Hi I’m Sifu Atalick, Master Instructor at the Niagara Kung Fu Academy

I’d like to give you a few tips on how to combat anxiety, if it is something you struggle with, so you can reduce your stress and improve your health, because we know long term anxiety can be massively detrimental to your health. A lot of students come to our school looking for a way to combat their anxiety, and they find it through training themselves mentally and physically.

This all starts with improved mental focus. We often feel anxiety when there is too much going on and things seem out of our control. We are focused on things in the past that we regret that we cannot change, or we fear for the future. We need to focus firstly on things that we have control over. The thing we have the most control over is this moment right now. This moment is your point of power. You have no control over the past, and you can’t influence the future properly unless you have control of the present. Putting yourself in the moment is what is important.

Rooting yourself in the moment is easier said than done, especially when you are anxious.  We say in Kung Fu that the mind follows the body, and also, the body follows the mind.  It’s an ongoing cycle and the two are interdependent. If you sit up straight, you will be more alert; if you are more alert, you will more likely want to sit up straight. If you are confident mentally your body will likely follow and be more likely to make eye contact. If you make a habit of making eye contact, you eventually feel more confident mentally. Following this rationale, you cannot just put yourself in the moment mentally, it has to be done physically also, and the key to starting this cycle is all in your breath.  

When learning to focus your breath it’s important to breathe diaphragmically. An over simplified explanation of this if you’re not familiar with it is that when you inhale you push your belly out and when you exhale you relax it back in. Many different activities share this method, like Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, even musicians.

 When you do this with a deep relaxing breathe it has a calming effect. This helps the mind to focus. At the same time your body is relaxing it is important to give the mind something to focus on. Simply blanking out is often not enough, because all your anxious thoughts will just keep flooding back in. While you breathe in think to yourself “I am right here...in this space” and feel yourself in the space you’re in. As you exhale think to yourself “I am right now...in this moment” Repeat this for several moments. You can speak the words out if you find it more helpful. Keep your breath matched with the words, breathing in with “I am here” and breathing out with “I am now”. This links your thoughts with the most basic thing that you have control over: your breath.

Breathing deeply will help you calmly exit the fight or flight state. The fight or flight state of the mind is your body’s response to danger in which it surges with adrenaline. This makes the body tense, panicky, and ready to flee, or fight. In this state the mind does not specialize in well thought out decisions. The breathing in this state becomes short and quick. When the breathing becomes short and quick the mind follows; the opposite cycle we discussed above. Focusing on breathe is key to directing the cycle toward relaxation and focus, or toward fight or flight.

The problem with anxiety is it keeps us in a partial state of fight or flight for extended periods of time. This is not good for our overall health. Fight or flight was meant to keep us alive for short periods of danger. During this time important body functions, like our immune system do not fire on all cylinders, because at the point of danger, they are not immediately important, but if we’re in a partial flight or flight mode all the time then these systems are not functioning like they should, which will lead to poor health. If we can root ourselves in the moment, reduce stress, breathe deep, we can start to feel healthier, and over time we maintain better health.

If you would like more information on how to breathe diaphramically I put together a free tutorial for you so you can learn the technique more in-depth and ensure you’re learning it properly. Sign in below and I’ll email it to you right away.

Thanks for reading.

Sifu Atalick

Owner / Master Instructor

Niagara Kung Fu Academy