How to Calm Down: 11 Coping Skills for Anxiety

Anxiety is the feeling of worry, dread, or nervousness. Most people experience some anxiety from time to time. A little anxiety can be helpful. If you wake up late for work, anxiety may motivate you to shorten your morning routine to make it to the office on time.

But sometimes anxiety can feel overwhelming or persistent. When anxiety becomes too much, it may be helpful to have a “toolbox” of coping skills to help alleviate stress.

Read on to learn a few coping skills that may help you calm down when your anxiety is high and at what point it might be time to look for outside support.

What are some quick ways to calm myself down?

Below are a few coping skills for you to try out and see if you find them helpful. It is important you find coping skills that fit you and your needs best.

1. Breathing

Yes, breathing! It is a simple but effective strategy. Breathing is a research-backed technique to help manage anxiety. You breathe all the time naturally, but to use breathing to help with anxiety, you have to focus on how you are breathing. Controlled breathing with a focus on the exhalation of breath is key.

One example of a breathing technique is diaphragmatic breathing:

• Sit in a comfortable position.

• Place your hand on your stomach.

• Breathe in deeply through your nose and notice your hand rising as your belly rises.

• Exhale slowly; notice how your hand moves down with each exhale.

• Try to keep your mind focused on your breath and the movement of your hand.

• Repeat as needed.

Read more like this

Explore these related articles, suggested for readers like you.

6 Ways to Help Someone With Anxiety

7 Signs It's Time to Get Help for Your Anxiety

View more

There are many types of breathing techniques out there for you to try. It may take some time and practice to become skilled at using breathing as a coping skill for anxiety.

2. Mindfulness meditation

Meditation is the practice of focusing your mind on the present moment. You can focus on thoughts, emotions, and sensations in your body. Or you can focus outside of yourself, noticing your surroundings and environment. Regardless of how you practice mindfulness, observe your experience with curiosity, openness, and without judgment.

There are many mindful meditations exercises available. Here are a couple to get you started:

• Body scan script: This script focuses on sensations within your body. Record yourself reading the script before you begin. This allows you to listen to yourself giving the instructions as you do the exercise.

• 10-minute meditation for stress: This video from Headspace will walk you through a guided meditation. There are many meditation apps and videos online that offer a variety of guided meditations.

Meditation and breathing have been proven to lessen stress and anxiety. But keep in mind the research shows that the best results after a few months of practicing these techniques. So try not to get discouraged and give it some time and practice to see how it works for you.

3. Yoga

Yoga is a blend of physical exercise, mindfulness meditation, and breathwork. All of these have been shown to help lessen anxiety. Starting a regular yoga practice may help lower your overall anxiety.

Here’s how to get started with yoga:

• Search the web for in-person classes near you. Most yoga studios offer beginner-level classes to help ease newbies into learning the poses and flow of yoga.

• Try yoga from the comfort of your home. Try using an online option, like this 30-minute yoga for beginners video by yoga teacher Adriene Mishler.

• Download an app. There are many options; one example is Yoga for Beginners from Mind+Body. But look around your mobile device’s app store for an option that feels right for you.

• Look for goat yoga. If you like adventure, look up goat yoga classes in your area for an added layer of fun.

4. Grounding

Anxiety is a future-focused response. This means that when you feel anxious, it is generally a fear of something happening in the future. Grounding will instead help you focus on the present, which is why it can be a helpful coping skill for anxiety.

Grounding exercises often focus on using your 5 senses to anchor you to the here and now. Breathing can be a grounding exercise, but many other options also exist.

Here are a few examples for you to try out.

Visual grounding:

• Pick a color.

• Now say the name of every object around you that is the color you picked.

• Repeat this a few times if needed.

Tactile grounding:

• Take off your shoes and walk barefoot.

• Pay close attention to the feel of the ground underneath your feet.

• Wiggle your toes or stand on your tiptoes.

• Pay close attention to the sensations.

• Notice the temperature of the ground as you walk.

5. Progressive muscle relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation uses the tensing and releasing of muscles to promote relaxation. This coping skill lessens anxiety by helping lower stress-induced tension in the body.

To try progressive muscle relaxation, start with your feet and work your way up your body’s muscle groups. One at a time, tense each muscle group for 5 seconds. Then, slowly release the tension on a count of 10. After your feet, move to your calves, knees, thighs, and so on.

Many videos and scripts on progressive muscle relaxation are available for free online. These can offer you spoken guidance or more specific instructions.

6. Positive self-talk

Positive self-talk has been shown to help lower anxiety. The way we think about things can raise overall anxiety. By shifting your focus to more positive or neutral things about life and yourself, your brain will shift away from anxiety.

Some ways to help boost your use of positive self-talk are:

• Write down five things you are grateful for or that are working well in your life.

• Write down five things you like about yourself.

• Use positive affirmations. Examples: “I can do hard things.” “I accept myself for who I am.”

• For social anxiety, try talking positively to yourself in the third person (using pronouns and your name) instead of saying "I" or "me."

It can take time and practice to challenge unhelpful thoughts and replace them with helpful thoughts and language. If you have lots of negative thoughts and you are struggling to manage them on your own, consider cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). CBT is a therapy that helps you tackle unhelpful thinking styles that can lead to anxiety.

7. Purposeful distraction

Before anxiety strikes, create a list of things you enjoy doing. Keep the list on your phone or close by your person. The items on your list should be fairly easy to do on any given day. You may also want to include a few things you can do at work or school in a pinch.

Below are some examples of activities that can be used as a distraction. Feel free to use what fits you and ignore what doesn’t.

• Boost your mood by using upbeat or positive music

• Dance

• Work out

• Go for a walk

• Watch a movie

• Call a supportive friend or family member

• Get out into nature

• Journal

• Draw, paint, or color

• Read a book

• Play with a pet

Distraction can be a great way to take a break from overwhelming feelings. But too much distraction can become avoidance. So make sure you use distraction as a break or a way to calm down, not to run away from feelings.

8. Changing your temperature

Sometimes if your anxiety is intense or overwhelming, you may feel the effects in your body. You may notice your heart racing or you’re breathing faster. If this is the case, you may be able to use cool or cold temperatures to slow down your body’s anxiety response.

Below are some ideas on how to use temperature to cool down:

• Splash cold water on your face.

• Take a cold or cool shower.

• Rub ice cubes on your face.

• Bite into a slice of frozen lemon.

• Put a cool compress on your face, neck, chest, or stomach.

9. Humming

Connecting your brain to all your major organs is something called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve helps aid your body’s rest response. This is the opposite response to your body's fight-flight-freeze anxiety response.

Learning to stimulate the vagus nerve can help you activate your rest response. This can be a way to help yourself calm down when experiencing anxiety.

One natural way to stimulate the vagus nerve is to hum! You can also simulate it by singing or laughing. So next time you are feeling a little anxious, pick a song and see how singing or humming it makes you feel.

10. Walking

Walking, like breathing, can help ease anxiety in many ways. One way to use walking is to walk in nature. Walking in nature has been shown to lessen anxiety. You can also boost the benefits of walking by using mindfulness or grounding skills. While walking, you might try paying attention to colors or using your five senses to focus on your surroundings.

Another benefit of walking is that it is a natural way to bilaterally stimulate your brain. Bilateral stimulation is a way of activating both sides of your brain by using an alternating left-to-right pattern.

Therapists use bilateral stimulation in a type of trauma therapy known as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). But it also occurs naturally in our eye movements when we sleep. And it happens when we walk.

Bilateral stimulation can help you feel more relaxed, process problems, and may ease worry. So if you are struggling with increased anxiety, consider taking a short walk to help lower it.

11. Butterfly hug

Another way to use bilateral stimulation to your benefit is a technique known as the butterfly hug. This exercise uses a combination of breathing and bilateral stimulation to help lower anxiety. There are videos available online to learn how to use the butterfly hug.

When should you get help for your anxiety?

If your anxiety continues to greatly affect your day-to-day life even after using your coping skills, it may be time to get help from a mental health professional.

Some other signs to look out for are:

• If you cannot function at work, school, or in social situations

• If your anxiety is greatly affecting your relationships with others

• If you are beginning to avoid people, places, or things

Therapy can be a useful tool to help you understand and learn to manage your anxiety. If you are struggling to manage your anxiety on your own or feel it negatively affects your social, school, or work life, ask for help. A mental health professional will be able to help you figure out if you have an anxiety disorder and map out a course of action to help limit your anxiety.

Why trust our experts?

Written by:

Courtney Blackledge, LCMHC, LCAS

Courtney Blackledge, LCMHC, LCAS has been active in the mental health field for over 3 years. She is a licensed clinical mental health counselor and clinical addiction specialist and has experience working with couples, families, individuals, teens, and children.

Edited by:

Renée Fabian, MA

Renée Fabian is the senior pet health editor at GoodRx. She’s worked for nearly 10 years as a journalist and editor across a wide range of health and well-being topics.

Reviewed by:

India B. Gomez, PhD

India B. Gomez, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist with a certificate in Latin American Family Therapy. She completed her doctoral education at the California School of Professional Psychology/Alliant International University.

Our editorial standards

Meet our experts