“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” - Charles Spurgeon
Have you been feeling anxious lately? If your answer is a yes, you are not alone. The global pandemic has triggered a lot of anxiety in all of us as millions of people have died across the world. When life becomes uncertain, it is natural to feel anxious. But, as described in the words of Charles Spurgeon above, “anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” If you observe closely, you’ll find that your life is ‘now’ and anxiety is taking away the opportunity from you to live your life fully.
Now, you may wonder, then what to do? The pandemic is not yet over, everything is so uncertain, there is a lot of anxiety in my system, then, how can I live fully? Brave hearts, there is one way out and it is to rewire your anxious brain.
Your brain possesses neuroplasticity. This means that it has the power to change itself. Were you always anxious? Definitely not, you developed anxiety at a certain point in your life or maybe during the pandemic. This means that your brain just changed into an anxious one and believe me, you have the power to reverse this change as your brain possesses neuroplasticity.
Are you wondering what’ll happen if you successfully rewire your brain? Following is a shortlist of things that’ll likely happen to you:
- Inner peace and joy will dominate your life rather than anxiety
- You’ll find yourself enjoying your life more
- Your overall health will improve. You’ll feel better both physically as well as mentally
- You’ll be more present (not just physically but with your whole being) with your family
- You’ll find yourself to be more creative and your lost passion for life will return
Aren’t these benefits of rewiring your anxious brain really alluring? Now, you may wonder if it is really possible to rewire your brain and avail these benefits during this crisis? Believe me, it is. As you start undertaking your journey of rewiring your brain, your experience will show you that it is possible. So, are you excited to reclaim your life, inner peace, and joy?
5 actionable ways to rewire your anxious brain, unlock inner joy and live fully even during crisis:
Identify your fears and reframe the meaning you have associated with them:
This is one of the most important practices that you have to follow on your journey of rewiring your brain. If you look closely at your fears, you’ll find that they are mostly about something negative happening in the future. For example, you may be afraid of catching Covid infection and consequent death. When you think about such negative future case scenarios, you are bound to feel anxious.
But, if you reframe the meaning associated with your fears, you can get over the anxiety associated with them. For example, if you are afraid of catching Covid infection because of mortality, you can reduce your anxiety levels by associating Covid infection with healing. You can check statistics on the internet and see that more than 90% of people recover from Covid infection. So, you can associate Covid infection with healing rather than dying. This way, you can rewire your brain.
To practice this technique you have to stand in front of a mirror and engage in self-talk. During the self-talk, you have to identify your fears, try to see them in a new light and reframe the meaning you associate with them. You have to perform this practice sincerely every day. Within a week, you’ll begin to feel better and find yourself enjoying more peace.
Retrain yourself to be present in the moment and reconnect with your inner stillness through mindfulness:
Eckhart Tolle mentioned in his book The Power of Now that the reason some people love to engage in risky acts like reckless driving, mountain climbing and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now - that intensively alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of personality.
Believe it or not, this intense state of presence in the now is when you are no longer burdened by your thoughts. As a result, you experience inner stillness, joy and bliss.
But, today we live a fast paced life. We always rush from one thing to another. For example, you drive in a hasty manner to reach your office in time, then you work hurriedly to leave for your home in time, after that you cook a quick meal to serve yourself and your family in time. Can you see there is a rush all over!
You are always trying to achieve something in the future like reaching the office, returning home and serving dinner. When you are driving, you keep thinking about the destination, when you are working, your thoughts wander around returning back home, once you return back you start thinking about having dinner on time. This means that most of us are rarely present in the moment. We live one moment in the rush to arrive at the next. As a result, we are always thinking about the future which leads to anxiety!
Now, for a moment, go back into your childhood and see if it was full of rush too and you’ll find that it wasn’t. You did not cycle thinking about returning home after cycling. You enjoyed the process, stayed in touch with the present moment and experienced inner joy and bliss. As a child, your primary focus was always the present moment and anxiety was nowhere around you. Isn’t it?
Would you like to reconnect with the joy you experienced in your childhood? Would you like to relive a life without anxiety again? I’m sure you’d and don’t worry you won’t have to engage in risky acts like reckless driving. Rather, you just have to retrain yourself to be in the present moment and reconnect with your inner stillness through mindfulness.
How to practice mindfulness:
You can practice mindfulness in different ways. Feeling deeply, observing things carefully and listening intently are three common ways to practice it. Every day, you should try to take out at least 20 minutes to engage in any one of these things. For example, if you are doing dishes, try to feel the smoothness of the plates, the temperature of water and how the leather feels on your hands. As you engage in such practices every day, slowly you’ll start reconnecting with the present moment. You’ll experience a reduction in your overthinking tendencies. As a result, your anxiety levels will reduce and over time become negligible.
Make meditation a part of your daily routine:
At a given moment, out of inner peace and anxiety only one can be present. They both cannot exist together. If you are connected with inner peace, you cannot be anxious. If you are anxious, you naturally get disconnected from inner peace. This means that by deepening inner peace, you can heal from anxiety. Further, one of the best ways to deepen inner peace is to meditate.
Meditation is to simply sit with yourself. What makes it difficult is that when you sit alone with yourself, your mind gets flooded with thoughts. These thoughts are mostly repetitive and negative in nature. As a result, they make you feel anxious and snatch your inner peace. But, if you meditate and sit with your negative thoughts every day, you’ll begin to feel free of them. They’ll lose their influence on you. As a result, your anxiety levels will reduce considerably. You’ll begin to enjoy more inner peace, joy and better health. Moreover, meditation is also a great technique for stress management. If you are a working professional, it can help you manage work stress irrespective of your profession. Further, as your stress levels begin to decrease, you’ll experience even more relief from anxiety as both of them are interconnected.
Make exercise a priority:
According to Harvard Health, exercise helps with anxiety management. When you exercise, your body gets flooded with important anti-anxiety neurochemicals like Serotonin, Gamma aminobutyric acid, brain-derived neurotrophic factor,s and endocannabinoids. Due to the secretion of these neurochemicals, exercise uplifts your mood instantly, enhances your confidence and reduces your anxiety levels.
Moreover, if you exercise regularly, you’ll slowly begin to pave your way out of the anxiety cycle. So, you should try to make exercise a priority. You can add an element of excitement to your exercise routine with the help of dance workouts like Zumba and Aerobics. You can easily play a dance workout video on YouTube and dance along. To make things even more entertaining, you can call your family members to join you. Believe me, within a week of regular exercise, you’ll find a significant drop in your anxiety levels.
Engage in self-care:
How did you feel as a child when you felt afraid and a loved one embraced you with love? Relieved, relaxed and safe, isn’t it? Today, when anxiety has gripped you, you again need someone to embrace you and make you feel safe. But, this time, you have to be that someone for yourself. You have to connect with yourself deeply by engaging in self-care.
For example, you can massage your body with aromatic oils, do something that you love like painting, singing, etc. and be grateful to your body. To practice gratitude, you have to touch all the parts of your body one by one and say thank you from the core of your heart. As you engage in these practices on an everyday basis, you’ll begin to feel good about yourself. You’ll be able to reconnect with yourself and feel safe in your own skin. As a result, your anxiety levels will reduce considerably and you’ll feel safe in your own company.
It is natural to feel anxious in times of a crisis. But, if anxiety has taken the best of you, it is time for you to rewire your brain and go beyond the anxiety cycle. Due to the neuroplasticity of your brain, you can do it. The above-mentioned tactics will help you with the same. But, to reap the results, you’ll have to be consistent in practicing the above-mentioned tactics. Now, wishing you All the Best and a life full of peace, joy, and bliss.
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