8 WAYS TO BUST SEASONAL ANXIETY NATURALLY
8 WAYS TO BUST SEASONAL ANXIETY NATURALLY
Every start to Autumn, I have intense excitement and intense anxiety all at once. The romance of the hot sun and the influx of Vitamin D diminishes and the feeling of fresh salads, ice cold watermelon juice, and laying in the park or beach with classical music and a swim suit is fading. Even though I am looking forward to apple picking, candles, and hot chocolate- and even though we have passed the initial feelings from September, it still triggers a sense of nervousness within me. Fall is a sign of starting new things - starting school, a new schedule, or the sun rising a little later and it also means having new expectations for yourself. No matter where its coming from, its SO important we manage it. When we manage our stress, we allow more space to love ourselves, others and believing we can change the world - therefore taking action to do so. I’ve made a little list of ways to bust anxiety naturally and I hope you find it helpful!
PSA: I would give yourself 30 minutes to an hour dedicated to YOU! If you have to wake up 30 minutes earlier or say no thank you to drinks after dinner with friends, skipping a tinder date, putting your phone in a basket in the other room, tell your mom you’ll call her later - whatever the case is, you gotta make room in your life for YOU.
NATURE: It is a scientific fact that immersing yourself in nature has positive benefits for all humans. It can banish stress, bring clarity, improve mood, boosts immune system, and a million other things. The best part is that it’s for free! All you need are the senses you have and a willingness to awaken them. Go for a walk, sit in the grass, take off your shoes and take it in. I promise you won’t regret it.
MOVE THAT BODY: My favorite way to rid my body of anxiety is activating it. This can look like running, climbing, yoga, work out classes, or dancing! Running is my all time passion. If you’re interested in running but don’t know where to begin, click here! . Exercising is scientifically proven to help with stress and anxiety as it pumps out endorphins (a natural painkiller pumped out by the brain), making you feel good naturally. Running gives me confidence and I am able to better manage problems that have been sitting in my brain. These problems leave residue of stagnant energy that I visualize as dull colors. As I run, those colors get released from the bottom of my feet making room for fresh, vibrant, positive energy to enter through the crown of my head! Those positive colors sometimes look like glowing gold, a rainbow, or a bright white and blue. Exercising is also a great way to connect back with your body and look inward again which is so necessary when everything around us is telling us to be distracted and look to outer distractions.
SIT AND BREATHE DEEP: This is an important one and it doesn’t have to take long to reach a homeostasis back into the body. You can call this one meditation also, but lately my mind enjoys the term “sitting and breathing” instead - its less pressure for me. My advice is to find a space that offers little noise and distraction - if you want to create yourself an alter, grab a candle, or something special to place in front of you. Some days it can be as simple as leaving my phone in the other room and just sitting on my couch enjoying the scene from outside my window. So get in a comfortable seated position and breathe in deep, breathe out slow and repeat. Sometimes I will breathe in deep, hold it and then breathe out. Focusing only on your breathe allows the body to take a break from all the other distractions in your current life and renews the brains ability to handle tasks easier.
ROMANCE YOURSELF: We think of romance and we automatically think of a significant other; treating someone else special and vice versa, but what we fail to see, is that romancing ourselves offers so many positive benefits for our psyche and our self worth. So if we treat ourselves well, then we subconsciously are sending a signal to our brains and body that we deserve well from others! I’ll make myself a fancy dinner by candlelight or go out to eat by myself with a book. I’ll go to a movie, make some popcorn to bring with me, and enjoy my own sweet ass company. Whatever it looks like for you, make sure you involve all the things you would normally enjoy getting from other people, and gift it to yourself!
Photo by Amanda Blair of a beautiful tea ceremony we had when things fell through with a situation. The tea ceremony brought us calm, rebalance, and joy!
TEA CEREMONY: This has been a new thing for me but has changed my life. Before you think a tea ceremony is just grabbing a bag of Lipton black, popping it in hot water and then chilling on the ground -think again! I make time for having tea about 3 times a week in the mornings, or if I don’t have enough time in the am, I do it in the evening. It takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and I play THIS PLAYLIST as I start. When you sit alone with tea as your company it feels like you are sitting with an old friend and dissecting the world as we know it in its complexities. With every sip, you are taken on a journey inward into a self conquest of love, fulfillment, beauty and nature - all with the company of these ancient leaves. As a beginner tea lover, I would love to hand this over to the one that introduced me to tea, Rachel Bare. As a student of tea, she is so passionate about it and offers amazing incite to the beautiful details of it and how you can begin! Click here to get started!
CREATE: This one is a fairly simple one and teaches us great things about expectations and outcomes. Whether it’s a pen and paper, a canvas and paints, a needle and thread, or your hands and a ceramic wheel - all of them yield the art of creation and as you create, you unwind. It’s a fun therapy session and the outcome will always be unique. I can get lost for hours with any of these things I stated above and afterwards I feel serenity, release, and immense fulfillment. My advice is to expect nothing out of it. Don’t think you need to create a masterpiece, or that you need to keep it, or that if its ugly, then you failed. NO. Think of the process instead. Far too many times in our lives we think of the end goal rather than the journey. This is great practice to really let go of thinking you need to head in a certain direction and just create. “There never is, or was, or will be anything except the present.”
DEDICATE RELAX TIME WITH FRIENDS: We all know how to party with friends, but do we know how to relax with them? I find the most nourishing and long lasting friendships are those in which you can all relax and be completely yourselves. As much as I am an introvert, there are times when I really don’t want to be alone - but I don’t want to exert a ton of energy either. Having a day or evening to unwind, get lazy, have tea, and talk things out with people you trust is like therapy wrapped in heaven wrapped in chocolate wrapped in a newborn baby wrapped in a cute baby pig and everything else that is a gift from the universe. Haha oh dear.
SUPPLEMENTS, TINCTURES, & EXTRACT: If you are looking for more ways to destress naturally without any chemicals or pills, I would go to herbs and extracts. I don’t have an advanced knowledge of them but my friend Claire who is actually sitting by me right now, has an array of knowledge surround them. Here is her input: There are two types of herbs to help with stress. Adaptogenic and nervine. These both help you cope with standard stress we face daily whether it’s small aches and pains or if we are just looking to find calm and solace everyday. They address the adrenal system - so when we stress, our adrenals go into overdrive and secrete stress hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. Nervines are herbs that support the nervous system and adaptogens restore the balance of your body and strengthen it. Ashwaganda and Eleuthero are an immune stabilizing adaptogenic herbs that you can find as a tincture or a powder. Passion flower are nervine herbs for your racing mind when you’re trying to sleep and you can find them as a tea or tincture. I take Tart cherry to sleep and it works really well for me. I take a glass in the morning diluted with water and the same in the evening before bed! Here is the brand I get and I usually purchase it at any health food store. Skull cap as a tincture or a tea for anti stress and is also a nervine herb. There is an alcohol free tincture here. Remember that herbs differ and work differently with everyone and your body does not change within minutes upon using, so patience is required to yield these amazing natural benefits. Thank you Claire for shedding light! She also has an amazing website called The Good Nature where she focuses on environmentalism, educating and building a community surrounding awareness for our sweet earth!