The best 30-second hacks for dealing with stress

When you think about combating stress and anxiety at work, you probably think about major, time-intensive interventions: a weeklong beach vacation perhaps. A spa day. Or maybe getting an entirely new job altogether?

All of those are great ideas, and probably would do a lot for your overall level of stress. 

But what—other than taking a few deep breaths before logging into your next Zoom—can you do in the midst of a hectic day to maintain some semblance of calm? Try these four techniques, which you can do in less than a minute:

Get out of your ‘fear spiral’

Writer Stephanie Vozza spoke to biopsychologist Mary Poffenroth to learn various ways to fight stress. The good news is many of these strategies only take a few seconds, and can help you get out of a fear state. 

One technique is to use a less commonly used sense at work: smell. Poffenroth will rub a bit of tea tree oil under her nose before a big presentation. “This burst of a strong scent helps to deregulate the amygdala, so you can step back more into a courageous space,” she tells Vozza. “Peppermint works great as well. Anything that’s pungent and strong will jolt your brain out of what I call a ‘fear spiral.’”

Keep track of your emotions 

Naming and learning to recognize your emotions can help you thrive under stress, according to author and former FBI special agent Errol Doebler. He recommends logging how you are feeling four times a day for a week, because awareness is the first step for getting a better handle on your feelings. 

“It could be you’re angry because you have to log this emotion,” Doebler tells Vozza. “I don’t care what it is. I want you to be able to identify and articulate it. By the end of the first week, people come back and say, ‘I didn’t realize how angry or frustrated I was all the time, and I didn’t realize this is how I acted on that.’ It’s the awareness and the recognition that has to be first and foremost on your mind.”

Write down your anxieties

You are probably familiar with journaling as a way to deal with stress. Taking a bit of time to write out how you’re feeling and what is causing you stress can help it feel more manageable. 

 “It helps us to slow down that soundtrack in our brain that goes off every single day for every part of our life,” Chris Mosunic, chief clinical officer at relaxation app Calm, tells writer Gwen Moran. “When you start to journal, you slow that down and things start popping out that you didn’t even know you were thinking, that you would [never] say to any other human being.”

Try box breathing

If you’ve only got a few minutes before a big presentation or job interview, you might try box breathing. First, you inhale for five seconds. Then hold your breath for five seconds. Finally, breathe out for five seconds and then hold for two more. 

“Oxygen in the system allows you to chemically burn off adrenaline,” says Richard Newman, author of Lift Your Impact. “You can shift yourself from the sympathetic nervous system, which is the state of fight or flight, across to the parasympathetic nervous system of rest and digest.”