1 Exercise You Can Do Anywhere to Calm Anxiety
Activated Sympathetic Nervous System State: Fight or Flight
Our sympathetic nervous system operates our “fight or flight” response. It keeps us safe and surviving! In our ancestors, this meant it kept them from starving, facing imminent threats and dying. Today, we don’t have many of the imminent threats to life that our ancestors faced on a daily basis. And yet, many people find themselves in a perpetual state of stress leading our bodies to think we are under threat, even if we’re not.
Activated Parasympathetic Nervous System State: Rest and Digest
Our parasympathetic nervous system operates our “rest and digest” state. When our bodies and minds feel safe in our environment, we enter a state where our body has the opportunity to recover, relax, sleep, convert food to nutrients, and use energy to thrive instead of survive.
The Modern World
In our modern world, we aren’t threatened by the conditions our ancestors were exposed to that kept them in a survival state. It’s not productive for our nervous system to be highly activated and preparing for threats. When our bodies do that, our digestion and metabolism slow, we struggle with sleep regulation, and it causes chaos in our bodies.
If you find yourself in an activated nervous system state (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) and you are seeking to relax and rest, I have a technique to offer you that will bring you out of the activated nervous system state and into the parasympathetic state almost immediately!
Wide-Angle Vision Technique: Step-by-Step
Set Your Gaze Forward
Keep your head and eyes facing straight ahead. Choose a fixed point to look at, but don’t lock into it with intense focus.Soften Your Gaze
Rather than sharply focusing on one object, let your vision “soften.” Allow your eyes to relax, reducing the strain of focused attention.Engage Peripheral Vision
Begin to become aware of what’s in your peripheral view: Notice what you can see out of the corners of your eyes. Try to observe what’s to the far right, left, above, and below—all without moving your eyes or head. Expand this awareness to all four diagonal corners as well.Stay Still but Aware
Keep your gaze fixed ahead, but “zoom out” internally so your mind begins to register the entire visual field.Drift, Don’t Dart
If you shift your gaze, do so gently. Let your eyes drift or sweep from one object to another, avoiding rapid or sharp movements typical of fight-or-flight mode.
Why This Works
Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is on their phone or watching a screen, and it feels like they can’t hear you? It’s like you aren’t even there. They are so dialed into whatever they are doing that they lose their senses, and their vision is hyper-focused.
In the face of a threat, this would be beneficial because a person’s vision would become very aware of the threats' every move and turn on an analytical state of being to increase chances of survival. But, in the face of being completely safe in your home and just looking at your phone, it’s not all that beneficial. The softening of the gaze and “zooming out” with your peripheral vision allows your system to relax and calm down by becoming aware of your surroundings.
Not only does it tap into your sight, but it allows you to tap deeper into other senses as well. You will notice that background noises that you were tuning out, you are now more aware of. The humming of your air conditioning, a car passing by on the road, the sound of the refrigerator. It turns off the analytical mind and brings you fully into the present moment.