Anxiety Rx: 8 Ways to Simmer Down Stress

By Dr. Morgan Camp, Monj Health Chief Medical Officer 

One thing that I’m hearing more and more from my patients is how they are struggling with stress and how it’s affecting their health and their overall sense of well being and happiness. Feelings of stress and anxiety are natural and completely understandable, but they can really take a toll on our mental and physical health if we don’t give ourselves some space for self-care. Which is why I wanted to share some actionable ways that we can manage anxiety.

Let’s talk about 8 small steps you can try:

1. Cultivate a Supportive Mindset by starting off your day with a flexible mindset. Excuse yourself from black and white thinking by removing words like “always” and “never” from your daily script. Why? Limiting words make us feel boxed in, while using more flexible language allows our minds to be open to the changes around us.  Most importantly, be kind to yourself and give yourself grace.

2. Create a Daily Ritual by doing something that recharges you each day. Perhaps it’s some stretching or yoga when you first wake up, or a practice of gratitude before you go to bed. Or maybe it’s taking one small action to inspire change in the world. Whatever your ritual is, sticking with it can provide you with a firm foundation that gives you an underlying feeling of control and comfort.

3. Get Your Body Moving — it’s more critical than ever to get fresh air, sunshine, and physical activity. This can be as simple as taking a 15 minute walk outside at lunch, or perhaps planning for a more lengthy hike in nature on the weekends.

4. Stay Hydrated by drinking at least 64 ounces of water per day. You might find you need a bit more than that — especially during the coming summer months. The reason for this action is that being dehydrated puts your body in a state of stress, which in turn creates anxiety. 

5. Create Breaks in Your Schedule because — believe it or not — productivity increases with more breaks, more sleep, and better rest. So make sure you block off parts of your day to create quiet time for meals, movement, and breaks.

6. Set Boundaries if you’re having trouble creating breaks for yourself — or generally feeling overburdened. A good place to start is to answer this question: Do you have the energy to give it your all? If the answer is “no,” give yourself space to say no to that request, invitation, or event.

7. Add Stress Reducers to Your Diet to help boost serotonin levels, which is one of the brain’s happy hormones that can reduce anxiety. Try pairing lean protein with complex carbs, or level up by eating some anxiety-busting superfoods like avocado, blueberries, eggs, salmon, pumpkin seeds, plain yogurt, and green tea. Or have a nibble of dark chocolate — ideally 85% cocoa or higher!

8. Take a Moment to Breathe. Breathing exercises allow you to tap into your central nervous system, effectively putting the breaks on the adrenaline response and taking your stress down a notch.

The most effective and easiest breathing technique that I recommend is called Box Breathing.  It’s a technique of paced, deep abdominal breathing. It can be done discreetly, at any time and anywhere to help regulate your sympathetic nervous system. Studies have shown that it provides a greater sense of calm as it lowers your heart rate, your blood pressure and your stress hormone levels.  

Just remember what I said about small steps: Do NOT add to your stress by adding all of these to your to-do list! With just a little work, anyone can start nurturing a positive mindset and begin to master their stress.

Dr. Morgan Camp is an Integrative and Functional Medicine Physician specializing in metabolic disorders, nutrition, lifestyle and chronic disease management.  He used to hate broccoli, but now he eats all of his green veggies and loves it — even kale! When he’s not helping his patients reverse chronic illness, Morgan enjoys adventuring the globe, from hiking in the Himalayas to swimming in the Carribean.  Back at home, he nerds out on studying nutrition, genetics, meditation and yoga.