- Orient in the room: look around slowly with a soft gaze, let your eyes go where they want to go and stay there as long as you need. It can be the folding of a drape, a piece of molding, a flower in a vase, a detail of the carpet. Look at anything that helps settle the activation in your system. Feel it in your body, feel yourself getting more grounded, getting settled. Let your body take advantage of the “physiology” of the environment. If the anxiety is in panic attack mode, focus on a very small detail of an object, not on a large view of the room. It will pass.
- Name out loud 5 things you can see, touch, smell, hear or taste where you are: it serves the same purpose as orienting. Feel how the system settles in your body.
- Name all the objects that have the color green in the room where you are sitting.
- Sign a contract with yourself that between the hours of 10PM and 6AM, this is a time to REST/RESTORE/RENEW/REFRESH/REFILL/REJUVENATE and that you will not ruminate/think obsessively/make lists and spoil your night. Close the doors on all matters that roll around in your mind and bring in a soothing picture.
- Stay in the here and the now. Try to stay away from the “what ifs”, redirect to the present time.
- The present is your best ally. You are here alive: you survived the worst. It is your best resource.
- Stop the train of negative thoughts and beliefs. Don’t let it leave the station. Don’t even get ON the train! Stay on the platform and observe.
- Track your heart rate by putting your hand on your heart for support. Notice how it slows down.
- Think polarity or opposite. Example: if the body sensation is of constriction, think of an image that brings expansion/freedom/openness/breath to your mind and stay with it.
- “Butterfly Wrap”: to fall asleep, or at any other anxious time, cross your arms on your chest (right hand over left shoulder, left hand over right shoulder) and cross your legs at ankle level. It works with meridians and grounds.
- Find some pictures or postcards (examples on this page) that bring relaxation to your body and look at them from time to time to bring the activation down: lavender fields, a forest landscape, pond surrounded by trees. Use them at work, at home, on your breaks.
- Enlist your power figures: your protector (s), your “mother figure”, real or imaginary.
- Anyone who would come to the rescue if you called them. Bring them in. Feel their presence, feel their strength and their support.
