3 Steps to Suppress Adrenaline and Stay Calm

Picture a shy guy. This guy does not like speaking out loud, especially if there are a lot of people around. So, if this guy were to speak before a large group of people he would probably feel really frightened, resulting in high levels of stress, his heart rate rising and so on.
Adrenaline, better known as the fight-or-flight hormone, is what causes these physiological symptoms to occur during times of stress, and happens naturally to prepare your body to deal with danger or unexpected situations. In addition to this, adrenaline boosts your awareness, and heightens your energy-levels to a great extent, resulting in restlessness and stress.
You have probably stumbled upon a feeling like this before, and if you have, you know how uncomfortable it is. Indeed, adrenaline might ruin your performance. Therefore, theoretically, if you learn to control your adrenaline, you will be able to deal with such situations much easier, and consequently achieve better results at any field of your life.
Although this might sound hard, it is actually quite easy to do. I have listed for you below, 3 simple steps to instantly achieve control of your adrenaline levels. Implement them to your lifestyle, and become more calm in an instant.

1. Practice Relaxation Techniques

There are several relaxation techniques specifically developed to decrease levels of stress. Most of which are based on handling the common symptoms of adrenaline. These techniques are simple, easy to learn and very effective. What is more, they are designed to work in an instant. Indeed, when these techniques are perfected (which is easy) you can reach a state of relaxation in any situation.
All this taken in consideration, these exercises are great for lowering stress, which is why I have listed below my top 3 relaxation techniques and how to perform them.


A. Breathe Deeply
In times of stress it is favourable to take a quick break and start breathing slowly.
Breath through your nose and let the air fill your abdomen. Truly feel the air rushing through your body while you focus on keeping a consistent tempo. However, don’t think too much about how long your inhale or exhale should be, as this might distract you. Just focus on deep breathing.
Breathing like this stops the acute adrenaline shock by lowering your blood pressure and slowing down your heart rate.


B. Be Present
Stop what you are doing and take a moment to focus on everything that surrounds you. Pay attention to environmental details.
Follow all movements you notice closely.
Next, focus on how your body feels by paying attention to all of your senses. Take pleasure in everything around you and realize that you are just a small brick in this huge world. Reaching this state will make you feel a lot less tense.


C. Progressive muscle relaxation.
Slow down and take a moment to focus on the difference between relaxation and tension. Slowly tense and relax several muscle groups over and over again until you feel the stress leave your body.
This will help you focus on the physical sensations and make you pay less attention to the thoughts that stress you.

2. Divert Your Mind

This is a special way of diverting the secretion of adrenaline and is inspired from the practices of hypnotics. The way it works is a little complicated, but it has to do with tricking your subconsciousness so that you remain calm.
First thing you do is find an object that always seem to awake good memories. Something you used to play with in your childhood or a tool that helped you overcome tough times in your past. I for example, chose a glittering marble that I used to play around with whenever I was bored as a kid. The reason I chose this particular object is because it brings me a great deal of nostalgia, and for me that is a sweet and heartwarming feeling.
When you have found your heartwarming and emotionally loaded object, you may want to properly connect it to your memories. To do that you will have to play with or use the object just as you did in the past. As an example, let’s take my marble again. I would have to play around with it while bored once again to reinforce the connection I have with it and reawaken forgotten memories.
Until now you have connected a special object to a feeling. It is now time for you to put it into practice. What you do is take your object out with you out, and if a stressful situation occurs, be sure to hold it tight. Of course, If your chosen object is too big you won’t be able to hold it. In that case you will do fine by just thinking about it.
If this is done right you will find that you experience greater calm during stressful situations like a presentation or job interview.

3. Take Magnesium

This is not an “in the moment” method. However, it is the best way to prevent a sudden adrenaline boost from happening at all,  allowing you to keep your calm during stressful situations. Sadly, this is also one of the most underrated methods.
I am talking about taking magnesium as a supplement.
Magnesium has been proven to reduce your cortisol levels significantly (link to study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703169/ ) ,  and we all know how bad cortisol is for the body. Besides adrenaline itself, cortisol is the absolute worst hormone to be overexposed to and will stress you out. Therefore, getting rid of any excess cortisol production will elevate how relaxed you feel.

What is more, when you produce less cortisol in stressful situations, it will also dampen the nerve wrecking symptoms of the actual adrenaline boost and thereby keep you calm.
Luckily, you can easily find magnesium supplements online or in a health store.