7 Instant Self-Soothing Hacks to Calm Your Nervous System

The last straw, if you will. You may want to know how to calm yourself down in stressful situations, such as when your kids are fighting again, when your boss dumps another assignment in your lap, or when your partner says something insensitive.

The urgent desire to relax is distinct from the more general interest in learning how to deal with stress. To me, the key difference between the two is that stress is something that lingers in the backdrop of our brains over time, whereas anxiety is more of a fleeting sensation. It is?an acute presentation of anxiety or stress at the moment.?Each situation calls for a unique strategy.

When in a?state of high anxiety , you're in a state of dysregulation, even if you have all the appropriate stress-coping strategies (like going on a walk, practicing yoga, or scheduling "me" time).?You enter?the difficult-to-think-straight-through sympathetic fight-or-flight state of your neurological system. When dysregulated, you truly can't access standard stress-coping strategies. Instead, one can quickly calm down their body and mind. Methods that swiftly return the body to a parasympathetic "rest and digest" state are necessary for this.

When you're feeling calmer after employing a relaxation method, you'll be better able to think clearly and come up with solutions to problems or strategies for dealing with stress in the future. When you feel keyed up or on edge, there are some really helpful things you can do to relax and regulate your nervous system. Here, nevertheless, are some quick strategies for calming your nervous system down.

1. Sit with the Stress and Label Sensation

It's possible to go from zero to sixty in a heartbeat if you're caught off guard by stress or the intensity of your stress reaction. The time to give anything a name is while it's occurring. Drop into your body and notice the physical sensations present. Is there constriction? Do you want to crawl out of your skin and run away? Is your nerves and anxiety levels high?

Putting a name to these experiences can help you become more aware of them in your body, but the more challenging step is just accepting their presence. You have the option of being present with your anxiety and letting it go through you.

2. Take Deep Breaths to Calm the Nervous System

When it comes to teaching children how to control their emotions, "Take a deep breath!" is one of the first things they are told. Even though it's one of the fastest and easiest ways to settle down, breathing exercises may be difficult at first but become second nature with repetition. You're not receiving enough oxygen while you're in fight-or-flight mode , and that's not good for your neurological system.

Breathing is the best way to replenish your body's supply of oxygen. Breathing from the diaphragm is helpful here. The best way to breathe is via the nose, allowing the stomach to expand, and out through the mouth.

3. Move Your Body to Combat Stress Hormones

Your body requires you to either "fight" the stressful situation or "flee" from it. And that calls for bodily motion. "We know from research on burnout that the nervous system often needs movement to finish the fight-or-flight cycle that the body is in when the sympathetic nervous system is activated.

Physical activity signals the body that the flight-or-fight response has concluded and it may return to the rest-and-digest phase. You should do whatever makes you happy at the time, whether that's jumping up and down, dancing, or jogging in place.

4. Use Cold Water or Ice to ‘Rest and Digest’

A character could smack another to "get them out of" their agitated mood in a film or TV show. (Everyone in the room chuckles.) There's no use in bothering a buddy with that, but if you're feeling anxious, trying soaking in a tub of icy water could help.

Utilize?cold therapy to regulate the?nervous system. When you're exposed to cold, your parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) neural system is activated via the vagus nerve.

You can do one?of these?three things: splash water on your face, roll an ice cube around your face, neck, and chest, or completely immerse your face in ice water.

5. Shake It Off Literally

If?you see an animal in danger, such as a deer fleeing from a predator, the animal will shrug itself off immediately thereafter. This happens because?they are?bringing balance to their nervous system .?

Individuals "vigorously" wave their arms and legs for three seconds in order to buzz their?bodies and induce relaxation.?You can still stay upright while doing this if you alternate between using your arms and legs.

6. Hum to Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve

You can activate your vagus nerve by humming. Humming produces a frequency inside your mind and body that helps to soothe your nervous system.

The breathing technique known as Bhramari , in which the practitioner makes a buzzing sound like a bee in the back of the throat, increases heart rate variability and, as a result, might be used "as an antidote to stress."

7. Hover Over Your Stress

Imagine you are floating above your own head and gazing down at yourself while you go through a particularly stressful moment. This helps you take a step back and laugh at your stress.

Having an out-of-body experience is more of a bodily than a mental phenomenon . Almost dissociative, you may say. Doing so brings your body a lightness and creates a tiny opening of space to realize that you have more control than you think.

It's possible that you're now feeling a wide range of emotions. Overwhelming stress, worry, disorientation, despair, and even panic may be among these reactions. Recognize that these sensations are your body's method of alerting you to a potential danger in your immediate vicinity. You may take back control of your life from these emotions by using the aforementioned practices, which will also have a calming effect on people around you.

Although stressful episodes often don't last long, you may feel that you're constantly cycling through them and need to attempt new methods to alleviate your anxiety. The question then becomes how to determine whether you need further mental health care. If you feel like your functioning is debilitated by spending so much time in an anxious state and it's interfering with things that you need or enjoy doing, then it is necessary to seek additional help.