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There are five steps that I say will help you to eliminate your anxiety. After working with more than 8,000 people and coaching them on a weekly basis to live in states of happiness and peace, and succeed at the highest levels, I can tell you, I’ve dealt with a lot of people with anxiety.

First thing that you need to do, number one, is to remember to breathe. If you’re feeling some anxiety right now, just breathe. I just want you to take a deep breath in through your nose, and hold it. And I want you to push out your stomach. And then blow it out slowly. And let’s take another deep breath in right now. Hold it. Push your stomach way out, just really push you stomach out. Blow all that – get all of that anxiety out of there, and then blow. Just that right there will start to bring a little relief.

The second thing to help you to relieve your anxiety is to write out the worst-case scenario. What that means is your the mind, the drunk monkey, is turning and turning saying “Oh my God, what are we gonna do?” Most anxiety comes from the drunk monkey in your head prophesying a negative future, and the truth is, the negative future is probably not coming the way that the drunk monkey says, so you need to write it out. Write out exactly what the drunk monkey is saying in your head. Write out the worst-case scenario. And go all the way down to the deepest, darkest moments, and then write an action plan for what you would do once you went to that worst case.

You’ll find that writing it out brings you a tremendous amount of relief. The third thing is exercise. If you will exercise and just get out there and move, even just go out and take a walk, it’s going to relieve some stress. Even doing some push-ups, some sit-ups, or going up and down your stairs if it’s too cold outside. Just getting your heart pumping will start to relieve some stress.

The fourth thing is to actually meditate, to actually just take some time, meditate, prayer, contemplate, whatever word you use for that, just take some time. Close your eyes, and just take some deep breaths, and get into a different zone, and do it until the mind stops. The mind is just going to go, and go, and go, and go, and go, and go. And then, eventually, you’re gonna go into some altered state. Now, you may consider utilizing one of the meditations that I have. Go to MatthewFerry.com to track down some of the meditations that I do, or go to iTunes, and download them there. Or you can just go free form.

The fifth one is to just see the mind for what it is. So your mind is trying to protect you, and that’s your mind’s job. All the talking in your head is trying to keep you safe. The issue is that you’re not really in a dangerous situation. Most of the time, the anxiety and stress you’re experiencing is more about embarrassment, or it’s more about not fitting in. It’s some trigger that is not really real.

So just practice seeing the mind trying to protect you, and just realize there is not actually a dangerous situation. There’s no need for you to be freaking out right now. Try those things, and notice what a powerful difference it will in getting you back to a place of peace and ease.