De-escalating Anxiety: Practical Tools to Regain Your Peace

Anxiety can come on unexpectedly and quickly. Anxiety strikes cause body tension, racing thoughts, and feelings of being overwhelmed. Some signs of anxiety are a tight chest, a sense of dread, difficulty concentrating, or an urgent need to escape the situation. Learning how to de-escalate anxiety will ensure that it does not take over the rest of day. At its core, anxiety is an early warning alarm system. Anxiety’s purpose is to alert us to danger and protect us, but sometimes this protector becomes overly sensitive, going off even when there’s no real danger. Thankfully, there are proven strategies to help turn that alarm back down and regain a sense of control, starting with the body. When anxiety escalates, our bodies shift into fight-or-flight mode. Because of that, our physical state is often the quickest way to de-escalate. Paying attention to tension in the body, especially tension in the jaw, shoulders, and stomach can help target areas to relax. Unclenching the jaw and relaxing facial muscles, rolling shoulders down, and taking deep slow breaths can release tension in the body.

The next step is to disrupt intrusive thoughts. Using sensory distractors such as counting 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste can help bring us out of our heads and back into our bodies and into the present moment. Other sensory techniques include changing the temperature by holding a warm or cold object, focusing on the texture of your clothing or how your feet feel on the floor. Having an object to hold or having an object with a strong taste such as a mint or beverage will help refocus thoughts on our body and the present. Deep listening can also help. Focusing on what you can hear and searching for subtle noises refocuses the mind away from intrusive thoughts, as does our sense of smell. Carrying a sachet of a soothing smell that reminds us of safety and peace helps us connect to the brain’s emotional center and can help return our equilibrium. Using our senses, we can create the space necessary to break down intrusive thoughts.

For example, once we have the space, we can ask ourselves what is driving the intrusive thought. Is it driven by uncertainty, discomfort, feeling trapped, or something else? Once we know what is driving the anxiety, we can then take steps to alleviate the underlying issue.  Once we regain clarity, we can respond rather than react. Once we have shifted gears and are no longer in a reactive space, we can examine what triggered the anxiety and why this particular trigger exists. Is it situational or connected to a deeper issue or unresolved past trauma? Understanding the root of anxiety allows us to craft a plan to resolve the root cause rather than being stuck is anxious cycles. True peace isn’t just the absence of anxiety—it’s the presence of clarity. Recognizing our personal anxiety triggers helps us to understand why we react the way we do. It also helps us to stop reacting and start using our toolkit to address the stressors and triggers in our life. We can break long-term patterns that make anxiety feel unmanageable. With the right tools and support, we can learn to de-escalate intense moments, calm our nervous system, and move through our days with more confidence, ease, and peace.