If you want to know how to relieve stress and anxiety naturally, try a heart rate monitor. They're for more than just tracking calories burned.

A normal heart rate can be anywhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute, depending on your level of activity. However, when you're stressed or having an anxiety attack your heart rate can increase by 8-20 beats per minute. The increased heart rate alone can worsen the anxiety attack, because you may feel a sense of panic.

Breathing exercises are a proven natural way to help relieve stress and anxiety. However, you may not begin your breathing exercises until your attack is well underway. If you are able to anticipate an anxiety attack based upon heart rate elevation, you may be more successful in preventing attacks altogether. A heart rate monitor can help with that.

In 2013, researchers performed a pilot study on rural patients who struggled with anxiety. Because they lived in these rural areas, they often lacked easily accessible medical care and the goal was to help them find accessible low cost ways to manage their anxiety. Heart rate monitors are both easy to acquire and low cost, so the researchers decided to test them combined with breathing exercises as a potential solution for these rural patients. What they found was the patients felt significant improvement in their anxiety, and more in control of it. Based upon that study, the researchers concluded that a heart rate monitor, coupled with heart rate management, was a potential tool for anxiety self-management.

A Tool to Manage Anxiety Naturally

Wearing your heart rate monitor, check it consistently throughout the day as you would a regular watch. When you notice your heart rate increasing beyond a normal level for your activity, start your breathing exercises. Take slow breaths in and exhale slowly, this exercise will begin to slow your heart rate. Heart rate variability refers to the time frame between heartbeats. The longer the time between heart beats the more effective your body is at responding to stress. The trick is, catching your elevated heart rate before you're in an attack.

I hand picked some great heart rate monitor watch options available on Amazon, based upon price, rating, brand recognition, and style.

I'm confident that a heart rate monitor watch along with natural heart rate management will allow you to feel more in control, and manage those stressful situations. This is a solution for more, "in the moment" management. You should also try incorporating meditation, yoga, and journaling into your stress and anxiety management regimen. Try to pinpoint the exact situations and factors that spur your anxiety symptoms and find solutions to combat them.

Let me know in the comments if you found this post helpful. Also let me know what methods work for you to manage "in the moment" stress and anxiety symptoms.