How to Feel Less Anxious
Declutter Your Anxiety = Feel Less Overwhelmed
Does the thought of certain activities, tasks on your to-do list, or people in your life make you feel more anxious? Your heart starts racing, your breathing becomes shallow or your palms turn sweaty?
In this article we’ll talk about decluttering your life and how to feel less anxious.
These physical feelings of anxiety can be the direct effect of an anxious mind. And these symptoms may feel as though they seemingly come out of nowhere.
While anxiety is classically seen as a purely mental/emotional condition, anxiety can stem from a number of physical areas in the body. Regardless, anxiety and the feelings of overwhelm are often made worse when there are physical imbalances.
Your Adrenals and How to Feel Less Anxious
Let’s specifically explore the adrenal system and your stress response. When this system is activated and your mind believes you are in trouble, be it physical or emotional, you will start to experience a slew of symptoms akin to anxiety.
This stress system is responsible for the “fight or flight” response and it helps the rest of your body prepare for making quick, potentially life saving decisions.
When you experience a stressor, the sympathetic nervous system kicks in. Your heart pumps faster and your muscles and brain get oxygen (through blood flow) more quickly.
The neurotransmitters, adrenalin and noradrenalin, are also triggered. These hormones and neurotransmitters are responsible for causing a flood of symptoms during stress, so that you can make decisions quickly and physically respond rapidly.
Those feelings when you are stressed are similar to feelings of anxiety, including the ensuing overwhelm, panic, difficulty concentrating, or racing heart you may feel after you incur the stressor.
If you’re under stress constantly and you feel your anxiety is connected with your stress level, your adrenals may be negatively reinforcing your anxiety.
Your Digestive System and How to Feel Less Anxious
If your microbiome and gut health are out of balance, anxiety-like symptoms can result. The balance of good bugs to non-health promoting bugs in your gut is vital to optimal mental health.
Serotonin, the feel good hormone is predominantly made in the gut (>90%), so imbalances in the gut microbiota can disrupt serotonin levels. And we now understand the gut communicates directly with the brain through the Vagus nerve, so the gut is a key area to look at to reduce anxiety.
If your gut isn’t breaking down foods adequately or you aren’t absorbing nutrients, it may worthwhile to heal the gut to help your anxiety. You may not be absorbing all the nutrition from your food. Thereofre, you may be lacking critical nutrients to allay feelings of anxiety, such as active folate, B12, magnesium, calcium and others!
Other reasons you may experience increased anxiety from physical imbalances:
- hormonal
- thyroid
- cardiovascular
- neurotransmitter
No matter where your anxiety stems from, you may feel, often without much warning:
- out of control
- unable to proceed with discretionary direction
- overwhelmed
- overly sensitive or reactive
- unable to concentrate or focus
- and much more…
How to Feel Less Anxious: Declutter
According to the principles of Feng Shui, clutter prevents chi (positive energy or life force) from flowing throughout your home. Clutter may contribute to feeling stuck or of being unable to relax in your home. This can indeed bring up feelings of anxiety, worry and stress, from what feels like “nowhere.”
While clutter might seem somewhat inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, you’d be wise to consider the Feng Shui take on an untidy space.
Next time you are looking at a cluttered desk or you open that closet that hasn’t been gone through since you moved into your place two years ago – ask yourself how this makes you feel. You may be surprised how much these little things are adding to your overall level of anxiety.
When I was younger, every so often I would re-arrange my room. We’re talking complete rearrangement. Not just moving a couple things over here, or a few things over there. I would move my desk, bureau, pictures, bed and so on. Looking back, there were just times in my life I was looking to switch up the energy or more basically put: feel more at ease in my own environment.
Listen to those whispers from yourself. Your environment either makes you feel at ease or has you all revved up. If your house, bedroom, or office has been making you feel on edge or not relaxed, maybe a simple solution is to look at what you can literally change up in your space!
And not even just change up, but possibly even get rid of.
Anxiety & Change – How to Feel Less Anxious and Stressed
Decluttering allows you to create space for the things you want to achieve. The mere act of clearing clutter in your home, can renew your life by aiding in the release of negative emotions & feelings.
Decluttering can make space for you, so that internally you feel at peace, calm and grounded while at home! In The Power of Less, Leo Babauta explains, “Simplifying isn’t meant to leave your life empty – it’s meant to leave space in your life for what you really want to do.”
By clearing space you’ll not only reduce some anxiety, but be making room for wonderful things and amazing opportunities to flow in.
On top of decluttering to release anxiety and overwhelm, there are a few tools you can have in your back pocket to use daily to help keep that anxiety in check…
Keep Your Anxiety Decluttered For Good With: Anxiety Reducing Habits
1) Get out in nature.
I cannot stress enough how grounding it feels to just BE in nature. You will feel completely recharged. You will be way more productive from a place of calm and centeredness, than you are from a place of anxiety. If you don’t have any nature around you, then just get outside. Being in fresh air can do wonders as well for calming the body and mind. If you can, take your shoes off and walk in the dirt for 10 minutes. A technique known as earthing. This also helps reduce anxiety and promote a sense of calm.
2) Drink a cup of nervine tea.
Your nervous system (along with your adrenals) may be on overdrive right now. Good stress, bad stress, its all still stress. Some stress is good! But constant stress can be really taxing on the body, so why not give your nerves a little support. Some of my favorite calming teas: Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora), Chamomile (Matricaria recutita), Catnip (Nepeta cataria)- not just for cats, and Holy basil (Tulsi officinalis). Also great for stress and anxiety are the adaptogen herbs.
3) Write……journal……talk.
Just get it all out. It’s stress management. You need to get those feelings off your chest….(there are sayings for a reason – wink). When you give yourself the chance to voice your feelings, you free up your body and mind from holding on to them. This is a great way to keep you energized, rather than anxious, exhausted and drained.
Bonus Tip: use a meditation app to help calm your nerves, anxiety and stress. A great resource for how to feel less anxious.
3 Simple Steps to Declutter
Step 1—Commit to a project. This can be either a room, a floor or the entire house. BUT here is the deal, do not pick something so big it is going to cause anxiety. Start small!!
- Every day, take small steps towards reducing the material items in your chosen area. Create a calendar and place small feats on it daily: clean out filing cabinet, re-arrange filing cabinet, organize filing cabinet, go through kids toys they don’t play with, donate the kids toys, etc, etc. Don’t, I repeat DON’T try to do it all at once or you are likely to succumb to extreme stress, anxiety and overwhelm!
Step 2—Keep, Toss, Donate.
- Create boxes for Toss and Donate, to help add organization to your process. This way as you are working through different rooms, you are ready to toss or donate when you have gone through all the tasks in Step 1.
Step 3—Stay Detached (as much as possible). This is probably the most important one!
- Sentimentality or a sense that “I’ll need this someday…” completely cuts you off from being able to live life a little more freely. TRUST what you need will come your way when you need it. Now, of course I am not talking about the last picture you have of your grandmother with the family. Instead I am talking about books, clothing, toys, gifts, etc. If you haven’t used it, pass it on to someone who will.
- Here is the deal: when you set things into movement, FLOW has a lot better chance of being in your life. Get rid of things you don’t need or use, and you’ll be surprised at what may show up. I have seen this numerous times, where people declutter and let go of things, and the next day a check shows up in the mailbox, or a toaster oven (that you have been wanting to replace) comes your way from a great Aunt who never uses hers.
Oh, and the best part? Your feelings of anxiety pretty much go with all the stuff you are getting rid of.
Really, when you trust that you will have what you need when you need it, small miracles appear to happen.
This is how to feel less anxious for good!
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