Anxiety Busters: Welcome your Thoughts

Hello, hello! I can't wait to hear from you about your sunshine and sweat challenge is going. It's helped me this week to refocus on spending more time outside with intentional movement. I hope it's helped you reset or reduce your anxiety symptoms as well.

We're on to our final anxiety buster tip: Welcome your Thoughts. I'll explain what I mean by that

in just a moment.

Let's set the scene for you first: You woke up this morning and you felt your anxiety already lingering from poor sleep the night before. Your mind drifts to prepping for the day ahead, and instantly you are filled with dread. You think to yourself, "Why can't I get it together like everyone else? What is WRONG with me?" Then you feel bad for thinking those thoughts and you attempt to push them down. Your brain then rebels even further and introduces an image of you crashing your car on the freeway while driving to work. "Whoa! Don't think about that, don't dwell on that. Quit thinking about that," you mumble

to yourself as you attempt to get ready for the day. The anxious thoughts increase, and you feel worse and worse as the day goes on. In fact, the more you try to push down these anxious and unhelpful thoughts, the more intense and intrusive they get.

Whew. That's a scene that I know feels familiar to many of us. It's like I was in your brain for a second, wasn't it? I know what the anxious brain sounds like, because I have one as well. Mine is very creative when it comes to worst case scenarios.

Let's break down what is going wrong in the picture we painted above. Anxiety typically works like this: activating event+ thought= consequences (namely the behavioral or emotional responses we ultimately exhibit). In this particular case, we saw the activating event, which was getting ready for work after a poor night's sleep + the negative thoughts about self and the intrusive images of crashing your car while driving to work = increased anxiety response all day long.

What can we do to break up the formula above and reduce our anxiety response? We 'welcome the thought.' The mistake many of us make with anxious thoughts is we attempt to push them down, much like you would push a beach ball beneath the water and hope it doesn't pop back up again. We all know what happens in that case. The ball not only pops up above the waves again, but it also pops up even higher than before. It's similar with anxious thoughts. When we attempt to shame them into going away or push them down, they come back either in the form of more thoughts or increased physical symptoms related to your anxiety. Welcoming the thought would look like: When our brain introduces the image of the car crash, like in the scenario earlier, we would say internally, "oh hey there anxiety, I hear you. You're trying to protect me. Thank you for showing up today. I think I've got this." Then we take a deep breath, and we repeat it every time a thought or image like that appears. We 'welcome' the thoughts by thanking our anxiety for showing up as a protective part.

Your anxious part loves to project worst case scenarios as a way to “prepare” you for, and thus potentially prevent future loss. The problem is some things in life— no amount of worrying could prevent them or the emotional fallout afterwards. Ask any mom who’s had a child die. Or a widower. Or a young man diagnosed with terminal cancer. They all know now. Anxiety did nothing to prevent tragedy. All worrying does is steal time and joy from the present. Joy is the most difficult and fragile human emotion because we are constantly scanning for danger, thus diminishing our happiness. We think to ourselves, “There is no way this indescribable joy will last. Something will come along and take it, so I won’t stay present for it. Because losing this would be too painful and I wouldn’t survive.”

The secret is, most of the things we worry about don't actually happen, and worrying about them didn't prevent bad things from happening anyways. All we can do is thank our anxious part for being here, because it's obvious it cares about our wellbeing. When we listen to our anxious thoughts, often they become quieter. And when they are quieter, we can find space to use other coping to help us manage in times of difficulty.

Let me know what you think in the comments below! Welcoming the thought takes practice. Don't give up after two or three times. Your anxious thoughts may not quiet the first few times, because you've been ignoring or shaming them for so long. I believe in you.

Take care of your circle and yourself,

Anxiety Busters: Sunshine & Sweat

Good Morning! How was your last week? Did you utilize the "two truths" tip to help shift your thinking to a more compassionate and gentle approach? Let me know in the comments below how that tip worked for you.

Our third anxiety buster tip involves two things: sunshine and sweat. Anxiety is typically physiological and emotional, meaning lots of people know they are feeling anxious when their body tells them so. Our bodies, when anxious, will exhibit any number of physical sensations: racing heartbeat, rapid breaths, stomach pains, diarrhea, excess sweat or mouth dryness. These are all due to your sympathetic nervous system activating. Here's an interesting article on the purpose and function of your sympathetic nervous system. It basically activates all the parts of your body needed in order for you to fight or evade a potential threat (a.k.a. the fight or flight response). The trouble with the anxious brain is that it perceives 'everything is a threat,' so the sympathetic nervous system is sent into overdrive. So, how do we combat this seemingly automatic response system within our bodies?

We utilize exercise (sweat) and nature (sunshine) to turn on our parasympathetic nervous system, which acts as the 'rest and digest' system. This is only part of the solution to reducing anxiety, but it is a HUGE part. I believe the reason we feel so exhausted, depleted, worried and tense is because modern life demands that our sympathetic nervous system be on all. the. time. Think about it: our news cycle is 24/7 (see here about using a news diet to manage your anxiety), we work jobs that are menial and have little physical reward, and we are surrounded by so much information that the brain cannot process it all. Yes, we are evolved creatures with big brains that can handle a lot. However, we are not computers and we do need resets from time to time. Thus, the practice of adding in exercise (cardiovascular and weight-bearing if possible) and time in nature to combat the ever constant hum of anxiety in our minds and bodily systems.

You can start small. Sitting outside for 15 minutes per day with your face in the sunshine can give you the equivalent of a daily dose of Vitamin D, as well as boosting your serotonin levels naturally. Exercise also boosts endorphins, which are the feel good chemicals in your brain, thus the 'sweat' part of this anxiety busters equation. If you're feeling wild, you can combine your sunshine and sweat challenges into one 15 minute walk outside daily. Try this everyday for 3 weeks and let me know how it works for you! It helps some people to rate their anxiety on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being really high, both before and then directly after their sunshine/sweat time.

See you next week with our final anxiety buster tip! I can't wait to connect and hear about how this anxiety busters series has been helpful for you. As always, you can reach me at info@giftofgritcounseling.com, if you are interested in connecting about possible therapy treatment with me.

Take care of yourself and those within your circle,

Anxiety Busters: Two Truths

Hello, hello! I hope your first week of anxiety busting went well. The news diet is a technique you can adopt as needed in order to take a break from the misery of the world. Let me know how news/social media dieting worked for you this week in the comments below.

Let's move onto our second anxiety buster tip, titled 'Two truths.' At its core, this is the tenet of multiplicity, or the idea that two things/perspectives can be true at the same time. What do I mean by "two things can be true at the same time?" Simple, your experience can be true and so can another person's experience. Or, you can be having a hard time and still be a good *partner, parent, friend, daughter, son, employee, etc. You can feel anxious and do *the hard thing* anyways. Both parts of the above statements can be true at the same time.

Let's take an example and break this idea of multiplicity down. Say you come home, and your partner is home early. There are dishes in the sink, the house is a wreck, and you walk in to them laying down on the couch. Immediately, your hackles are raised. Your blood pressure starts to rise, and you start saying to yourself, "How inconsiderate. They can't even be bothered to help clean up this house we both live in." The anxiety you feel around your intimate partnership is brought to the forefront. If you used the "two truths" technique, it could look something like this:

You might say to yourself instead, "Whew. I'm feeling anxious and irritable. What two things could be true right now? I feel like my partner has been working a lot and they saw the mess and needed a break, and I feel overwhelmed by the messy house. Both things can be true at the same time."

If you led your subsequent discussion with your partner with the two truths mindset, you'd be inclined to open up the conversation around chores more gently and both of you would feel validated and secure in the interaction, thus increasing cooperation in your partnership overall. If you lead with the initial reaction you had, you might pop off and lose your shit. Then the discussion dissolves into conflict and the dishes don't get done. You feel more anxious overall, and worry about the state of your relationship.

Two truths can be used when you find yourself utilizing harsh self-talk in regards to your anxiety symptoms. Many clients don't even realize how 'mean' they are to themselves within their own inner landscape. If they feel anxious, they tell themselves things like, "You're fine. Quit overreacting. You are such a loser. You're a bad parent, partner or friend. You don't deserve good things because you are a failure." So on, and so forth. If you used the two truths method, you might say something like:

"Man, it's been a really hard week. I've really struggled with my anxiety, and I'm still a good parent."

"I feel overwhelmed and I can still do one thing today to lessen my worries tomorrow."

"Sometimes I lose my shit, and I am still a good partner."

"I feel worried and I am going to try again anyways."

This use of two truths can allow you to find compassion and accountability at the same time. Anxiety thrives when we beat ourselves up and then do nothing to challenge the problems that create the feelings of worry and overwhelm in our lives in the first place. You can use the idea of multiplicity in your personal and professional relationships, as well as your relationship with yourself, to create space between validating your experience and pushing towards newer and better ways of thinking.

Let me know in the comments below what your thoughts or questions on the 'two truths' technique are! I'd love to connect further. If you are interested in going deeper with this technique or others like it, please give me a call/text to 405-215-9354, or reach out at info@giftofgritcounseling.com.