7 Surprising Things That Can Help You Stop Worrying

Keeping your hands busy has been found by research to help keep the mind off of worries. Verbal distractions, such as counting out loud, had no benefit.

Keeping your hands and mind busy interferes with storing and encoding visual images, which explains why worry beads and knitting calm us down.

Getting your emotions down on paper can decrease anxieties, as you reassess them while writing. 

Spending time within a forest setting can reduce psychological stress, depressive symptoms, and hostility, while at the same time improving sleep, and increasing both vigor and a feeling of liveliness

20 minutes of walking in the woods and listening to the sounds of nature alter cerebral blood flow in a manner that indicated a state of relaxation and reduced stress hormone levels.

While sweets can cause you to have a sugar high and crash, researchers have found that a little chocolate can be beneficial for worriers. Dark chocolate can help calm your nerves by reducing levels of stress hormones.

The “4-7-8 breath” technique is touted as a calming practice and tool to combat anger.

Exhale completely through your mouth, then inhale through your nose for a count of four. Hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale through your mouth for a count of eight. It’s not possible to breathe deeply and be anxious at the same time.

Stress can be reduced by the smell of pleasant-smelling essential oils with people reporting significant improvements in tension, worry, and demands.

One of the essential oils tested was grapefruit, which is refreshing and revitalizing, and helped boost the body’s feelings of energy and happiness.

Those who go to bed very late and sleep for short amounts of time are more overwhelmed with negative.
Late sleepers tend to worry about the future and dwell over past events, and they have a higher risk of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.