10. Use Visual Anchors
My therapist looks up to the clouds. They calm her down in traffic or whenever she feels anxious. For me it’s the water. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Pisces (fish), but the water has always calmed me down in the same way as Xanax, and since I don’t take the latter (as a recovering alcoholic, I try to stay away from sedatives), I need to rely on the former. So I just downloaded some “ocean waves” that I can listen to on my iPod when I feel that familiar knot in my stomach. I also have a medal of St. Therese that I grab when I become scared, a kind of blankie to make me feel safe in an anxious world.

11. Repeat a Mantra
My mantras are very simple: “I am okay” or “I am enough.” But one Beyond Blue reader recites what she calls a “metta mediation.” She claims that it slowly changes the way she responds to things in her day. She says to herself:

    * May I be filled with loving kindness
    * May I be happy, and healthy
    * May I accept myself in the moment right as I am
    * May all sentient beings, be at peace, and free from suffering.

12. Laugh
As I described in my post, Nine Ways Humor Can Heal, flexing your funny bone does much more than relieving any crushing anxiety. It lowers your immune system, diminishes both physical and psychological pain, fights viruses and foreign cells, heals wounds, and builds community. You have no doubt experienced a moment when you were crippled by anxiety until someone made you laugh out loud, and in doing so anxiety lost its hold over you. Why not laugh all the time, then?

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