When I was in college, I had the busiest schedule ever. I was working full time, and in school full time as well. This meant that I was running from one thing to another, which meant I wasn’t getting enough sleep, and my eating was very inconsistent. Before I knew it, I found myself starting to feel anxious about everything! Things that didn’t bother me before started to worry me a lot. In school, at work, at home, and even attending outings with friends. I knew I needed to make a change soon!

Over the years I have learned several ways of managing different mental health challenges. Below are the top 5 that have helped me and my clients manage anxiety. Not every technique will work best for everyone. I encourage you to try them all separately and see which ones work best for you, then find a way to incorporate them into your daily life. 

#1 Create and maintain healthy boundaries in your life.

Boundaries are the limits and rules that we place in our lives between ourselves and others. People who don’t have boundaries tend to experience more anxiety and stress in their life, because they tend to say yes to everyone and everything, which can lead to stress and burnout. It’s important to set boundaries with family members, friends, partners, bosses, colleagues, neighbors, your phone, social media, etc. 

The best way to start setting boundaries is to put your needs above others. This means saying no to people more often and saying yes to you. Saying no doesn’t mean you are a bad person; it means that you are only committing to the people and activities that you have enough space and energy for, as well as those that are adding value to your life. The more boundaries you create, the more peace you will have in your life. 

Reflection: Think of one person that you can start creating healthy boundaries with. 

#2 Have a daily calming/ relaxation practice.

It’s important to start and end your day with an activity that can calm and relax you, to start and end your day on a positive note. People who have anxiety tend to go to bed anxious and/or wake up anxious. This means that when they go out into the world and experience triggers, they tend to escalate faster and higher than their non anxious counterparts. 

Activities like deep breathing (for 3-5 minutes), meditation, prayer, yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, taking a walk, journaling, spending time in nature, etc., have proven to lower anxiety and stress when performed regularly. 

Reflection: Think of one relaxation activity that you can start doing at the beginning or end of your day. 

#3 Practice self-care regularly and increase it during times of stress and overwhelm.

Self-care is a practice one uses to preserve or improve one’s health. There are different types of self-care practices that cater to different needs. 

Physical self-care includes activities that improve our physical health. This includes taking a walk, exercising, dancing, hiking, swimming, playing with a pet, taking a bath or getting a hug. 

Mental self-care includes activities that improve your mental health. These include reading, writing, arts and crafts, learning a new skill like pottery or playing an instrument, or even turning off your electronics to take a mental break. 

Emotional self-care includes activities that improve your emotional health. This includes meditation, prayer, yoga, hanging out with a close friend, journaling, going out on a date, or practicing gratitude.

*Important note: When anxiety and stress increase, self-care should increase as well. 

Reflection: Choose one self-care activity that you can do at the end of a busy day or week. 

#4 Challenging your negative core beliefs/ narratives.

We are all born with a pure heart and are able to enjoy being authentic when we are children. With time, we get exposed to people, environments and media that contribute to the beliefs and narratives we hold today. For example, beliefs like “I’m not worthy because I’m single”, “I’m not good enough because I got a C grade”, “I’m not loveable because my parent left me”, are negative beliefs that we have created based on our experiences growing up. It’s important to challenge any negative beliefs or narratives we hold about ourselves and replace them with more positive and accurate beliefs. There are two ways to do that. 

a) Self-love: 

The best way to begin changing the negative beliefs and narratives we hold in our mind is by reciting positive affirmations about yourself daily. Examples include “I am deserving of love”; “I am capable”; “I am perfectly imperfect”; “My worth isn’t tied to anything. I am worthy as is.”. Reciting these regularly will slowly start to build your self-esteem and self-love, and the more you love yourself, the more you will treat yourself better and believe that you deserve better. 

b) Self-compassion:

People with anxiety tend to beat themselves down on a regular basis. This includes things like calling yourself names (e.g., I can’t believe I said that; I’m so stupid), and sometimes even hurting yourself in times of extreme stress and overwhelm (e.g., self-harming). These types of activities only make you feel worse about yourself and add to your anxiety or depression. 

The best way to break free from this is by practicing self-compassion. This means being kinder to yourself and speaking to yourself like you would to your best friend or pet. Learning to speak to yourself in a kind and loving manner (e.g., I made a mistake and that’s okay, I’m doing the best I can, I forgive myself, etc.) will in turn reduce your anxiety in situations that don’t always go as planned. 

Reflection: Choose one act of self-love or self-compassion that you can start practicing today. 

#5 Be authentic to yourself and show the world who you really are. 

One recurring theme that I see in therapy is people pleasing. A lot of people have been trained to be people pleasers, which in turn makes them do and say things that are not in alignment with who they really are. No one is born a people pleaser. People pleasers are created by their environment and those around them. I usually tell my clients who struggle with people pleasing to think about a time in their past when they were not allowed to be themselves. 

Perhaps when you were a child you were loud and quirky, and someone told you that you needed to be quiet and not be “weird” or “too much”. Or maybe someone made a negative comment about how you dressed or wore your hair and judged you for it, which made you change your look to fit in. In some cultures, women are raised to be polite and not speak up, and they are punished if they do so. This results in one putting on a mask to please others and avoid judgement or rejection. 

The best way to stop people pleasing is to stop worrying about what other people think. One of my former therapists said, “what other people think of you is none of your business”. At the time I was a hard-core people pleaser and I disagreed with the statement. I wanted to be liked and accepted and to fit in. With time, I realized that the more I did or said things to please others, the more I was denying my true self to shine her inner light. So, I changed the automatic thought in my head from “What will people think?” to “What do I think”, or “what do I want”. This helped me shift my focus from pleasing others to pleasing myself and putting my wants and needs first. It was so scary but liberating, and the more I did it, the easier it got. As a result of that, I now have a more peaceful life.

Reflection: What is one thing you can do or say to help you to start living an authentic life?