How to Exchange Nervous Tension for Calmness

Have you ever experienced general anxiety where your muscles feel tight, you’re on the verge of a headache if you don’t have one already, and you feel kind of riled up, irritated, annoyed but you may not even be able to say why. You don't feel happy and you find yourself getting angry over the small stuff. You are fuming and fretting. Fussing and feeling distressed. But everything is going okay in life or at least nothing new has happened.

So, why the nervous tension and how can you exchange it for calmness and peace?

Four common causes of nervous tension that you can address are...

Over-stimulation.  We are exposed to so much. So much noise.  So much visual stimulation. So much marketing.  So much information. So much clutter. The body’s response to the stress of the over-stimulation is a whole host of chemicals being released that are slowly eating you alive as well as making you feel tired and frustrated.

To combat this we must build periods of quietness into our lives.  Being out in nature is a great way to do this. Just sit in the woods or by a creek and listen to the sounds of nature and the tension will be exchanged for calmness. Daily time on the front porch is a great plan too.  

Jesus taught His disciples to get away from it all once in a while.  Mark 6:31 says, “There was such a swirl of activity around Jesus, with so many people coming and going, that they were unable to even eat a meal. So Jesus said to his disciples, 'Come, let’s take a break and find a secluded place where you can rest a while.'"

It’s in the quiet that we can hear His voice and get our souls refreshed. It’s where we’ll find His will and His ways. Just like a lake is hard to see clearly in when it is churched up, all becomes clear when the water is still.

Always in a hurry.  I worked in an environment for years where working at a fast pace was praised. But our bodies and minds can only go at that pace for so long before tearing our bodies and minds to shreds.   We are destroying ourselves!

God gets things done and they are done right but He never works in a hurried pace. He never fumes or frets.  He is peaceful and He offers us His peace - “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” (John 14:27)  So, receive this peace and reduce your speed at which you live. This might mean doing fewer things, but it also means doing each thing at a slower pace.  Talk slower, eat slower, read slower, drive slower. You get the picture. When you are feeling nervous tension make yourself do things slower.

Inflated self-importance.  Do you take work home with you from the office because you are the only one who can do it and it needs to be done?  

A man went to his doctor for some health issues and when the doctor found out how much the man was working, he told him to take a half day off of work each week and go sit in the cemetery.  This was not for the quietness that we talked about earlier but to remind himself that many people in there had thought they also were the only ones who could do the work and/or do it right and they worked themselves right into a grave.  And when they passed, life still went on, the work still go done by others. The man needed to achieve a proper sense of his own importance.


How about you?  Do you insist on being the one to vacuum because you are the only one who can get the vacuum lines in the carpet just right?  Maybe loading the dishwasher is your thing. You don’t necessarily enjoy it and the extra task on your to-do list is wearing you down, but it needs to be done and you are the only one who can do it right.  You might need to reconsider our own self-importance if you want to get rid of that nervous tension.  

Frenzied morning routine.  If you are like most people, you wake up in the morning, you shower and get ready for work and you go running out the door, maybe with kids in tow to drop off somewhere and you are rushing them around too.  You set your day up and therefore your mind and body for nervous tension.

Develop a morning routine that allows you more time to slowly get around. Yes, that likely means waking up a little earlier which might mean going to bed a little earlier.  But it will be worth it. Go to work in a relaxed state of mind.

A coach of a university rowing team was known for telling his team, “To win this or any race, row slowly.”  Huh? To win a rowing race don’t you have to see how fast you can row? No, rapid rowing teams tend to break the stroke and once broken it is difficult to recover.  They become disorganized. A steady pace will win. Set your day up for success with a steady paced morning not a hurried, frantic, get out the door rush.

You have to ask yourself, “What is the meaning of this ceaseless rush we are in?”  It’s really ridiculous. It is an effort by the enemy to keep us busy, tired, and full of nervous tension.  But we’re on to him now and we can bust that stress to feel calm and at peace with these 4 methods.  Which one do you need to start working on?

Besides tight muscles, headaches and a feeling of anxiety, stress is causing you a whole bunch of other physical problems.  Click here to get my 50 Clues You Have Secret Stress (And What to Do About It) report for FREE.

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