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The Swish Technique for Anxiety and Confidence

Change Unhelpful Thought Patterns with the Swish Technique

The Swish Technique is a popular visualisation method used within Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). It helps interrupt anxious thinking patterns and replace them with calmer, more confident responses. Many people use it before stressful situations such as public speaking, exams, driving tests, eating in public, or situations linked to swallowing anxiety and phagophobia.

The idea behind the technique is simple. Your mind often rehearses what might go wrong. The Swish Technique helps train your brain to focus instead on a more positive and successful outcome.

Like learning a new route home or strengthening a muscle through repetition, the brain can learn new emotional responses when practised consistently.

Preparing to Use the Swish Technique

Choose a quiet place where you are unlikely to be disturbed. Sit or lie down comfortably and allow your breathing to settle naturally. Some people find soft music helpful, although silence works just as well.

It is best to practice when you are alert and awake, as the repetitive nature of the exercise can feel deeply relaxing.

Spend a minute or two relaxing your shoulders, jaw, and stomach muscles before beginning.

Step One: Create the Anxiety Picture

With your eyes closed, imagine yourself just before the situation that normally triggers anxiety or fear.

For someone with swallowing anxiety, this might be:

Sitting down to eat
Swallowing a particular food
Being in a restaurant
Feeling aware of sensations in the throat

Make the image black and white. Make it look faded and slightly crumpled. This is helping your brain understand it's in the past.

This becomes your “anxiety picture.”

In the top right hand corner picture a coloured square..

Step Two: Create the Success Picture

Now this coloured square is the imagine of yourself having successfully managed the same situation calmly and confidently.

Picture yourself coping well, breathing steadily, feeling relaxed, and handling the experience comfortably. Allow yourself to notice how different your posture, facial expression, and emotions feel.

Make this image bright, colourful, and realistic.

This becomes your “success picture.”

Once the positive image feels strong and believable, imagine it slowly fading out.

Step Three: The “Swish”

Bring back the black and white anxiety picture so it fills your awareness again.

Now place the small success picture in the coloured square in the top righthand corner of the anxious image. Mentally say the word:

“Swish!”

At the same moment, rapidly switch the pictures over:

The calm, confident success picture becomes large, bright, and vivid
The anxious black and white, crumpled image shrinks down small and fades into the background.

Hold the positive image for a few seconds and notice the calmer feelings connected to it.

Repeat the Process

Repeat the sequence 8 times as an average.

With practice, many people notice the positive image begins replacing the anxious one more quickly and automatically. Over time, the anxious picture may become harder to access because the brain starts favouring the calmer response instead.

Regular repetition is important. Practising daily can help reinforce more confident thinking patterns before stressful situations arise.

Using the Swish Technique for Swallowing Anxiety

For people experiencing swallowing fears or phagophobia, the mind can become highly focused on danger signals, physical sensations, or “what if” thoughts. The Swish Technique can help redirect attention toward safety, confidence, and successful swallowing experiences.

It is not about forcing thoughts away. Instead, it gently teaches the brain that a calmer response is possible.

Just as a well-used path through a field becomes easier to walk over time, repeated positive rehearsal can help strengthen new emotional pathways in the brain.

Used alongside therapy, relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, or hypnotherapy, it can become another helpful tool in reducing anxiety and rebuilding confidence around swallowing and eating.

The Ring of Confidence Technique

Building Calmness and Confidence Through Visualisation

The Ring of Confidence is a simple visualisation and NLP-based exercise designed to help strengthen feelings of confidence, calmness, and emotional control. Many people use it before situations that trigger anxiety, including public speaking, social situations, exams, driving, eating difficulties, or swallowing anxiety.

The technique works by helping the brain connect a physical space with feelings of confidence and emotional safety. With repetition, stepping into that imagined “ring” can begin to trigger calmer and more positive emotional responses automatically.

Much like hearing a familiar song can instantly bring back a memory or feeling, the brain can learn to associate certain movements, places, and images with confidence and reassurance.

Begin with a Confident Posture

Before starting the exercise, it can help to use a confident standing position sometimes known as a “power pose.”

Stand upright with:

Feet roughly shoulder-width apart
Hands resting on your hips
Shoulders back and chest open
Chin slightly raised,
Steady, comfortable breathing

Holding an open posture can help reduce physical tension and encourage a greater sense of self-assurance.

Creating Your Ring of Confidence

Step One: Imagine the Circle

Picture a circle on the floor in front of you. Imagine it large enough for you to comfortably step into.

If standing step forward into the circle, if sitting, imagine stepping into the circle.

As you step in, imagine the circle becoming energised and alive with calmness, strength, and confidence.

Connect with a Memory of Confidence

Think of a time when you felt genuinely confident, capable, calm, or successful.

This does not have to relate to swallowing anxiety. It could be:

Completing a challenge
Speaking confidently
Helping someone
Learning a skill
Finishing something difficult successfully

Allow yourself to fully reconnect with that confident feeling.

Notice:

Where you feel confidence in your body
Whether the feeling has warmth, movement, colour, or energy
How your posture changes when confidence grows

As the feeling strengthens, imagine the confidence filling your body.

Strengthen the Feeling

Allow the sensation of confidence to increase even further.

Imagine turning the feeling up stronger and brighter, as though increasing the volume on a radio or adding more light to a room.

Inside the circle, imagine yourself feeling calm, capable, steady, and emotionally strong.

Stay with that feeling for several moments before stepping back out of the circle.

Step Two: Rehearsing a Difficult Situation

Once you have created the confident state, step back into the circle again.

This time, briefly imagine the situation that normally causes stress or anxiety.

For example, someone with swallowing anxiety may imagine:

Sitting down for a meal
Swallowing comfortably
Eating around other people
Feeling calm while focusing less on the throat
something else

Notice how the confident feelings influence the anxious situation. They may drop and that's natural. As soon as you notice that happening, either turn up the volumn of the confidence or go back to your confident image and get back up to 100% again and keep practising until you feel consistently confident whilst in the previously anxious situation.

With repetition, the brain can start linking the previously stressful situation with calmer emotional responses instead.

Repetition Helps Strengthen the Anchor

The exercise becomes more effective when practised regularly.

Each time you step into the circle while feeling confident, you strengthen what NLP practitioners often call an “anchor” — a learned emotional association between the space and the feeling.

Over time, the brain may begin responding more automatically, making confidence easier to access during stressful moments.

Confidence and Swallowing Anxiety

When anxiety becomes linked with swallowing, eating, or throat sensations, the nervous system can start reacting automatically before conscious thinking even begins.

Exercises like the Ring of Confidence aim to interrupt that automatic stress response by pairing previously anxious situations with feelings of safety, calmness, and control.

Like practising scales on a piano or repeating movements in physiotherapy, emotional learning often improves through gentle repetition rather than force.

The Anchoring Technique for Anxiety and Grounding

A Simple Exercise to Help You Feel More Present and Calm

The Anchoring Technique is a grounding exercise designed to help bring your attention back to the present moment during times of stress, anxiety, panic, or overwhelm.

When anxiety rises, the mind often becomes caught in future worries, physical sensations, or repetitive “what if” thinking. Anchoring techniques help interrupt this cycle by reconnecting you with your body, breathing, and immediate surroundings.

For people experiencing swallowing anxiety or phagophobia, grounding exercises can help reduce over-focusing on the throat, swallowing sensations, or fearful thoughts about eating.

Like dropping an anchor into moving water, grounding exercises can help steady the nervous system when thoughts begin to drift into fear and uncertainty.

Step One: Acknowledge Your Thoughts and Feelings

Rather than fighting anxious thoughts, begin by gently noticing them.

You can quietly say to yourself, either silently or out loud:

“I am having the thought that…”
“I am noticing the feeling that…”
“I am aware that anxiety is present right now.”

This approach can help create a small sense of distance between you and the anxious thought.

Instead of feeling completely absorbed by fear, you begin observing the experience more calmly and objectively.

For many people, simply naming what is happening can reduce the intensity of emotional overwhelm.

Step Two: Reconnect with Your Body

Anxiety often pulls attention into the mind and away from the body. The next step is to gently reconnect physically with the present moment.

You might try:

Pressing your feet firmly into the floor
Stretching your arms or shoulders
Pressing your hands together
Standing up and moving around
Dancing lightly or shaking out tension
Taking a slow, steady breath

The goal is not to force relaxation, but simply to remind your nervous system that you are physically present and safe in this moment.

Even small physical movements can help interrupt the body’s stress response.

Step Three: Engage with Your Environment

Now begin gently focusing on the world around you using your senses.

Slowly notice:

5 Things You Can See

Look around and name five things you can see.

They might include colours, shapes, textures, shadows, objects, or details you had not previously noticed.

4 Things You Can Hear

Notice four sounds around you.

These may include distant traffic, birdsong, voices, the hum of appliances, your breathing, or the movement of clothing.

3 Things You Can Touch

Identify three things you can physically feel.

For example:

Your feet inside your shoes
The chair supporting your body
Clothing against your skin
The temperature of the air

2 Things You Can Smell

Notice two smells around you, even if they are subtle.

If you cannot smell anything obvious, you might notice neutral scents such as fresh air, soap, tea, coffee, or fabric.

1 Thing You Can Taste

Finally, notice one thing you can taste.

This could simply be the natural taste inside your mouth, a drink, gum, mint, or food.

Why Grounding Techniques Can Help Anxiety

Grounding exercises work by redirecting attention away from anxious predictions and back toward immediate sensory experiences.

When the brain becomes focused on danger, it often narrows attention onto feared sensations or catastrophic thoughts. Engaging the senses helps widen awareness again and reminds the nervous system that the present moment may be safer than the anxious mind predicts.

For swallowing anxiety, this can help shift attention away from hyper-awareness of swallowing sensations and back toward the wider environment.

Practising the Anchoring Technique Regularly

You can practise the Anchoring Technique.

During moments of anxiety
Before meals
In social situations
While travelling
Before sleep
Anytime you feel emotionally overwhelmed

Like many calming exercises, repetition helps the brain become more familiar with the process.

Over time, grounding skills can become easier to access automatically, helping create a greater sense of calm, stability, and emotional control.

A Gentle Reminder

Anxiety often convinces people they must solve every thought immediately. Grounding exercises offer something different.

Instead of battling with fear, they encourage you to reconnect with what is happening right now — the floor beneath your feet, the sounds around you, the rhythm of breathing, and the simple reality of the present moment.

Sometimes calmness begins not by escaping anxious thoughts, but by learning how to stand steadily beside them without being pulled under.