Youth Incorporated Magazine

1 out of 5 individuals today suffers from anxiety. A demanding career, struggle to make ends meet, future planning, making important personal decisions, fighting self-doubts, living with a dysfunctional family, gender identity, peer pressure, etc are some out of the many reasons which are causing anxiety issues among the young. While major anxiety issues might need medical attention, minor anxiety which involves perspiring, trembling, panic, failure to focus on work at hand, and restlessness can be dealt with. There are a few pathetically boring activities that surely and surprisingly help relieve anxiety.  

Don’t believe us? Try it for yourself. 

Untangle your earphone

For once, choose not to use your earphones with all knots on them. Earphones are something that we have handy wherever we go, and needless to say, they are always tangled! The moment panic starts developing in the mind, take out your earphones and start untangling them. When you do this, you might not realize when you begin to untangle your thoughts. If you are using wireless earphones, there is no reason to worry, because we have more options for you. Scroll!

Organize your desk

Most of the time, messy desks too can cause anxiety and affect work productivity. To relieve anxiety, before it gets the best of you, choose to clean up and organize your desk. Make sure you put all the scratted pens and other stationery material where they belong. Put your files in the drawers and structure your pin board correctly. Declutter all the unwanted things. This way you will also declutter all the unnecessary thoughts from your mind helping you to think reasonably about things that actually require your attention. Watching and working at a clean desk will calm your mind more than you can imagine. 

Restructure your wardrobe

Oh yesss!! Remember you were supposed to do this last Sunday? Well, you can do this when anxiety starts kicking in (if you are at home studying or working). This activity too will buy you enough time to structure your thoughts and calm down. Besides, your wardrobe can always use a new look. 

Clean and Chop vegetables

Segregating the bad leaves from the good ones, taking out the unwanted and inedible stems, and chopping vegetables like ladyfingers, french beans, cabbage, etc can be very engaging once you take it in the hand. This one too is a good mental exercise and a helpful break to help relieve anxiety and stress. 

Clean/Rearrange your home furniture

Brush off all the dust that has been sitting on your furniture. Polish it. You can also also rearrange few of your furniture. Watching the furniture sitting in one place for a long time can get monotonous for the eyes. Give your home a new look by rearranging a few objects. Who knows, you might end up rearranging your thoughts, find a new perspective or approach a concern in a different way while rearranging your furniture. Looking at things differently might just help you resolve a problem differently. 

All the above-mentioned activities have one thing in common. They all relax the mind first and allows it the time to think about the problems practically. This process helps relieve anxiety. Other activities like humming a song too are helpful, but they are diverting the attention and distract it for just a short period of time. Furthermore, engaging yourself in boring activities trains the mind to structure the rather messed up thoughts. Structured thoughts always lead to the formation of solutions, thus putting the whole problem to rest.