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Anxiety can have a major impact on your daily life, so it’s important to find ways to manage your stress and maintain a healthy perspective. Here I’m sharing four tips to help you achieve a calmer and clearer mind. These are the methods that have been most successful for me—but everyone is different, and you should find the one that works best for you.
Yoga
Yoga is good for the mind because meditation and breathing are linked to improving a person’s mental well-being. According to the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), practicing yoga on a regular basis can do the following: create mental clarity and calmness, increase body awareness, relieve chronic stress patterns, relax the mind, and sharpen concentration. That’s because yoga makes your mind focus on your breathing, which can create a calming effect and gets your mind off any distractions.
Meditation
There are a variety of mediation techniques that you can use to help achieve similar results. It’s all about finding which technique works for you. Using meditation is a useful practice to calm and clear your mind because it takes your mind off what is happening around you and helps you focus on what matters most to you. Some common meditation techniques include guide meditation and mantra meditation. According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation can be used to help manage the symptoms of diseases such as a anxiety, asthma, cancer, chronic pain and depression.
Nutrition
Having a balanced diet and being mindful of what and you eat is also good for mental health. If you try to avoid sugar and processed foods, that can be a big help in having a calmer and clearer mind. Eating sugary and processed foods can lead to inflammation throughout the body, which may contribute to anxiety, depression and stress, according to Sutter Health.
Exercise
Exercise can help your mental health by helping to alleviate anxiety, stress, depression, Plus, it can help improve your self esteem and cognitive function. It’s also a great tool if you’re feeling down or if you had a long day at school. Just go for a walk or jog, or take part in any physical activity, to help clear your mind. The benefits of exercise have been proven by research from leading doctors including Ashish Sharma, M.D. (UNMC), Vishal Madaan, M.D. (UNMC) and Frederick D. Petty, M.D. (OVAMC)
