How to Stop Anxious Thoughts and Overcome Fear: 7 Tools for a Calmer Mind

Planning to take your kids to the beach and find yourself thinking of the last drowning you heard about? Lying in bed and picturing how you’d escape your apartment with your children in the event of an earthquake or a building collapse? Walking past a children's nightlight and find yourself thinking of a tragic house fire?

If these thoughts sound familiar, you may have a tendency toward anxious thinking. While most of us have intrusive, fear-based thoughts from time to time, they are unpleasant and exhausting. How can we quiet them?

1. Talk About It

King Solomon wisely said, “Worry in the heart of a person- let them speak of it.” Share with someone close to you that you’ve been dealing with anxious or intrusive thoughts.You’ll likely find that others experience the same thing, which can make you feel less alone. Someone may offer a perspective or coping tool you hadn’t considered.

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2. Stay Busy

Too much unstructured time can invite anxious thoughts to spiral. Fill your day with purposeful activities. The more engaged you are, the less room your mind has to wander into worst-case scenarios. Idle moments- especially “staring into space” time- can be fertile ground for anxiety to take hold.

3. Control Your Media Intake

With the rise of 24/7 news and global connectivity, we’re constantly bombarded with headlines about tragedy, often from the other side of the world. It’s no surprise that so many people have developed anxious thought patterns.

One of the most effective ways to reduce anxious thinking is to limit news consumption. Even if you think a quick scroll won’t affect you, disturbing news stories often plant themselves in our subconscious and resurface as fear later. Save yourself the mental cost and skip it altogether.

When you have downtime on your computer or phone, seek out uplifting or enriching content related to your hobbies (cooking, design, travel, psychology, parenting, etc.), inspiration, or personal growth.

4. Feed Your Soul

Listening to uplifting talks on faith, trust, and emotional resilience can provide you with a deep sense of calm and clarity. In Jewish tradition, cultivating trust in G-d is considered the ultimate remedy for excessive worry. Believing that everything is divinely orchestrated for your good can bring peace to the most anxious heart.

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5. Practice Daily Calm

Take 15 minutes a day to unplug and calm your nervous system. Try guided breathing, relaxation techniques, positive visualizations, or even aerobic exercise paired with motivational or spiritual content. These practices can retrain your brain away from fear-based thinking.

6. Reignite Joy

Joy is a natural antidote to fear. People who actively cultivate joy tend to be more emotionally resilient. Try to connect with activities and relationships that uplift you, and consider doing deeper work around building lasting happiness which will naturally reduce irrational fear.

7. Anchor Yourself in Trust

Psalm 112:7 says: “He will not fear bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in G-d.” Jewish sages explain this verse to mean that a person who trusts in G-d remains calm even when the world around him is chaotic. Trust doesn't depend on spiritual level but is about truly believing that you are safe in divine hands. As the Talmud tells us, when Hillel the Elder heard a loud commotion in the city, he calmly said, “I am confident that it did not come from my house,” because of his unwavering trust in G-d.

Modern teachers echo this wisdom. Rabbi Yigal Cohen teaches that even someone who’s far from perfect can activate divine protection through deep trust alone. Trust doesn’t require righteousness- only sincere belief. "Even if you're not the most observant or 'worthy' person, if you truly trust that G-d will protect your health, family, and livelihood, that trust can shift the heavenly verdict in your favor,” Rabbi Cohen says. “Just as fear invites judgment, faith invites mercy.”

This belief is echoed by countless traditional sources. Faith and trust have the power to shield a person even from hardships that were already decreed.

If your mind often jumps to disaster scenarios, it's not a sign that something is wrong with you- it’s a natural survival instinct that’s been pushed into overdrive by modern life. You can take control in the following ways:

• Talk about your worries.

• Stay mentally and physically engaged.

• Limit exposure to distressing news.

• Nourish your spiritual core with faith and positivity.

• Practice calming exercises daily.

• Choose joy.

• Most importantly- build your trust muscle.

The more you train your mind to expect good, the more peace you'll experience it, regardless of what is happening around you.