Hobbies for People with Anxiety
Expressive writing is a highly effective anxiety management technique and once you start to notice the benefits you are likely to get pleasure from engaging in this activity.
I found that regularly writing about what happened in my childhood and how that made me feel was incredibly healing.
2. Listening to Calming Music:
Regularly listening to calming music can be a highly effective way to calm down quickly and ease your anxiety symptoms.
One study in 2017 concluded that:
Music listening is associated with a decreased level of anxiety and distress.
This is one of my favorite hobbies for relieving anxiety, because I realized very early on that each time I would put on my headphones and listen to relaxing sounds my anxiety would start to ease instantly. I found this to be incredible and putting on calming music became one of my emergency anti-anxiety measures.
3. Reading Empowering Books:
A 2009 study at the University of Minnesota found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%, so this is a highly effective hobby for people suffering from stress and anxiety.
Reading powerful books by beautiful authors helped me to get out a very dark anxiety hole.
If you don’t have the time to read, you can listen to all of these books instead by signing up to a platform such as Audible.
4. Going for Walks:
Being physically active is essential for managing anxiety because exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, hormones that makes us naturally feel good.
It also helps to release excess energy, which if not released would make you more anxious.
But the trouble is, anxiety as a condition can be very exhausting and overwhelming and so it is often hard to find the motivation to do any form of exercise.
That’s why I recommend gentle physical activities for people with anxiety, and in my experience, walking is the best form of exercise for anxiety relief.
5. Connecting with Animals :
Spending time with animals—by playing with them and stroking them—can be a great hobby for managing anxiety.
Getting a pet would be of course an amazing solution for that, but it’s also not essential. You can always volunteer at rescue centers by offering to walk their dogs or play with their cats.
The reason animals have such a great effect on your mental health is because, according to research interacting with them can increase the levels of “the love hormone” oxytocin and decrease levels of “the stress hormone” cortisol, which has a calming effect on the body and mind.
For example, one study, showed that,
Interaction between owners and their dogs’ results in increasing levels of oxytocin in both owners and dogs, whereas cortisol levels decrease in the owners, but increase in the dogs
6. Dancing in Your Own Home
It might sound silly but dancing in your house or apartment when no one is watching is another great hobby for releasing tension and anxiety.
I like to put on my favorite songs and dance; you may even like dancing like crazy, doing lots of jumping, and freestyle movements.
7. Getting into Yoga:
Yoga is an ancient technique that is very beneficial for managing anxiety.
Anxiety makes us tense, irritable and inflexible, while yoga can work to reverse all of these, plus nourish us with a whole host of other health benefits.
A lot of people are hesitant about trying yoga because they think they won’t be able to get into certain positions, but I can assure you that anyone can practice yoga. Yoga is about connecting with your own body, mind and soul, and everyone else is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what the other people are doing, all that matters is that you are listening to your body and doing what you can do. I have fallen in love with yoga, and it has become a big part of me. I just practice for myself, and I don’t care how I look to anyone else. Yoga has helped me to improve my breathing which is essential for managing anxiety.
8. Cooking Enjoyable Anti-Anxiety Meals
Healthy eating is necessary for reducing and managing anxiety. But when we start to eat healthily it can be hard to stick with it because we don’t know how to make tasty meals that are healthy and also, we often don’t know what to eat.
That’s why searching for healthy recipes and experimenting in the kitchen is a great hobby to adopt because it can help you eat healthily long-term, which can make enormous positive changes to your anxiety levels.
But that’s not all, cooking as an activity has shown to benefit mental health.
One study showed that adolescents with the most cooking skills reported a greater sense of mental well-being, as well as less symptoms of depression.
9. Watching Inspirational Movies:
Watching inspirational movies and documentaries, or movies based on a true story, can be very uplifting and motivational to encourage us to make positive changes in our lives.
I have found that watching such movies benefits me the most in the evening after a long day to help me calm down and unwind.
10. Create Beautiful Pictures or Paintings:
Whether it’s photography or painting, I find these activities extremely relaxing and fun, and it’s also a great way for me to be present in the moment (mindfulness) which is an anxiety alleviator, especially out in nature.
Enjoyed this post? Why not check out my YA novels or Native American mystery series on Amazon, or follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Bookbub , or AllAuthor.
You must be logged in to post a comment.