9 calming hacks for anxious minds every high achiever needs

If you’re prone to anxiety, chances are you’ve received a lot of frustratingly simple advice over the years. Go for a walk! Get more sleep! Meditate! To be clear, all of these are good ideas. But when your brain won’t turn off, they’re often not enough. That’s especially the case for high-functioning, high-achieving individuals. Part of the disconnect might be that we often confuse stress with anxiety. Although the two are related, they’re different problems that demand distinct solutions. While stress is usually circumstantial—a response to external demands—anxiety generally comes from within, and might or might not involve an active trigger. While stress might dissipate once you’ve solved the problem at hand, anxiety can linger, haunting your thoughts as you ruminate in circles. Creativity, motivation and decision-making skills suffer. If anxiety has hijacked your brain, never fear. Experts outline nine ways to slay your anxiety demons when breathing exercises aren’t even making a dent. 1. Give yourself permission to take a break Dr. Josh Altman is a psychotherapist who works with high achievers to manage their mental health. He knows from firsthand experience that the health-promoting habits many people skip when overburdened are often the precise behaviors that can help the most: eating well, getting enough sleep, and stepping away from your desk for 20 minutes of exercise. “Folks who are very performance-oriented are not looking to stop performing,” he says. When someone’s brain is constantly on like that, he makes a business case for truly letting oneself off the clock. “Taking time away from work will actually improve the quality of work when you get back to it,” Altman says. “If we understand that taking a break is benefiting our cognitive functioning, our focus, our problem solving, it becomes a little bit more palatable.” 2. Start with baby steps For those of us who tend to put 100% into our work at all times, it can be tempting to bring a similar all-or-n