Anxiety hacks

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Feeling anxious? Here are 10 quick and easy science-backed hacks to dial it down.

1. Chew gum: Studies show it reduces cortisol and increases blood flow to the brain.
2. Go outside and look at something far away: Anxiety literally narrows your vision, it’s part of the stress response. Forcing your eyes wide on a distant view tells your nervous system it’s safe.
3. Cold water on your face: It triggers the ‘mammalian diving response,’ which is an automatic survival reflex triggered when cold water touches the face and nostrils while breath is held and puts you into a relaxation state. It causes three key changes: slowed heart rate, narrowed blood vessels, and a pause in breathing.
4. Clean or organise something: Anxiety thrives on the belief or feeling of lost control. Cleaning and organising provides an immediate and tangible experience of creating order from chaos.
5. Write down your worst-case scenario: When the fear stays in your head, it’s a monster. On paper, it shrinks.
6. Do something with your hands: Build, cook, draw… it activates both hemispheres of the brain at once, which breaks the anxious thought loop. Your brain can’t be in panic and in flow at the same time.
7. Hum or sing out loud: The physical vibrations in your throat and chest activate the vagus nerve, which controls the body’s relaxation response and releases feel-good hormones like endorphins.
8. Gargle water aggressively: This activates a branch of your vagus nerve through a different pathway than humming. If you do it until your eyes water, that’s your nervous system resetting in real time.
9. Help someone else: Helping others triggers a release of oxytocin, dopamine and endorphins. Researchers call this the ‘helper’s high.’
10. Do something that makes you feel anxious, like talking to a stranger: When you survive a small, low-stakes scenario that your brain feared, it rewires. It receives proof that the threat wasn’t real. Do that enough and the fear loses its grip.