Easy Ways To Calm Your Mind

There are many different things you can do to help calm your mind. Dr. Esther Sternberg is a physician who has given a few different tips and tricks that help calm the mind to CNBC Make It.

Deep breathing can be an amazing way to calm the body down. Just inhale deeply through your diaphragm. While you inhale, place your hands on your stomach and try to make them move up as you breathe in.

Another recommended breathing exercise is called the 4-7-8 technique. To do this, inhale for a total of four seconds, count to seven while holding your breath, then exhale for eight seconds.

Focusing your attention on something is a simple way to reduce anxiety. This can be done by simply looking out of the window next to you and focusing on the way grass sways. Sternberg says that this “takes [you] out of [your] immediate anxiety zone.”

Another good method is the 5-4-3-2-1 method, which also forces you to take notice of your surroundings. For this method you find five things you can see, four things that can be touched, three things you can hear, two things that have a smell, and one thing that you can taste. 

Spending time outside is a great way to relax. Walking through your favorite part or nature filled space is one of the best things you can do to calm down. “Inhaling deeply, slow walking, all of those things kick in the relaxation response,” Stenberg says.

Hiking or walking in the woods is just naturally calming because “you’re breathing in what we call biogenic volatile organic compounds, which are the molecules released from plants just before rain or just after rain, when the air is moist,” says Sternberg.