Anxiety can make it feel like your mind has forgotten how to switch off. Your thoughts race, your body stays tense, and even when you know there’s nothing you need to worry about right now, telling yourself to “just relax” rarely works.

The good news is that there are practical ways to calm anxiety in the moment. Some help settle your body, others interrupt the cycle of racing thoughts and overthinking, and a few can help you shift your attention away from whatever your mind has decided needs your immediate attention.

Here are five things you can try when anxiety starts taking over.

1. Slow Down Your Breathing

When anxiety kicks in, your breathing can become faster and shallower without you even realizing it. Slowing your breathing down can help interrupt that cycle and give your body a chance to settle.

Try breathing in gently through your nose for about four seconds, hold for four seconds, breathe out slowly for four seconds, then hold for another four seconds before beginning again. This is called box breathing.

Continue for a minute or two and notice whether your body begins to feel even slightly calmer. You’re not trying to force the anxiety away, you’re giving your system a signal that it doesn’t need to stay quite so activated.

2. Shift the Sensation

When anxiety shows up, our natural reaction is often to resist it. We want the tightness, nervousness, or uncomfortable feeling to go away. Instead of fighting the sensation, try getting curious about it.

First, notice where you feel the anxiety in your body. Then focus your attention directly on that sensation and begin to notice its qualities.

If the feeling had a color, what color would it be? How big is it? Does it have a shape? Is it heavy or light? Smooth or rough? Solid or moving?

There are no right answers. Just notice whatever comes to mind.

Then ask yourself a simple question: What would feel better?

Maybe the color changes. Maybe it becomes smaller, lighter, softer, warmer, or begins to move. Allow the sensation to change in whatever way feels better to you, and notice what happens as it does.

Rather than trying to force anxiety away, you’re changing the way you’re experiencing it.

3. Focus on the Space Between Your Fingers

When your mind is racing, sometimes the easiest way to slow it down is to give your attention something very simple and unusual to focus on.

Hold one hand comfortably in front of you with your palm facing up and your fingers naturally spread apart.

Instead of looking at your fingers, focus your attention on the empty space between them. Notice the shape of the space between your thumb and index finger. Then the space between your index and middle finger. Continue across your hand, slowly shifting your attention from one empty space to the next.

As you do this, use the box breathing technique from above: breathe in for four seconds, hold for four, breathe out for four, and hold for four.

Continue for a few rounds while keeping as much of your attention as you can on the spaces rather than your fingers.

Your mind may wander back to whatever you were thinking about. That’s okay. Just bring your attention back to the empty space and your breathing.

4. Turn Down the Volume on Your Thoughts

When your thoughts start racing, rather than trying to stop them, take a moment and actually listen to the voice in your head.

First, imagine that voice has a volume control. On a scale from 0 to 10, how loud does it seem right now?

Whatever number comes to mind is fine. Now imagine slowly turning the volume down. Notice what happens as you move it from an 8 to a 6… then a 4… then perhaps even lower.

Next, notice where the voice seems to be coming from. Is it in the middle of your head? In front of you? Off to one side?

Now experiment with moving it.

5. Move, and Notice the Space Around You

Sometimes the easiest way to interrupt anxiety is to change what you’re doing physically while also changing where you place your attention.

Stand up and begin walking slowly. As you move, use the box breathing technique from earlier: breathe in for four seconds, hold for four, breathe out for four, and hold for four.

But this time, instead of focusing on the space between your fingers, begin noticing the empty space around you.

Notice the space between you and the wall. The space between two pieces of furniture. The space between the trees outside. The space above you. Even notice the brief space between one breath and the next.

You don’t need to concentrate intensely on any one thing. Just allow your attention to move from one area of empty space to another as you continue walking and breathing.

If your thoughts pull you back into the anxiety, simply notice another space.

After a few minutes, stop and notice what feels different.

What happens if you move the voice underneath your feet? Below the ground? Far off to your right or left? Behind you? Imagine moving it farther and farther away and notice how your experience changes.

There’s no “correct” place to put it. Find the location where the voice feels the least important, least intense, or simply the easiest to let go of.

What If the Anxiety Keeps Coming Back?

These techniques can be useful when anxiety shows up. They can help you slow things down, shift your attention, and change what you’re experiencing in the moment.

But there’s an important difference between calming anxiety and changing what keeps creating it.

If you find yourself using techniques like these over and over again, it may be because the anxiety itself is part of a pattern that has become automatic.

Certain situations, thoughts, sensations, or experiences can trigger the same response before you’ve consciously decided how to react. You may even know logically that there’s nothing to worry about and still feel the anxiety anyway.

That’s where simply getting better at calming yourself may only take you so far.

Instead of only asking, “How do I calm this down?” it can be helpful to also ask, “Why does my mind keep creating this response in the first place?”

That’s the deeper work I do with my clients, identifying and changing the patterns that keep triggering the anxiety so that feeling calmer doesn’t always require another technique.