Simple Ways to Find Calm and Soothe Anxiety in Five Minutes a Day

Feb 22, 2024

Stress and anxiety can be corrosive and stop us from making the most of life
Life coach Joanne Mallon offers her simple tips to find calm in five minutes, throughout the day
If you need help with anxiety and stress, we have therapists available here

Today’s world is anything but calm. Stress bombards us every day, and if we don’t pause for peace, we risk becoming overwhelmed. Here are my suggestions, ideas and inspiration to help you connect to calm throughout your day.

You can complete these tips in under five minutes, and many in much less time than that. The aim is not to overload your life but to support you as you carry your burdens. Pausing regularly for a little calm and peace will help smooth out the chaos of everything else.

Calm mornings

Step into your morning from a place of calm. Your day may be full of challenges, but you control the energy you bring to it. Five minutes spent centring yourself will benefit you and anyone who depends on you for the rest of the day.

Do a body scan

When you wake up in the morning, take a few moments to check in with your body and see how it’s doing. Close your eyes and mentally direct your attention to each part of your body, working your way down from head to toe. Be grateful for everything that’s feeling good and working well for you. And if you encounter any aches or pains, ask yourself calmly: what does my body need right now? By assessing yourself in this quiet way, you will grow in appreciation and awareness of who you are today.

Write it down, work it out

If thoughts and worries whizz around your mind in the morning, decanting them onto a page is a great way to create distance and a sense of control. You can do this in a journal or diary; just let it all spill out onto a piece of paper. No one needs to read this but you. The process of writing will help to calm your mind and put your worries into perspective.

Look up at the sky

You can complete this calming activity in under a minute, so aim to fit it in even during the busiest of times. Before starting your day, take a moment to engage with the bigger picture by looking to the sky above. What do you see? What’s the weather like? Take a few deep breaths – how’s the air this morning?

Look up and survey the clouds: their shapes, colour and movement. Even the greyest days will have shade and tone and differ from the day before. If you get up early enough, maybe you’ll catch a sunrise with all its beautiful shifting colours. There’s something very reassuring and calming about the fact that no matter what happened yesterday, the sun continues to rise, and so do we.

Follow the clouds with your eyes as they drift and travel. Can you see any birds up there? Count them and observe their path as they soar through the sky. By doing this, you’re beginning to put your own challenges into perspective. The stresses of today will eventually move on, just like the birds and clouds above.

Calm days

Whether you spend your day at home, work or school, these ideas will help you sail through more smoothly. Your challenges and all the daily noise may remain, but you choose to approach them calmly. Your change might involve letting go of something stressful rather than adding more pressure to your already busy life.

Simplify your day

As the day starts, think about the upcoming 24 hours. Take out your diary if you keep one, and look at your schedule or timetable. What times are really crowded? How could you simplify that? Is there something that makes your heart sink? Did you sign up for a class or commitment that has turned out to take more than it gives? To avoid overwhelming yourself, decide to change or eliminate something cramping your day.

Set your starting point

Think about your objectives today. What’s the main thing you want to achieve? Break it down into the smallest actions, then identify where to start. That’s your goal: not getting the whole thing done but finding an achievable, easy place to begin. Breaking it down like this will help you feel more in control and less overwhelmed. Don’t think about completing the whole report. First, just open the document. Don’t think about cleaning the whole house. Start by fetching the cleaning supplies. Find the easy place, the first step, and momentum will carry you calmly from there.

Practise patience today

We live in a time of instant gratification. Anything we want can be delivered pretty much straight away, from food to entertainment. This means we need to practise being patient so we don’t get overly stressed during those inevitable times when we have to wait for something.

Try saving that TV show until the weekend or putting aside your favourite treat until the end of the work day. Walk out to a shop to buy something in person rather than ordering it online. Waiting calmly is a skill worth cultivating.

Calm evenings

If you’ve had a hectic day, the evening can come as a sigh of relief. The evening is your time to wind down and process the day just gone, then prepare for the next one. Later in the day can be lively, but it can also be a time to recharge both physically and mentally. You decide how calm you want your evening to be. For tomorrow to be calmer, the path towards that destination starts tonight.

Foot massage

If you’ve been on your feet all day, take the opportunity to rest for a few minutes and look after the limbs that supported you. For a little acupressure massage and stress relief combined, you could roll a tennis ball or something similar under the arches of each foot. This is particularly important if you expect to be on your feet again tomorrow – think of this pause as a time to look after your most precious tool, your body.

Pause to find the learning from today

You may have had a stressful day today, but that doesn’t mean you have to carry those stresses into tomorrow. Take time to ask yourself, or perhaps write in a journal or notebook, what you learned today that you can use tomorrow. What can you take from today that’s good? By focusing on the lessons you can take from today, you’re positively using your challenges, which will help you feel more in control. You’re not a victim of what happens to you. You’re a survivor who lives to thrive another day.

Creating a daily calm space for yourself is an essential part of self-care. You have to take care of yourself in order to help those who might depend on you. In this fast-moving world, know that you deserve some peace and calm. Be the still water. Detach from the noise to find calm. Look within yourself to a quiet centre and feel refreshed.

Joanne Mallon is a life coach and author of How to Find Calm in Five Minutes a Day