{"id":408077,"date":"2026-01-12T10:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408077\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T10:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:14:08","slug":"9-things-naturally-calm-people-do-during-stressful-moments-that-anxious-people-never-think-to-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408077\/","title":{"rendered":"9 things naturally calm people do during stressful moments that anxious people never think to try"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever notice how some people just seem to float through chaos while the rest of us are white-knuckling our way through every minor inconvenience?<\/p>\n

I used to be firmly in the second camp. My twenties were basically one long anxiety marathon, complete with racing thoughts at 3 AM and that special brand of panic that comes from overthinking a text message for 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned after years of studying both psychology and Buddhist philosophy: naturally calm people aren\u2019t born with some magical stress-immunity gene. They just do things differently in those crucial moments when anxiety tries to take the wheel.<\/p>\n

And most of these things? They\u2019re so simple that anxious minds dismiss them entirely. We\u2019re too busy catastrophizing to notice the exits.<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019m sharing nine things I\u2019ve observed calm people doing that never even occurred to me during my peak anxiety years. These aren\u2019t complicated meditation retreats or expensive therapies. They\u2019re small, almost invisible habits that create massive differences in how we handle stress.<\/p>\n

1. They pause before responding<\/p>\n

You know that knee-jerk reaction when someone says something that triggers you? That instant need to defend, explain, or fire back?<\/p>\n

Calm people don\u2019t do that. They take a beat. Sometimes two. Sometimes ten.<\/p>\n

I discovered this accidentally during a particularly heated work meeting a few years back. Instead of jumping in with my usual defensive response, I literally couldn\u2019t speak because I was trying to remember a point from a presentation. That three-second delay completely changed the conversation\u2019s trajectory.<\/p>\n

Now I use breathing techniques before important conversations. Just three deep breaths can be the difference between escalating a situation and actually solving it. The other person usually fills the silence anyway, often backing down or clarifying what they meant.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s wild how much power lives in that tiny pause.<\/p>\n

2. They zoom out to see the bigger picture<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re anxious, every problem feels like the end of the world. Your brain turns a delayed email response into \u201cI\u2019m definitely getting fired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calm people have this ability to mentally step back and see the situation from 30,000 feet. They ask themselves: Will this matter in a year? A month? Next week?<\/p>\n

This connects directly to something I explore in my book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego<\/a> \u2013 the Buddhist concept of impermanence. Everything passes. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the weird stuff in between.<\/p>\n

When I apply this concept to stressful moments now, it\u2019s like watching storm clouds from an airplane window. Sure, there\u2019s turbulence down there, but up here? It\u2019s just weather passing through.<\/p>\n

3. They move their bodies immediately<\/p>\n

This one seems almost insultingly simple, but calm people don\u2019t sit and stew in their stress. They move.<\/p>\n

Not necessarily a full workout. Sometimes it\u2019s just standing up and stretching. Walking to the kitchen. Doing five jumping jacks in the bathroom stall (yes, I\u2019ve done this).<\/p>\n

Movement interrupts the anxiety spiral. It forces your body out of that frozen fight-or-flight state and reminds your nervous system that you\u2019re actually safe.<\/p>\n

I keep a tennis ball under my desk now. When stress hits, I roll it under my foot. It\u2019s weird, but it works. The physical sensation grounds me faster than any mental technique.<\/p>\n

4. They get curious instead of critical<\/p>\n

Anxious people (hi, former me) tend to judge everything immediately. This is bad. That\u2019s wrong. I\u2019m an idiot. They\u2019re jerks.<\/p>\n

Calm people replace judgment with curiosity. Instead of \u201cWhy is this happening to me?\u201d they ask \u201cWhat is this situation trying to teach me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of \u201cI can\u2019t believe I messed up again,\u201d they think \u201cInteresting, what triggered that response?\u201d<\/p>\n

This shift from critic to detective changes everything. You stop being the victim of your circumstances and start being a student of them.<\/p>\n

5. They lower the bar for what counts as \u201chandling it\u201d<\/p>\n

Perfectionists think handling stress means eliminating it entirely. Staying completely composed. Never showing weakness.<\/p>\n

That perfectionism was my prison for years. I thought I had to have the perfect response to every situation.<\/p>\n

Calm people? They just aim to get through it. They\u2019re okay with messy. They\u2019re fine with \u201cgood enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes handling stress means crying in your car for five minutes then going back inside. Sometimes it means sending a mediocre email instead of agonizing over every word. Sometimes it means ordering pizza because cooking feels impossible today.<\/p>\n

Lowering the bar isn\u2019t giving up. It\u2019s being realistic about what you can actually control in this moment.<\/p>\n

6. They create physical comfort immediately<\/p>\n

Watch a naturally calm person in a stressful moment. They\u2019ll adjust their collar. Take off their jacket. Grab a glass of water. Open a window.<\/p>\n

They instinctively make their physical environment more comfortable, which sends signals to their brain that they\u2019re safe.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, anxious people sit in discomfort, too paralyzed by mental chaos to notice their body\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

In Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego<\/a>, I talk about how the mind and body are interconnected. You can\u2019t calm one without addressing the other.<\/p>\n

Now when stress hits, I immediately ask: What would make my body more comfortable right now? Usually it\u2019s something stupidly simple. Loosening my belt. Taking off my shoes. Getting rid of that scratchy tag.<\/p>\n

7. They talk to themselves like a friend<\/p>\n

Listen to your internal dialogue next time you\u2019re stressed. Would you ever talk to a friend that way?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re so stupid.\u201d \u201cYou always mess this up.\u201d \u201cEveryone thinks you\u2019re incompetent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calm people have learned to be their own best friend instead of their own worst enemy. They talk to themselves with compassion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is hard, but you\u2019ve handled hard things before.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re doing your best with what you know right now.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s okay to feel overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t toxic positivity. It\u2019s basic human kindness directed inward.<\/p>\n

8. They find one thing they can control<\/p>\n

Anxiety loves to show you everything you can\u2019t control. Your boss\u2019s mood. The economy. That weird noise your car is making.<\/p>\n

Calm people flip the script. In any stressful situation, they find one thing \u2013 however small \u2013 that they can control. Then they do it.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t control the meeting outcome? Control your posture. Can\u2019t control the traffic? Control your playlist. Can\u2019t control your racing thoughts? Control your breathing.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about fixing everything. It\u2019s about proving to your nervous system that you still have agency. You\u2019re not completely helpless.<\/p>\n

9. They remember that feelings are temporary<\/p>\n

This might be the most powerful thing calm people do: they treat emotions like weather, not climate.<\/p>\n

When anxiety hits, anxious people think \u201cThis is my life now. I\u2019m an anxious person. This will never end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calm people think \u201cI\u2019m feeling anxious right now. This will pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t fight the feeling or try to think their way out of it. They just acknowledge it and wait for it to move through, because it always does.<\/p>\n

I practice this daily now, sometimes during five-minute meditations, sometimes during thirty-minute sessions. The length doesn\u2019t matter. What matters is remembering that no emotional state is permanent.<\/p>\n

Final words<\/p>\n

The difference between naturally calm people and anxious people isn\u2019t talent or genetics or some secret breathing technique they learned in Tibet.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s these small, almost boring habits that they turn to automatically when stress hits. They pause. They move. They get comfortable. They zoom out.<\/p>\n

None of these things eliminate stress entirely. That\u2019s not the goal. The goal is to move through stressful moments without letting them hijack your entire day, week, or life.<\/p>\n

Start with just one of these. Pick the one that feels least intimidating. Do it badly. Do it imperfectly. Just do it the next time stress shows up.<\/p>\n

Because here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned: calmness isn\u2019t the absence of chaos. It\u2019s knowing you have tools to navigate through it, one small choice at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever notice how some people just seem to float through chaos while the rest of us are white-knuckling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-408077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}