A 5-Minute Hack to Stop Feeling Anxious
We’ve all experienced feeling sad, annoyed, frustrated, upset, and wishing we could do something about it.
Even worse, we believe we’re trapped in that emotional state.
This might seem silly, or like it can’t possibly help, but I’d encourage anyone feeling depressed, anxious, stressed, pissed, or otherwise in a bad mood to give it a try.
The biggest challenge is making yourself do it when you’re feeling out of it. But if you can get yourself to take that first step, you’ll feel worlds better five minutes later.
Here’s what you have to do:
Choose the Music Pick two songs, at least 2 minutes long, that always make you feel good and that you know the lyrics and can sing along to
Press Play Go to the shower and set it as hot as you can comfortably stand. Silence your phone notifications and put the first song on full blast so you’ll be able to hear it over the running water
Sweat It Out Get in the shower and see if you can stand making it any hotter. You want to be sweating by the end of the first song. Sing along to the song as loudly as you comfortably can
The Switch When the song ends… turn the shower as cold as possible. This is part of why you wanted to get all hot and sweaty in the first place. The cold water is going to shock your nervous system back to normal, and it’s going to be easier to bear if you’re already overheating. Once again, sing along! It’s very hard to be upset while singing along to a song you like, you’ll notice the cold less since you’ll be distracted, and singing requires you to take big, deep breaths, helping you with managing the cold
When the second song is over you can keep going in the cold if you’re enjoying it, or you can get off and towel off.
It might help to have a 3rd song here to keep the mood up, but you should be feeling drastically better by this point.