Takeaway: If you regularly experience anxiety, you know how overwhelming and draining it can be. Thankfully, there are many ways to cope with it. In this post, I’ll break down the different ways anxiety manifests and share my favorite therapy activities for anxiety both to use with your therapist and on your own.

Anxiety is the WORST. I know, because I struggled horribly with it for years. I didn't know how to cope, and my self-esteem was on the floor. I woke up feeling anxious daily, my mind full of worries and dread.

Through my own healing process I've found a lot of freedom. Now, as a therapist, I love helping people find their own freedom from chronic stress and worry. Here I'll shed some light on:

Types of anxiety disorders
Different types of therapy for anxiety
Therapy activities for anxiety (including anxiety group therapy activities!)
Coping skills and self-help activities that help with anxiety and reduce stress

What is anxiety?

Anxiety involves feelings of worry, nervous apprehension or unease in response to stress. While it's normal to feel worry, anxiety disorders can develop when these negative thoughts and intense emotions overwhelm your capacity to cope and negatively impact your day-to-day life.

I'm a mental health professional specializing in anxiety. Here I'll describe what anxiety is and explore activities for anxiety to relieve stress, increase calm, and improve your mental health.

If you're ready to feel less stressed and learn how to cope with your uncomfortable emotions...read on!

Types of anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders can profoundly impact our mental health. Here are common types and symptoms of a few anxiety disorders:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder involves persistent, ongoing, and excessive worry in multiple life areas (for example, work, health, and relationships). It's difficult to control the anxious thoughts and feelings, which can cause fatigue, restlessness, muscle tension, concentration difficulties, irritability, insomnia, and sometimes physical health issues.

Panic Disorder

If you suffer from unexpected and episodes of intense fear, you may be experiencing panic disorder. During a panic attack you may experience a racing heart, shortness of breath, sweating, chills, trembling, dizziness, feeling afraid you'll die or "go crazy," and/or even chest pain. This leads to avoidance of situations, places, or people that might trigger panic.

Social Anxiety Disorder

This anxiety disorder involves an overwhelming fear of judgment and embarrassment in social/public situations. It can make you feel extremely self-conscious and negatively affects your ability to communicate, meet new people, attend job interviews, and talk with people. It's super hard to express yourself, relax and have fun in social settings.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

A key feature of this anxiety disorder is distressing, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts (for example, intense worry about germ contamination, about acting on violent or sexual impulses, etc. You may develop repetitive behaviors like excessive hand-washing or repeated checking to temporarily alleviate your distressing feelings, which can be very disruptive to daily life.

Phobias

This anxiety disorder involves significant fear about a specific object or situation that doesn't pose an actual threat: being in enclosed spaces, seeing blood, vomiting, animals, public speaking, and more. You actively avoid, or endure with much emotional distress, the object of your phobia.

A word about trauma...

Trauma can underlie some anxiety disorders, so it's worth mentioning here. Trauma symptoms can include intrusive memories/thoughts, anxiety, terror, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, hypersensitivity, avoidance of trauma-related triggers, and more. If it becomes evident in therapy that trauma is a contributing factor to your mental health concerns, it's strongly recommended that you work with a therapist who specializes in the treatment of trauma and the relief of anxiety-related challenges.

When to see a therapist

If your anxiety is negatively impacting the quality of your life - your relationships, work, family, or anything else - seeing a mental health professional can help you determine if you're dealing with an anxiety disorder. Therapy is a great way to reduce anxiety, increase your calm and improve your mental health!

Coping with anxiety

So, what can you do when you feel anxious?

First: it's NOT just "all in your head." Sure, there are certain brain mechanisms at play - but finding relief isn't just a matter of "thinking positive" or ignoring it.

The good news: there are effective ways to cope and heal with anxiety therapy and activities to help with anxiety.

Types of anxiety therapy

Here are some types of therapy for can be helpful in alleviating your distressing thoughts and feelings:

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

This short-term therapy helps you reduce anxiety by replacing negative thoughts with more helpful, realistic ones. There's required homework between therapy sessions. If you have more complex mental health needs, underlying trauma/childhood issues or challenges related to larger systemic issues, this therapy may not be adequate.

Internal Family Systems

This powerful therapy addresses the various "parts" within your psyche that hold intense emotions and painful beliefs. It can help you cope with - and heal - heightened emotions and anxiety symptoms while reconnecting you with your calm, grounded self. Listed in the National Registry for Evidence-based Programs and Practices, it also works well with complex mental health challenges and underlying trauma that contribute to anxiety symptoms.

Exposure and Response Prevention

Research shows that this therapy can be helpful for those who suffer from anxiety disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and phobias. Through gradual exposure to anxiety-provoking situations, your brain can learn to feel less reactive. Not everyone feels comfortable tolerating exposure discomfort and this therapy doesn't address more complex, underlying mental health issues that may be causing an anxiety disorder.

Brainspotting

"Where you look affects how you feel." Brainspotting therapy uses fixed eye positioning, bilateral audio, and "focused mindfulness" to process memories, emotions and thoughts that give rise to anxiety. This therapy works deeply in the "emotional" subcortical brain and can have dramatic results. It's also helpful for trauma. Learn more here!

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

This short-term therapy aims to help you increase your ability to accept anxious thoughts and emotions so you're less distressed by them. It teaches mindfulness skills to cope with feeling anxious and encourages taking action based on your values versus worry-based beliefs and feelings.

Seeking therapy?

Regardless of the therapy approach, important components of good anxiety therapy include:

Learning skills/strategies to improve your ability to cope with - and calm - anxiety's heightened emotions and distressing thoughts.
Addressing anxiety's underlying causes by (a) therapeutically exploring and processing worry-provoking thoughts, feelings and experiences, and (b) helping you psychologically navigate systemic and external stresses that you have limited control over.
A good-fit relationship with your therapist and their therapy approach. Just because a therapy is "evidence-based" doesn't necessarily mean it will be the right one for you. Your unique life experience, personality, co-existing mental health concerns, your therapist's skill/training, and more play a huge role in counseling effectiveness.
Ideally, a therapist who specializes, and has advanced training, in treating anxiety disorders. Most therapists offer a free consultation so you can ask questions and get a feel for how they work.

Remember: good therapy should go at a pace that feels right for you. You never should have to do anything in therapy that doesn't feel right or safe!

Therapeutic activities for anxiety

Here are some example therapy interventions for adults:

Brainspotting your anxiety

Your therapist guides you to notice how you sense anxiety (emotions, thoughts, body sensations) in the present moment. Using a pointer, they have you gaze at a specific spot in your visual field which evokes the strongest sense of anxiety. As you allow thoughts, feelings, images, sensations, etc. to arise as you fix your gaze here, anxiety processing happens in the limbic brain (which can ultimately help you feel less anxiety!). Brainspotting is a well-tolerated therapy for those experiencing lots of emotional intensity. Curious about Brainspotting? Let's chat!

Dialoguing with "parts"

You're guided to imagine your anxiety as a "part" of you (an image, body sensation, thought, etc.). Your therapist then facilitates a dialogue "between" you and your "anxiety part." Other "parts" often arise in this process which can be worked with therapeutically (for example, anger at, or fear of, the anxiety). Combined with other parts-therapy interventions, over time you'll notice feeling more connected to a greater sense of calm and healthy detachment from anxiety.

Thought reframing

First, your therapist helps you identify a distress-triggering situation and rate the intensity of your emotions. You then identify associated, underlying thoughts/beliefs ("he thinks I am a bad partner and will probably leave me!") and rate how true they feel. You identify the evidence for and against the truth of these thoughts/beliefs and then identify alternative, more realistic thoughts/beliefs about the situation. After, you re-rate the intensity of your emotional distress related to the situation.

Note that these are abbreviated descriptions of anxiety activities for therapy facilitated by an experienced therapist who knows how to individualize them to meet your unique needs. Want to learn more about how I help people heal and find relief? Reach out !

Anxiety group therapy activities

The benefits of group therapy are many! It can be a helpful place to express your feelings and worries, form supportive relationships, learn valuable coping skills, and calm stress. Here are some anxiety group therapy activities that might be utilized:

Mindfulness meditation

Research has shown the effectiveness of mindfulness in calming the worried brain, and there are many user-friendly mindfulness meditation activities that can help you cope with, and find significant relief from, the worry and stress that accompany anxiety disorders.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)

Clinical EFT combines exposure, cognitive techniques, and tapping on acupressure points to alleviate depression, PTSD, and anxiety symptoms, relieve stress and increase calm and well-being. Studies show that in a group setting, EFT can be particularly helpful due to the "borrowing benefits" phenomenon.

Mindful movement

Addressing the mind-body connection is an important component of anxiety disorder healing. Therapy groups are a wonderful setting for practicing yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong, which have been shown to help improve mental health, reduce stress and provide grounding when you're feeling anxious.

Psychoeducation

In addition to practicing effective calming activities to relieve anxiety symptoms, understanding the "how" and "why" of the deeper, systemic and physiological roots of your anxiety can "de-pathologize" your experience and promote soothing self-compassion. You may perceive yourself as being "weak" or "broken," which can lead you to suffer low self-esteem.

Breathing exercises

The benefits of breathing activities are well-documented and group therapy is a great place to practice specific breathing interventions, such as box breathing belly/deep breathing, yogic breathing, etc. Each breathing exercise can create helpful shifts in your brain-body physiology so you can cope more effectively with chronic stress and worry.

The above is just a sampling of the kinds of anxiety group therapy activities that can be taught and practiced in a supportive group environment, along with other grounding activities. Groups can also be a good place to learn about other helpful community resources from other group members!

5 anxiety activities for adults to try at home

Try these grounding activities to relieve stress associated with chronic worry. Go slow, at your own pace, and stop if you feel too overwhelmed, experience discomfort or have a contraindicating medical condition.

Self-Brainspotting

Hold a pen/"pointy" object so the tip is at eye level, about 6 inches from your face. Focus your gaze on this point. Then, look beyond it horizontally to a point far away. Alternate your gaze back and forth between the points every few seconds for about 3-5 minutes. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which can bring feelings of greater calm.

Progressive muscle relaxation

Inhale and contract the muscles in your toes/feet very tightly for 5 seconds. Exhale and let these muscles completely relax. Really focus on the felt difference between tensing and letting go. Repeat with your calf muscles, gradually moving up your body to other muscle groups. This stress-combatting progressive muscle relaxation exercise stimulates the brain's natural relaxation response.

5-4-3-2-1

This mindfulness-based grounding exercise can bring ease to mental agitation, worry and feelings of panic :

Focus on 5 things you can SEE, noticing details of color, patterns, texture, reflection of light off the surface, movement, etc.
Focus on 4 things you can FEEL: an object, the feel of fabric, a surface. Focus on its physical aspects (temperature, texture, weight, etc.).
Focus on 3 things you can HEAR: background noise, the refrigerator's hum, the wind.
Focus on 2 things you can SMELL: a plant, air freshener, essential oils, food, or simply smells in the air around you.
Focus on 1 thing you can TASTE: a beverage, candy, water, even a (non-toxic) object. Notice the distinct flavors.

Parasympathetic breathing

This breathing exercise activates the body-and-mind-calming parasympathetic nervous system and dispel anxious energy:

Notice your breath.
Imagine you're breathing in and out of your belly (putting your hand on your belly helps).
Let your inhale/exhale gradually become fuller. Go slow, don't force it.
Gradually let your exhale be slightly longer than your inhale. Feel your body gently push the air out of your belly as you exhale.
It may get easier to let your exhale become even more elongated (e.g., inhaling for 4 seconds, exhaling for 8, etc.). Again, go at your own pace!.
Optional: Make a sound as you exhale (a loud sigh, moan, or see the "Healing Sound" activity to "amp up" this breathing exercise!)

Container exercise

Visualizing causes your neurochemistry to react as if what you're imagining is actually happening, making this a potent coping skill:

Notice the physical sensations of anxiety in your body. Be aware of how much space these sensations take up, intensity, type (fluttery? Pressure?), etc.
Imagine these sensations have a color, shape, and/or texture.
Visualize this color/shape/texture being drawn out of your body and being placed in a strong, secure container.
See the container being closed, locked and secured. You may bury it, put it on a shelf, hurl it into outer space, etc.

Final thoughts...

Give yourself time to experiment with different anxiety activities to find those that are most helpful for you to reduce anxiety. If you are dealing with an anxiety disorder, these are not a substitute for professional psychotherapy and consulting with a skilled therapist is strongly recommended.

You don’t have to struggle with anxiety alone. I’m here to help.

You don't want to feel anxious anymore. I get it, and I see you.

While the above information can be helpful, it's really just the tip of the iceberg.

No matter what kinds of worries or struggles you're dealing with...compassionate, skilled anxiety therapy can be a major game-changer.

As an anxiety specialist, I help adults get off the hamster wheel of worry to find the calm and inner security they've longed for - and never even thought possible.

In individualized therapy, I'll walk alongside you and help you safely process the feelings that have kept you imprisoned, using a variety of proven therapeutic approaches (including those discussed earlier!).

What's more, you'll learn effective coping skills that you'll actually want to use. Therapy will go at a pace that feels right for you, and always with your wants and needs in mind.

If you're ready to create the life that's waiting for you - let's talk. I offer a no-obligation, free consultation (up to a full 30 minutes!) so you can see if I might be a good fit for your needs.

5 Best Anxiety Therapy Activities to Help You Get Grounded