Releasing Anxiety with Ease
Dear friends,
I'll be honest with you, this month hit me with some news I wasn't expecting. The kind that makes your mind start racing before you've even had a chance to sit with it. My stress looks like this: I wake up in the middle of the night with unease, my stress is held in my shoulders and neck, and my mind is spinning in a circular spiral that doesn’t stop. Know the feeling?
When this happens to me, I make a conscious effort to use the practices and lessons from books that have previously grounded me. First, I walk. In silence. With the dogs. Being surrounded by trees, birds, and beauty always helps to calm my mind.
I recently read a book – one that RevelEleven is featuring – that offers a fantastic new tool for managing stress: Rewired: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease by Jessica Ortner. I want to share its actionable takeaways, as it provides practical help for those moments when life throws you a curveball.
I’m sure you have heard about EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), better known as tapping which helps you calm your nervous system. Tapping combines gentle pressure on specific acupressure points on the face and body that remind your body that it's safe.
It sounds almost too simple, but there's growing science behind why it works: it sends calming signals to the amygdala, the brain's alarm system, helping to interrupt the stress response before it spirals.
What I love about the book is that it isn't just theory. It walks you through exactly how our minds get stuck in "survival mode" and that looping, anxious, can't-shut-my-brain-off feeling and gives step-by-step tapping sequences for specific situations: overwhelm, self-doubt, sleepless nights, old wounds that resurface at the worst times.
Some other tools that help me:
• Walking: As I mentioned, I walk a lot. Even 15 minutes outside can shift your whole nervous system. There's something about rhythmic movement that helps process what words can't.
• Creativity: painting, journaling, cooking something new. When your hands are busy making something, your mind gets a break from spinning.
• Gardening: hands in the dirt, sunlight, something to nurture. It's hard to stay in your head when you're pulling weeds.
• Meditation: even five quiet minutes of just noticing your breath can lower the volume of a racing mind.
• Yoga: stretching and slow, mindful movement can release tension that I didn't even know I was holding, while syncing your breath with motion helps settle a busy mind.
I will be interviewing the author of Rewired, Jessica Ortner, on July 29 at 12:00pm PST! I hope you will join me and bring your questions. This is a rare chance to hear directly from the producer of The Tapping Solution about how we can change our relationship with stress for good… and I bet we all can benefit from her tips.
Joanie Parsons
Founder/Adventurist of RevelEleven