Exercises To Calm Your Anxious Thoughts

BREATHE!

The fastest remedy for a stressful situation or anxious thoughts is to modify the simple task of Breathing.

Stress causes shallow, fast paced, chest breathing -- which creates an anxiety (fight, flight or freeze) response in the body. 
You can reduce this by consciously taking three (3)

D E E P, S L O W, belly breaths.
Try it now!
Notice how you are feeling in the moment, now take three deep, slow breaths, feel your belly fill as you inhale, feel it empty as you exhale, on the last breath let out an audible "SIGH".  Now, check in, how do you feel?

You can expand on this by placing one hand on your belly just below your navel and one hand on your chest, as you inhale push the hand on your belly out, then the hand on your chest up, as you exhale, push your belly in and let your chest hand fall. Add a count to this breathing, Inhale to a count of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4, Exhale 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. After a few rounds of this see if you can lengthen the breath gradually extending it to an Inhale of 6 and and Exhale of 8, you can even add holding the breath in (at the top of the Inhale) for a count of 4 and holding the breath out (at the bottom of the Exhale) for a count of 4. IF you feel heat, like you are overheated or hot with anger, curl your tongue like a taco as you exhale, for this breath, Inhale through the nose, Exhale through your mouth. This is a cooling breath.

Looking at a pleasing scene like the photo above or out in nature can help ease the stress as well. Sound is a powerful diffuser of strong emotions, that is why the “Sigh” mentioned previously is so helpful. Perhaps you need to vocalize in order to calm, if so, get yourself to a place where it is safe to make noise, perhaps your car with the windows rolled up? Do your breathing, and with each exhale let out whatever sounds you need to clear your energy, they can be loud sighs, or screams, grunts, or even words. Repeat this 5-10 times, until you feel a change in the energy. Then use a centering, grounding sound to re-establish balance and calm. Many Yoga mantras are good for this, perhaps exhaling with the sound “OM”. Or use a mantra for both the clearing and centering, like “SAT NAM”, as you inhale shout “SAT” and squeeze/tense your whole body, as you exhale breathe out the sound “N Aaaa Mmm” and relax your body.