Plenty in life can cause anxiety. Just watch the news for 10 minutes, and you may conclude the world is ending. Beyond that, the pressures of work, family, and life in general can pipe in plenty of anxiety.
Beyond the obvious forms of anxiety, there’s another, less obvious form that many of us suffer from: aimless or restless anxiety.
We can also become restless or anxious without overt reason. While the focus of this article centers on moments of aimless anxiety, clinically significant forms of generalized anxiety exist but fall outside the scope of this article as they focus heavily on psychotherapy and pharmaceutical approaches.
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For those of us with occasional undirected anxiety, exercising can help calm the mind and stabilize the body, allowing us to move away from anxiety into peace.
My patients tolerate these exercises well, but I suggest you discuss them with your medical provider to ensure they are right for you.
1. Walking
Walking serves two very good purposes for reducing anxiety. First, it’s a sustained activity that can help the body relax, and second, it can provide a vast change in scenery versus sitting and stressing.Step 1: Walk at your normal pace and maintain it for at least 15 minutes, preferably 30.
Step 2: Instead of using the time for inward reflection—or fretting—keep your head up and attend to your environment to give your mind some outward playtime.
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Modifications:
- Downshift to a stroll to compensate for painful joints.
- Speed up into a power walk if that better suits your outward playtime.
2. Reverse Snow Angels
Reverse snow angels emphasize positional holds and sustained muscular exertion of the muscles on the backside of your body. This exercise hits so many muscles that it maximizes exertion and promotes relaxation afterward.Step 1: Lie face-down on the floor, with your head up and looking forward, your arms by your sides on the floor, and your legs together.
Step 2: Gently lift your legs off the floor and hold them up. Next, lift your arms and slowly sweep them up from your hips until they are straight forward.
Step 3. Draw both arms back as far as they reach, potentially tapping your glutes. As soon as you complete the movement, swing them back forward without touching the floor.
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Step 4: Sweeping your arms forward and back counts as 1 repetition. Try to complete 3 sets of 12 repetitions.
Modifications:
- If you can’t lift your arms and legs off the floor, try keeping your legs down and just lifting your upper trunk.
- If you struggle with that, keep your feet and trunk on the floor as you sweep your arms through their movement arcs.
- Can’t move your arms through full range of motion? Sweep them as far as you comfortably can.
Ceridwen Hunter/The Epoch Times
3. Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers are a great way to work almost all your muscles in a short amount of time. You can perform them slowly for an effective workout or faster to ramp up their cardiovascular component.Story continues below advertisement
Practice Tip: It’s common for one leg to move further up than the other—don’t be concerned if this applies to you, as leg movement often equalizes as you continue to build strength.
Step 1: Assume a high plank position, with your hands and feet on the floor and as straight a line down the backside of the body as possible.
Step 2: Bring your right foot forward as far as you can and tap it down before sending it back and repeating the movement on the left side.
Step 3: Bringing a leg up and sending it back counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions per side. You can perform all movements with one side first and then the other or alternate movements.
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Modifications:
- If you have difficulty staying up on your arms, you can lay your upper body on a chair or other seating surface to support your trunk as you complete the movements.
- Can’t send your feet up very far? Bring them up as far as you can.
Why I like them: This exercise pushes works deeply into the core without being static.
Ceridwen Hunter/The Epoch Times
4. High Knees
The high knees exercise is an excellent way to get a great workout and stress relief without ever moving out of one position. You can easily control the difficulty of the exercise simply by modifying your movement speed.Story continues below advertisement
Step 1: Stand with your feet hip-width apart, elbows bent 90 degrees and your hands straight out, palms down. Your hands will be the targets for your knees.
Step 2: Bring your right knee straight up until it touches your right hand. Place it back down and repeat with your left knee. Be sure not to move your hands down toward your knees. Hold them still and make your knees come up.
Step 3: Lifting your knee up and lowering it back down counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 20 repetitions with each leg. You can perform all movements on one side at a time or alternate sides as you go.
Modifications:
- If you can’t get your knees all the way up, lift them as high as you can and then meet them with your hands.
- If you struggle with balance, stand beside a supportive surface and hold on as needed. You can also hold your arms straight out to the sides to increase your balance.
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Why I like it: This is a fantastic exercise for blowing off steam, getting a great short-interval high-intensity workout, and relieving a lot of stress all at once.
Ceridwen Hunter/The Epoch Times
5. Counter Pushups
This upper body exercise is simple to perform but surprisingly effective. Do it anywhere you have a stable surface to lean on.Step 1: Stand approximately 3 feet from a stable chair, counter, or other supportive surface with your feet hip-width apart.
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Step 2: Place your hands on the stable surface, bend your elbows, and lean in.
Step 3: Push off from the surface with both arms until both elbows are straight again.
Step 4: Leaning against the surface and pushing back up counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 15 repetitions, feeling free to modify sets and repetitions as wanted or needed.
Modification: If you can’t lean all the way down, move as far as you can.
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Why I like them: This exercise doesn’t seem like exercise, but it provides both exertion and stretching for the chest muscles, which can provide a wonderful feeling of relaxation afterward.
Ceridwen Hunter/The Epoch Times
6. High Heels
Don’t worry—I’m not talking about shoes—we’re still talking exercises. The high heels exercise moves muscular effort away from your hip flexors to your hamstrings, which are tight in many people and a great set of muscles to address. This is, in effect, a fast-paced form of static running.Step 1: Start this exercise as you would the high knees exercise, but with your arms at your sides.
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Step 2: Initiate movement by bending your right knee and bringing your heel up as high as you can behind you. Once you do, return it to the floor and repeat on the other side. Work the arms in opposition to the legs as when running.
Step 3: Lifting your heel up behind you and returning it to the floor counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 20 repetitions per side.
Modifications:
- If you can’t lift your heels too high, just lift them as far as you can.
- Feeling unbalanced? Stand next to something you can use to stabilize as needed.
- Too hard to go fast? You can slow these movements way down. We’re trying to get rid of anxiety, after all, not cause more.
Why I like it: The high heels exercise focuses on our often neglected hamstrings. Working these muscles out is a simple, effective way to engage all of your hamstring muscles and potentially decrease your anxiety.
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Ceridwen Hunter/The Epoch Times
Combined, these exercises help alleviate intermittent, generalized anxiety and bring you to a more peaceful state. They also give you a great workout in general, which is music to my therapist’s ears.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
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