Moving Away From Anxiety - Gentle Exercise to Calm Your Mind

Today we’ll be discussing recommended exercises to help calm your mind and soothe anxious feelings.

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Notes from this episode:

Our first recommendations is very simple: walking in nature. When we feel anion we tend to be inward focused, in other words, our attention goes to our feelings and any physical symptoms of anxiety.

Walking outside draws our attention to our surroundings and moving helps us feel more calm and grounded. Especially, if you bring your shoulders back and open your chest, take a deep breath in and look up at the sky. This shift in posture combined with getting outside can make a big difference to anxiety.

Try mindful walking:

Pay attention to your surroundings and engage your senses. Note three things you can see, three things you can hear, three things you can feel.

Another thing you can try is breathing with your feet meeting the earth. Count four steps with your in-breath, and six steps with your out-breath. You can adjust the count to match your pace. The idea is that you are in tune with your feet connecting with the earth and making you out breath slightly longer than your in breath helps calm anxiety.

Advice from Ayurveda on exercise

Don’t exercise to the point of exhaustion. Use half your energy for exercise and save the other half for healing.

Something to be aware of: fast or strenuous exercise that elevates your heart rate can sometimes feel like a panic attack. (Listen to the full episode for more on this.)

Regular exercise helps improve circulation, release tension, and move mental and emotional energy. It also improves digestion, detoxification mechanisms, relaxation, and sound sleep—all of which help to keep anxiety at bay.

The best forms of exercise for anxiety relief:

Gentle exercise practiced with awareness, for example, yoga, qigong, or tai chi.

The added benefit of using yoga or qigong for exercise is that both practices can help calm the root cause of anxiety.

Qigong and EFT Tapping both originate from the same understanding of the energy system of the body. The QiGong workbook offers a compassionate view of anxiety and plenty of practical exercises to try including a section on working with your senses to calm anxiety, which can help you feel more calm and grounded.

We get lots of questions from listeners who suffer from health anxiety, these practices can help calm anxiety and our worries about our health by supporting our overall wellness.

Book recommendation:

 The Qigong Workbook for Anxiety: Powerful Energy Practices to Rebalance Your Nervous System and Free Yourself from Fear (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

In Closing

Choose a way to move your body that appeals to you and stick with it.

Make a chart or use an app on your phone to help you commit to moving your body at least three times a week. Better still, for a few minutes every day.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Anxiety Slayer.