Anxiety can be a nuisance. The high tension, the consistent worry and the stress that comes with it. However, there are many self-help tools and strategies you can use to help tame those anxious thoughts. Many strategies lean on the rule of 3, which many psychologist have discovered is the magic number for people. Even outside of self-help strategies, the rule of 3 is applied to persuasive writing, comedy and content writing.
To take it a step further, even information sharing is easier to remember when its given in 3's. Either way, this also helps when managing symptoms of anxiety. One known way of mitigating the feelings of anxiety is the 3-3-3 rule which lends itself to taking in the environment to keep you in the present moment with three easy steps.
Step 1: Naming
When feelings of anxiety are peaking into your brain, simply take a moment. Look at your surroundings and name three things. They can be anything, your dog, paintings, TV etc. Whatever catches your attention or the first things you see.
Step 2: Listening
After picking the three things you spotted, listen to sounds around you and identify what they are. Like the items you pick, it does not matter what they are or where they come from. It can be traffic, people talking or the sound of birds chirping.
Step 3: Moving
For the final step, pick three body parts and move them individually. Such as: first, moving your wrist, second, moving your ankle and finally moving your head. These are just examples for reference and you can pick whichever part of your body that you want to move for this exercise to work.
The 3-3-3 rule is an easy exercise to use to help manage racing thoughts. The steps mentioned can shift your negative thoughts and essentially place you into the present. Thus, giving you a nice anchor to tie yourself to so your anxiety does not overwhelm you. There will be times where your worries can feel much bigger than what they are, which is perfectly natural—we are human after all, but having strategies like this one can make anxiety much easier to deal with.
