6 Strategies to Reduce Anxiety By Managing Your Emotions

In today’s fast-paced world, managing our emotions can feel like a daily battle. We experience highs and lows throughout the day, and at times, these emotions can become overwhelming. Emotional
intelligence—the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our emotions—plays a crucial role in navigating life’s challenges. 

Whether it’s anxiety, fear or anger, acknowledging and managing your emotions is key to maintaining mental well-being. That’s why this week on The Monday Morning Mojo Podcast I talked about managing our emotions in times of high stress.

Today I am sharing with you six strategies to help relieve anxiety and regain control over your emotions.

Managing anxiety is not a one-size-fits-all process, but there are a variety of techniques that can help you reduce its intensity.

One note, even though I am a certified life coach, an NLP practitioner and a coach certified in emotional freedom work, I am not a therapist. The information I'm going to share with you today is for your awareness, your education and maybe your entertainment, but if you feel that this conversation reveals that you need additional support, please seek that from a therapist, doctor, or another coach.

6 Tips to Relieve Anxiety

1. Focus on Your Breath

One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce anxiety is by focusing on your breath. Taking deep breaths from the diaphragm can help regulate your nervous system and calm your mind.

• Actionable Tip: Try deep breathing exercises when you feel overwhelmed. Sit back in your chair, let it support you, and take a few deep breaths, filling your lungs completely. Exhale slowly. Repeat this 2–3 times, and notice the calming effect.

2. Don’t Fight Your Feelings

It’s natural to want to suppress uncomfortable emotions like anxiety or fear, but doing so only makes them stronger. Instead of resisting, acknowledge what you’re feeling.

• Actionable Tip: Accept your emotions without judgment. Remind yourself that it’s okay to feel anxious—this is part of the human experience. Simply accepting your feelings can help to reduce their intensity.

3. Ask Yourself Questions

When anxiety kicks in, our minds often jump to the worst-case scenario. To counter this, ask yourself a few key questions that can help you gain perspective.

• Questions to Ask:

1. Is what I’m worrying about realistic?
2. Is this thought true, or does it just feel that way at the moment?
3. What’s the worst that could happen, and how would I handle it?

4. Use Visualization

Visualization can be a powerful tool to calm your mind. Just like breathing, visualization allows you to change your mental state by transporting yourself somewhere soothing.

• Actionable Tip: Close your eyes and picture yourself in a relaxing place—whether it’s a beach, a quiet forest, or a serene mountaintop. Imagine the sights, sounds, and smells, creating a sensory-rich experience that can help lower your anxiety.

5. Become an Observer of Your Emotions

Awareness is key to managing anxiety. By stepping back and observing your emotions without judgment, you can learn a lot about what’s driving your feelings.

• Actionable Tip: Practice mindfulness by acknowledging your emotions as they arise. Don’t assign meaning to them—simply observe. This detachment can help you avoid amplifying the anxiety, giving you space to react thoughtfully rather than impulsively. A great way to do this is by journaling, for a free one that includes all of the journal prompts I’ve given on the show notes of The Monday Morning Mojo Podcast click here.

6. Stay Present

Anxiety often comes from worrying about the future. By focusing on the present moment, you can reduce anxious thoughts about what might happen and stay grounded in the here and now.

• Actionable Tip: When you feel anxiety creeping in, bring your attention back to the present moment. This might mean focusing on your breathing, the physical sensations in your body, or your immediate surroundings. Staying present helps break the cycle of anxious thinking.

Remember, you have more control than you think.

The key to managing emotions, especially anxiety, is recognizing that you have more control than you may realize. While there are many things in life that are beyond our control, how we respond to our emotions is within our power. By practicing these techniques, you can reduce anxiety and regain control over your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

It’s okay to feel anxious sometimes, but the important thing is to use the tools at your disposal to process those emotions and navigate through them. 

Take a moment today to practice some of these tips, and see how they can make a difference in your emotional well-being.