Scenery

This strategy is all about using our visual sense to calm and soothe our minds. Choose an artist whose work is soothing to you or even just Google “soothing art.” It doesn’t matter whether the art is abstract or a portrait or a landscape as long as the emotional connection you have to it is soothing and makes you feel centered. An alternative is to look at scenery in your real life — sit on your patio, walk through a local garden, go to a state park, etc.

4. Pet an Animal

Your pets are already volunteering for you to try this one first. Petting animals has been shown to be soothing, so grab a seat next to your dog or cat and start petting away. If you don’t have a fluffy pet of your own, stop near a local dog park or animal shelter to find an animal to pet.

5. Put Down Your Phone

If you want to calm, soothe, and center your mind turn off your phone. Our phones are one of the most consistent triggers of stress in our lives. But I bet even the thought of turning your phone completely off makes you uncomfortable. So try just putting it on silent for an hour or two. At the very least, limit your social media consumption. If you’re not sure what to do with yourself and your time other than scroll social media, here are 6 things to do for yourself and your mental health during a social media detox.

6. Stretch

Take a few minutes to stretch your body. This soothes not only sore muscles but also your mind because it grounds you by connecting your mind to your body. If you’re not sure where to start, try following along with a stretch video on YouTube. Here are some of my favorites:

• Sydney Cummings has an entire playlist of 20-minute stretch videos – these are the ones I do personally
• 12-minute full body stretch with blogilates
• 10-minute yoga-style full body stretch with Yoga with Kassandra
• 10-minute stretch for lower back pain (we all need this) with Heather Robertson
• 15-minute full body stretch routine for beginners with Tom Merrick
• And for a no-excuses, you-don’t-even-have-to-get-out-of-bed-to-do-it stretching routine, try this 5-minute stretching in bed routine with Action Jacquelyn

7. Connect with Nature

A solid way to center yourself is to connect with nature. Research shows that spending time in a green space (like a park) is associated with better mental health. Find a green space to occupy, sit outside and look at the stars, watch a sunrise or a sunset, or listen to the sounds of nature (can you hear the birds chirping, the leaves rustling, the rain hitting the ground).

8. Connect with Your Values

Engaging in an activity to connect you to what is most meaningful in your life is a quick way to calm, soothe, and center your mind. It reminds you of what’s really important and shifts focus away from the things that perpetuate stress and anxiety. This could involve calling a family member, having lunch with someone you love, connecting with your spirituality (e.g., praying, attending a religious gathering, reading spiritual texts), or even reminding yourself of meaningful quotes. The idea here is to refocus on what actually matters to you, whatever that is.

9. Get a Massage

Massages involve deep pressure stimulation, which is the same concept that makes weighted blankets and hugs so soothing. But you don’t have to spend $75 at a spa to get the effect here. If you’ve got a spouse or partner, trade massages as a way to nurture each other. If you don’t, a quick massage of your own body can get the job done — massage your own hands, your forearms, your calves, your feet. Take a few moments at each part of the body and work your way from head to toe.

10. Write In Your Gratitude Journal

Gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to calm, center, and soothe our minds on a regular basis. It’s a strategy that never wears out or loses its effectiveness. If you’re not sure what to write in your gratitude journal, get started with these prompts.

More Strategies for a Calmer Mind

Trying one or more of these strategies today and every day can help you have a calmer, more centered, more soothed mind on a regular basis. For even more strategies to calm your mind and soothe stress and anxiety, check out these previous articles:

The strategies in this article were alternatives to meditation. But meditation really does help, so if you’re interested in getting your feet wet with that, discover more about how meditation is helpful and then get started with some basic meditation exercises.

Why Therapy Didn’t Work For Me

Hopefully you’re using all these strategies to enhance the work you’re doing with your own therapist. I’m a therapist myself, and I believe in therapy as an effective tool in managing mental health. But next week, we’ll get really personal and I’ll share with you why therapy didn’t work for me…and why it might not work for you. 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.