How to Stop Feeling Anxious?

That tension in your chest, the tight shoulders, the endless mental chatter, they all seem to say: Something is wrong with me. But actually, your body is trying to tell you something essential and with positive intention.

Why trying to stop anxiety keeps you stuck?

When you fight anxiety, when you tell yourself you mustn’t feel it, you enter a self‑sustaining anxiety cycle. You scan for symptoms and evidence of anxiety and of course you find them because you are looking for them (Is my chest tight?, can I breathe fully?).

You judge and perceive this as dangerous, tense up more, and the anxiety intensifies, you then notice more symptoms and evidence of further anxiety and that loop just feeds itself. 

Trying to squash anxiety actually reinforces it: you become hyper‑aware of every flutter of heart, breath, or muscle tension, interpreting them as threats. 

Swap fight for invitation: listen to your body with curiosity

Instead of trying to silence anxiety, shift the question: What is it here to tell me?

Your body is constantly communicating through your heartbeat, your breath, your muscle tension. This is called interoception, its your awareness of your internal state. When you can tune into these signals in a balanced way, you open the door to more emotional clarity and self‑trust.

But here’s the nuance, if you’re living with anxiety, your nervous system may be primed to interpret every signal as a threat. A racing heart might feel like danger, when in fact it’s just your body’s normal stress response. The work isn’t to hyper‑focus on every sensation, but to build a steady, compassionate awareness that helps you discern what’s truly happening.

Balance, not over‑monitoring, is what creates control, calm and mastery for you.

What anxiety might really be saying

• You’re carrying too much. Your nervous system is signalling that you’ve been in “go” mode for too long without enough pause.

• You’re bracing for the unknown. Your mind is scanning ahead, rehearsing every “what if” to try to keep you safe.

• You need to feel safe again. Your body is preparing you to act or protect yourself but it’s become a constant background hum instead of a momentary alert.

When you see anxiety as communication with positive intentions, you can respond with curiosity rather than fear.

When you see anxiety as communication with positive intentions, you start to create space between the feeling and your response.

Here’s how that can sound in daily life:

• Before a presentation: Instead of: “Oh no, my heart is racing, this means I can’t handle this.”

  You might say: “My body is giving me energy to perform. This is adrenaline preparing me. I can work with this.”

• When overthinking at night: Instead of: “Why can’t I just stop these thoughts?”

  You might say: “My mind is trying to protect me from missing something important. Thank you, but I can set this down until morning.”

• When your chest feels tight in a meeting: Instead of saying: “Something’s wrong with me, what if I can’t hold it together?”

  You might say: “This is my body asking for a pause. A few slow breaths will help me respond clearly.”

• When you feel restless on a Sunday night: Instead of: “I hate that I can’t relax before work.”You might say: “My system is anticipating what’s ahead. I can thank it, and choose something grounding to signal safety.”

Responding this way doesn’t mean ignoring anxiety, it means meeting it with emotional mastery, curiosity, and self‑trust.

Language Shift: From Fear to Curiosity

When anxiety shows up, the words you use internally or out loud, can either escalate the fear or create calm. Here’s what it looks like to shift from a fear‑based reaction to a curiosity‑based response:

Fear‑Based Response	Curiosity‑Based Response
“Why is this happening? Something must be wrong with me.”	“My body is sending me a message. What might it be asking for right now?”
“I can’t cope with this.”	“This is uncomfortable, but I’ve handled discomfort before. What would help me feel more supported?”
“My heart is racing, what if I lose control?”	“My heart is pumping faster. This is my body mobilising energy. Can I channel it into focus?”
“I hate feeling anxious. I need to make it stop.”	“Anxiety is here. I can sit with it for a moment and see what it’s trying to tell me.”
“If I don’t calm down, everything will fall apart.”	“I can take one slow breath. I can respond step by step.”

These shifts don’t erase anxiety overnight, but they absolutely rewire your relationship with anxiety and that in itself reduces the intensity and duration of anxiety and over time, this approach builds trust in yourself, safety in your body, emotional mastery and calm.

Mindset shift

• Anxiety isn’t your enemy, it's deeply human.

• When you stop fighting your body’s signals, you get to reclaim your power.

• Understanding anxiety, what it is communicating and more importantly what you need is when you get that sense of control that you are craving right now.

  
  

This is the Freedom Formula™ in action: Freedom From the Root: you’re not just easing symptoms, you’re resolving what drives them. Sustainable Calm: your nervous system finds its natural balance, without constant effort.

Emotional Mastery: you feel steady, clear, and in charge of your internal world.

The Freedom Formula™: clinical insight + nervous system alignment + subconscious reframe.

Well—at least a small taste of it.

If you’re ready to step out of the anxiety cycle for good and create lasting emotional freedom, this is where the real work begins.

Book your Connection Call today. It’s time to feel calm in your body, clear in your mind, and free to live without anxiety running the show.

With so much love,

Emma.

Why I Can’t Rest—Even Though I’m So Tired(And what to do if you can’t slow down, even when you desperately want to)

You’re tired but wired. Exhausted but unable to rest.

You crave peace, but when it finally comes… something in you resists it.

You lie down and your brain speeds up. You clear your calendar and feel guilty for not doing more. You finally stop working but now you’re cleaning, organising, scrolling, solving.

If you’ve ever thought, “Why can’t I rest—even though I’m so tired?”Know that there is a reason for this and you are in the right place.

You’re likely stuck in a pattern I see every day in high-functioning women: You don’t just feel on edge, your nervous system is on edge.

This isn’t a mindset issue. It’s not about willpower. And no, it’s not because you’re “bad at relaxing.”

Let’s talk about what’s really going on and what to do about it.

Your System Isn’t Addicted to Stress, It’s Conditioned to Survive

You’ve been operating at full tilt for years striving, holding, achieving. You’ve learned to cope by staying ahead. Staying productive. Staying on.

Because at some point in your story, doing more felt like the only way to feel safe, seen, or valuable.

So now, when you finally slow down. Your body doesn’t celebrate. It panics.

Stillness feels like a threat because for a nervous system that’s spent years in survival, calm is unfamiliar. And unfamiliar doesn’t feel safe. It feels vulnerable. And why on earth would it choose to feel this? Exactly. It wouldnt so it gives you every cue it can to keep you active - cue the restless legs, the figeting, the feeling like you have forgotten something, oh load more thoughts etc etc. Its clever and this is survival in action and will definitely keep you from the threat of resting. So this is why it feels so hard to slow down, to rest.

This is what I see over and over again in the high-achieving, deeply caring women I work with:

You want rest. But rest also triggers old wiring that says:

• “You’re falling behind.”

• “You’re being selfish.”

• “You should be doing something useful.”

• “If you stop, it will all fall apart.”

So you don’t stop. You can’t stop. Even when you’re on the edge of burnout.

Rest Isn’t a Luxury—It’s a Regulation necessity 

This isn’t about better boundaries or a more structured bedtime routine. If your nervous system doesn’t feel safe in stillness, no amount of productivity hacks will change that.

Here’s what’s actually happening:

When you’ve spent years in sympathetic dominance (fight/flight mode), your body becomes fluent in doing. And rest? Rest lives in the parasympathetic state, where healing, connection, and presence happen.

But if your system has been living in hypervigilance, it doesn’t know how to drop in safely. It hasn’t practiced rest in a long time.

That’s why it feels edgy. Confronting. Even wrong.

But here’s the good news: This can change. And it doesn’t take forever. And this is something I get to witness and support my clients through all of the time.

If You Can’t Rest, Start Here

Instead of forcing rest or waiting until you burn out completely, begin with curiosity.

Ask yourself:

• What does my body believe will happen if I stop?

• What would rest mean about me?

• What part of me feels unsafe when I’m not “doing”?

For many women, rest brings up more than tiredness. It brings up emotions that have been pushed down for years. It activates parts of you that learned, early on, that being still wasn’t allowed.

This resistance isn’t a failure, it’s a flag. It’s your system saying: “This doesn’t feel safe yet.”

And that’s something we can absolutely work with gently, respectfully, and at the root.

This Is the Work We Do Inside The Freedom Formula™

If you can’t rest, even though you’re exhausted—your system needs something deeper than surface-level self-care.

Inside The Freedom Formula™, I guide women like you through nervous system re-patterning, subconscious integration, and emotional regulation that actually lasts.

We don’t just manage the symptoms. We shift the internal experience, so that rest no longer feels like a threat.

Because when your body learns that calm is safe, Everything changes.

Ready to Finally Feel Safe Slowing Down?

If you're tired of pushing through and you’re ready to reclaim your clarity, calm, and energy from the inside out, this is your next step.

Book your 1:1 Connection Call. This is a safe, spacious conversation to explore what’s keeping your system switched on, what real rest would look like for you, and whether my private support inside The Freedom Formula™ is the right fit.

This work goes far deeper than symptom relief. It’s about nervous system freedom, emotional mastery, and true leadership from within.

Because you were never meant to carry it all alone. And calm, real, rooted calm is your power.

👉 Book your Connection Call now—this is where everything starts to shift.

With so much love,

Emma.

How Do I Switch Off My Brain After Work?

You close the laptop… but your mind doesn’t switch off.

Instead of relaxing, you’re mentally replaying the conversation that didnt go so well. You wonder if your tone in that email came across how you wanted it to. Running through tomorrow’s to-do list like a background app you can’t shut down.

You’ve technically “finished work” but your nervous system doesn’t know that.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do I switch off my brain after work?”.

You are in the right place and this is something that a lot of people ask me.

See your switched on, your busy, your a perfectionist and you always give your all. Whilst this has so many advantages in your life, the downside is - your always primed to be on and active and your brain has gotten so used to this it has forgotten how to power down or more accurately for many it doesn't feel safe to power down because WHAT IF .. what if you miss something important? What if taking your foot off the gas costs you later?

This is the loop high-functioning, high-achieving women get caught in, not because you’re doing something wrong, but because your nervous system has adapted to a constant state of hypervigilance.

You don’t choose to stay switched on. Your system has simply decided it’s safer that way.

But here’s what I want you to know: Your ability to rest isn’t a luxury. It’s absolutely necessary and equals better performance all around. In your role at work, in your parenting, etc 

And when your nervous system learns that it’s safe to slow down, your brain will finally stop running the show on autopilot.

This isn’t about forcing stillness or chasing another “wind-down” routine. It’s about creating the conditions where your system no longer feels the need to stay alert.

Let’s explore what that can look like for you

1. Create a Clear Transition Ritual

If you go from delivering high-stakes decisions, supporting your team, and navigating back-to-back meetings… straight into replying to WhatsApps, managing your children’s emotions, or figuring out what to do for dinner without even pausing to breathe, your system stays locked in performance mode.

You might have shut your laptop, but your body is still in go-mode.

Solving. Holding. Anticipating.

This is where burnout quietly builds not in the doing, but in the absence of true decompression.

Instead, introduce a 5–10 minute intentional buffer between “work you” and “evening you.” Not as a luxury, but as a line in the sand.

Try stepping outside. Shaking out your body. Washing your face. Putting on different clothes. Lighting a candle. Sitting in stillness and asking:“What do I need right now, before I give to anyone else?”

This isn’t indulgent. It’s strategic nervous system regulation and it’s needed, because you carry a lot.

You lead. You support. You hold it all together at work, at home, and in your relationships. And yes, you are impacted by all of it. But here’s the truth most women in your position overlook:

They’re impacted by you too.

The more resourced and regulated you are, the more sustainable your leadership becomes. Pour into yourself first and everyone around you benefits.

2. Close Mental Loops, Not Just Your Laptop

Your brain doesn’t stay switched on because you’re disorganised, it stays on because it’s trying to protect you.

Unfinished thoughts. Loose ends. Conversations you’re still replaying. Your mind holds them all because it’s scanning for potential problems and trying to plan fix and find solutions ahead of time.

This is the mental load that high-functioning women carry often invisibly.

So, instead of pushing it down or trying to “think positive,” give your brain what it really wants: reassurance that nothing will be forgotten. So, it can actually let go of the million thoughts and tabs open in your mind. Here are some of my favourite ways to do this and the ones that work best for my clients:

Before you end your workday, take 5 minutes to sit and ask yourself:

• What still feels unresolved from today?

• What thoughts keep circling in the background?

• What decision, task, or conversation is taking up space in my head?

Then bring some structure and softness to what comes up:

• Can I plan this in for tomorrow or next week?

• Is this actually urgent? or just loud?

• What can I let go of right now, knowing it’s safe to come back to it later?

• What can I say to the part of me that feels like this is urgent / life threatening?

Try:"Thank you for trying to keep me on track—I hear you. And I’ve got it covered. Nothing is going to fall apart while I enjoy my evening."

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about giving your system a moment to breathe. A moment of acknowledgement that says: “I’ve heard you. I’ve got this and gives reassurance thats its ok to let that go for now.”

You’re not ignoring your responsibilities. You are creating space to meet them with clarity instead of chaos.

3. Stop Trying to Earn Your Rest

This one runs deep.

So many women subconsciously believe they must deserve rest. That stillness is only allowed once everything is handled, cleared, solved, and settled.

But that moment? It rarely comes.

There’s always more to do. Another message to respond to. A child who needs you. A project that lingers.

Which is why your relationship with rest must change at the identity level.

True freedom begins when you allow yourself to rest, not because you’ve ticked every box, but because you are human, not a machine. Because you are enough, right now, as you are.

Rest is not a reward. It’s a requirement for sustainable success, emotional mastery, and long-term happiness, balance and health.

And the irony? The more you rest, the more effective, creative, and grounded you become.

Calm is actually your power. But the truth is hear that currently your system sees it as the threat! Quite the opposite to what it is so it is important that you start to shift your relationship with rest and start to change the narrative that you are tell yourself and start to edge out of the patterns that are keeping you stuck.

You Don’t Need to Do Less. You Need to Feel Safe to Pause.

When your system learns safety. Your brain stops spinning. Your evenings feel restorative. And your energy returns in a deeply resourced, grounded way.

This is success without self-sacrifice. And yes - it’s available to you.

If your brain won’t switch off even when your body is exhausted, this is your invitation.

You don’t need more willpower.You need real insight into why your system won’t slow down, and what to do about it.

Take the Work-Life Harmony Quiz, it’s free, quick, and designed specifically for women like you who want clarity, calm, and sustainable success.

Discover where your internal load is coming from and I'll guide you through the first steps to shift it for good. 

Take the Work-Life Harmony Quiz now —this is where everything starts to change. And if you know you want to dive straight into working together more deeply, personally and privately with me in my 1-1 support, then apply for a connection call here 

With so much love,

Speak soon, Emma.