hey there everybody and welcome to today's live presentation
five tips to calm your anxiety i'm your host dr donnelly snipes
five tips now there are a lot of different ways to process your anxiety or calm your anxiety but
let's talk about a few that i find particularly helpful number one recognize anxiety for what it
is anxiety is part of the fight-or-flight response it's your body's way of identifying the fact that
there might be a threat i've made the analogy before that it's like your body's smoke alarm
smoke alarms are not always a hundred percent accurate they can be set off by a steamy shower
or by a really strong wind or whatever you can get a lot of false positives with smoke alarms
same thing is true with our anxiety and our anger sometimes when we experience a situation
similar to one we experienced in the past that was threatening we may perceive it as threatening now
even though the situation is totally different it's similar but it's not actually not a problem
now so it's important to recognize that it's your body trying to tell you there
might be a threat and give you the energy through that activation of the hpa axis give you the
energy to actually get up off the couch and check and see if there is a threat it doesn't mean
that you have this energy and that you have to run that you have to fight it means it's just
allowing you to have the the resources you need just in case learn your anxiety
vulnerabilities and triggers vulnerabilities are things that make you more likely to react
to a situation with a stronger than normal reaction for you so vulnerabilities can be
like being over tired being sick being in pain being in a large crowded area or being in an
area where there's a lot of hubbub going on where you feel just completely overwhelmed
vulnerabilities can be physical like i said sleep deprivation sickness pain etc low blood sugar it's
another one vulnerabilities can be affective if you're already anxious or angry or depressed or
overwhelmed then it's you're already primed to react to stress with a more intense reaction
vulnerabilities can be cognitive if you are in a negative frame of mind where you are interpreting
most things as catastrophic then that can put you in a place where you're probably
going to be more likely to have a more intense response vulnerabilities as i mentioned can be
environmental if you are one of those people who doesn't like to be in the middle of all the
stuff and being uh in the middle of for example a classroom of six-year-olds is overwhelming to you
then that might cause you stress because you've got you know little ones running around everywhere
so you might be more likely to react with a more intense irritability or reaction
and finally relationship vulnerabilities if you are feeling bad about yourself
your self-esteem slow or if you are feeling uh unsupported or maybe you're just around somebody
who gets on your very last nerve let's just put it out there then that may make you more vulnerable
to respond to mild triggers with a more intense reaction so vulnerabilities it's important to
be aware of these because a lot of them you can mitigate or you can prepare for so let's take
the example of if you didn't get enough sleep and you're not feeling your best you have got
to volunteer in your kids kindergarten classroom where there's a bunch of little five-year-olds
running around everywhere and that's not really your thing to be you know managing 15 children
there are a lot of vulnerabilities there so what can you do to prevent your vulnerabilities
from resulting in a more intense reaction breathing ahead of time maybe calling in
and saying you know what i can't volunteer in the classroom today sometimes you just gotta
tap out triggers are the things that activate your anxiety or your anger so when you're vulnerable
triggers are more likely to prompt an anxiety response but again your triggers can be physical
what physical things trigger your anxiety physical sensations for example what affective things
trigger your anxiety maybe if you start feeling depressed it might also trigger your anxiety
because you start worrying that people are going to judge you for being depressed triggers can
be cognitive if certain things that you think or certain things that you learn trigger your anxiety
triggers a lot of triggers can be environmental sights sounds smells and relationships can also
be triggers again if you're around somebody who is stressful to be around that can be a trigger
for your anxiety or if you're around somebody and you have a fear of abandonment then certain
nonverbals that they have may trigger your anxiety but being aware of those is important because as
soon as you're aware then you can take steps to more effectively evaluate is this a threat in
this particular situation at this time number three develop a relationship with your anxiety i
know that sounds really weird instead of trying to get rid of it it's there to protect you
develop a relationship with it the first example i'll give you is piglet if you remember
uh from winnie the pooh piglet had some anxiety let me tell you what and you know it could kind of
be stressful i think to be around piglet because he was always worried about stuff however getting
to know piglet and developing a relationship with him allowed he and pooh to get along just fine
recognizing that pooh recognized that sometimes piglet would get upset about stuff that
pooh didn't really see as threatening your anxiety is the same way sometimes your inner piglet is
going to get upset and you look around and you go you know what it's it's not such a big deal
mine is lenny and when i start having um high levels of anxiety my chest starts to feel tight
and i've named it lenny i i literally call it my name and i'm like you know lenny's sitting on my
chest today and by doing that it separates the anxiety from me i don't have to be that feeling
i recognize that lenny's there and lenny's not doing anything but you know sitting on my chest
and lenny will go away but that's you know kind of how i uh personify it in order to unhook from
those feelings when you start feeling anxious scat and when i say scat i mean like scat scat get away
not scat what animals leave on the ground i recognized after i did that mnemonic that it could
be taken either way but scat stands for check to see if you're safe get mindful look around go am i
safe at this point in time is there any imminent threat to me in this context am i safe okay
so once you recognize that you are safe then you can start taking steps to address those triggers
that might be contributing to your anxiety smoke alarm going off
calming your anxiety isn't just about feeling anxiety and starting to breathe and going okay
if i breathe for long enough i'm going to feel relaxed and the anxiety is going to go away no
as long as that amygdala is you know fired up and saying hey there might be a threat it's going to
be hard to tone down that anxiety so being aware of your triggers developing a relationship with it
so you don't feel like you have to react you know just because pig was anxious doesn't mean you have
to be anxious and then addressing those triggers in the moment looking around and going okay
that's what's triggering me right now what can i do about it
and finally develop an anxiety response plan that includes distress tolerance and square breathing
now remember square breathing inhale for four hold for four exhale for four hold for four
and repeat a couple of times and this doesn't do everything but it can help manually override the
stress response like i said in and of itself that's not going to do everything because if
you're still feeling anxious if your brain is still screaming at you hey there's a problem
then they're gonna be in in competition distress tolerance is are things like thoughts that you
can have that encourage yourself to recognize okay this sucks and i can get through it i feel anxious
and it won't consume me or i recognize that i feel anxious i see no threat therefore i'm going to
engage in some other distress tolerant activity but those are five things that
you can do in order to handle in general handle anxiety sort of sort of on the fly instead of
fearing anxiety instead of fearing fear recognize its purpose get to know it and help your brain
become more accurate fine-tune that smoke alarm over time so it gets triggered less often