Tools To Regulate Anxiety and Calm Your Nervous System From an Anxiety Therapist in Denver, CO

By Jordan Kurtz, MA, LPCC, Denver Anxiety Therapist

Anxiety is a universal human experience with roots in evolutionary processes. Worry or fear prompts vigilance, helps us stay attuned to and avoidant of threats, and can maintain social harmony. However, living in chronic fight-or-flight mode is non-adaptive. It depletes our nervous system, body, and morale.

Whether we experience anxiety intermittently, conditionally, or daily, below are some regulating mechanisms that can keep anxiety at bay.

Ways to Regulate Anxiety From a Body Perspective:

Encourage Motion

• exorcise restlessness with fidget spinners, visit calm places, pet an animal, rub fingertips together, snap a rubber band against your wrist, walk, dancing, snap, jumping jacks.

Encourage Stillness

• Prioritize safety and task completion by pulling over momentarily if driving, taking a bathroom break, putting your phone away, sitting down, or turning off music/background noise.

Encourage Breath

• Accessing deep and slow breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system (aka “Rest and Digest” track). Countering our fight or flight mechanisms

• Box Breaths: inhale to your lung’s capacity for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, and exhale slowly for four seconds until your lungs are emptied.

Invite Sensation

• Anxiety dominates our capacity to respond effectively in the present or engage with the future holistically. Grounding keeps our bodies tethered to the present moment by disengaging from danger cues.

• Grounding options:

  • 5 senses check-in. Identify and describe mentally or aloud 3 things you can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Things in your immediate surroundings.

  • fan yourself

  • place ice cubes on your wrists or behind your ears

  • eat something salty, sweet, or minty

  • place your feet barefoot on the floor

Ways to Regulate Anxiety From a Mental Perspective:

Check-in with expectations:

• Enter situations with the goal of observing versus predicting. Assuming the worst can create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. The thought “Everyone will think I am a loser”, avoidance of talking to others, others assume you don’t want to be engaged with them, you assume people are avoiding you because you are a loser”).

• Attend to emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts in the present and then consider impulses to act.

Externalize Needs and fears:

• Anxiety feeds itself in a vacuum. Ask trusted loved ones and peers for help, reassurance of fears, and healthy distraction. 

Visit the “evidence bank”:

• Anxiety sends us into catastrophizing mode: “I’ll never get through this”, “This will be terrible”, or “I will always feel this way”. Remind yourself mentally or by writing out examples of times in the past you have surmounted anxiety to recharacterize anxiety as transient.  

Chunk Tasks:

• Stress inhibits the proper functioning of our executive nervous system, which plays a role in responsibility delegation and execution. Cue reactivation of your executive functions by differentiating between what must be done in the immediate and what should be done- attend to what must be done first. 

Celebrate Successes:

• Anxiety fosters a “negativity bias”, meaning our minds become fixated on attending solely to interactions, thoughts, and emotions that perpetuate rumination and isolation. Track progress with a goal or a cessation of a habit through the app Nomo, which also includes other distraction games and relaxation prompts.

Anxiety Therapy in Denver, CO

These techniques can be helpful for managing some of the intensity of anxiety on our own. But anxiety therapy is often necessary to help us move through anxiety completely. Our team of anxiety therapists at CZ Therapy Group approach healing from anxiety with a somatic, trauma-focused approach. Anxiety often manifests as a symptom of unresolved trauma or unprocessed core emotion (ie sadness, anger, fear, grief).

In trauma-focused anxiety therapy, we’re able to support your nervous system in processing through the root causes of anxiety, not just temporarily relieve the symptoms. If you’d like to learn more about anxiety therapy with us, reach out for a free consultation call.

About the Writer -Jordan, Anxiety Therapist in Denver, CO

Jordan Kurtz (she/her) is a trauma and relationship therapist at CZTG who focuses on therapy for grief, trauma, adolescence, and couples. Jordan is authentic, warm, and affirming of her clients’ identities and experiences.

Jordan Kurtz, Anxiety Therapist in Denver, CO

If you’d like to connect with Jordan to learn more about what it would be like to work together, feel free to reach out for a free consultation. 

Ready to Start Anxiety Therapy in Denver, CO?

Are you struggling with anxiety? Don't suffer in silence. Reach out to one of our skilled anxiety therapists trained in treating anxiety and take the first step toward finding relief. You deserve to live a life free from the burden of anxiety, and seeking professional help at Chadley Zobolas Therapy Group is a brave and proactive step towards achieving that. Don't let anxiety control your life any longer - follow these three steps to get started:

1. Reach out to schedule a free 20-minute consult call.

2. Connect with the CZTG therapist of your choice via a phone consult.

3. Begin managing your anxiety symptoms and see positive changes in your life!

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