In this video, I'm not going to teach you an anxiety hack or a trick. I'm going to
teach you the number one most powerful way to decrease anxiety fears and phobias As backed by
research. I'm going to teach you the six steps to kicking fears butt by using an exposure hierarchy.
If you want to learn to beat your anxiety, one of the most powerful things you can do is develop
the skill of facing your fears. And this is a skill that you can learn, but if when you hear,
just face your fears, that seems both too simple and too difficult at the same time. And you're
about ready to turn this off like stay with me for just a second. Because I'm gonna break this skill
down into bite-sized chunks, that you work through little by little. Now it's normal to want to avoid
things that make you anxious, but avoidance locks your brain into a cycle of increasing anxiety.
And avoidance prevents you from learning that the things you fear aren't as dangerous as you think.
So check out my video on the anxiety cycle to learn more about that topic. But the gradual
process of facing fears is called exposure. It's a safe and effective process that has been shown
to naturally decrease anxiety. Through exposure, you basically rewire your brain to help it know
when you're actually safe. Now you may have tried exposure in the past and it didn't work,
and that might be for a couple of reasons. You may have tried to jump into something too scary
too soon, which might have put you into the panic zone, and actually been retruamatizing,
only reinforcing that fear. Or perhaps you only faced your fear once or twice but when it still
bothered you, you didn't continue. When exposure is done correctly, it can be very effective at
overcoming fears and anxiety. Try again, work with an experienced therapist who can help you stay in
the sweet spot of the growth zone, and help you stick with it long enough to get lasting results.
Facing your fears is often most effective when you start with things that are less scary, and you
work your way up to facing things that come with a lot of anxiety. As you work the process, you build
up a belief in your ability to do hard things. And you might even learn that you enjoy the things you
once feared. This process happens naturally when we let go of our addiction to avoidance.
So for example someone who's afraid of water take swimming lessons every week. But starts slowly, by
putting his feet in the water, and then his legs, and then his whole body. And finally is diving
underwater. And after a few weeks he may learn that he loves swimming with his children. So,
how to do it. Step one, make a list of your fears. Write down all of your fears, and pick the first
one that you want to work on. So if you're afraid of dogs, write down all the situations with dogs
that you would feel anxious about. For example, thinking about dogs, looking at pictures of dogs,
being in a park with dogs, petting a dog, being in a house with dogs, etc. Step 2. Make a personal
goal. For example, visit my grandchildren who own a dog in their home. Step 3. Build a fear
ladder for one fear area. Psychologists like big words to make them feel special so they call this
an exposure hierarchy. So put your fears in order of the things that are least scary to most scary,
and you can start by rating the situation's from a zero to ten and then organize those into a list.
So write down as many tiny steps as you can think of that will help you reach that goal. This is
the part that most people get wrong. They just try to jump into the deep end of their fears,
and they get freaked out, and retruamatized, and then they escape, and their brain reinforces that
anxiety. Actually increasing the anxiety response. If you want to successfully kick fears butt then
you need to get really creative at imagining and coming up with these tiny steps. Now let me give
you some examples. If you're afraid of dogs, you could start by watching movies about dogs,
looking at pictures of dogs, or looking at a dog through a window. If you're afraid of
getting a vaccine, you could watch a video of a needle, or watch an Apple being injected,
or touch a needle. And you would practice this over and over again until it was no longer as
anxiety-provoking. If you have social anxiety, you can record yourself talking through an imaginary
social situation and listen to that recording, or you could set the goal to say hi to a co-worker,
and then eventually move up to things like asking a co-worker how their weekend was. It's important
to have a mix of tasks that are mildly anxiety provoking, somewhat anxiety provoking, and some
steps that seem out of reach right now. So break down tasks into tiny steps whenever possible. I'm
including a link in the description to a site which has a bunch of examples of this. Anxiety
it often seems as if it's all or nothing there's no middle ground. Either something is comfortable,
or it makes me panic. But like I said in the introduction, with the right skills you really can
do this. So there's some other ways to make some of these practice exercises easier or harder. And
this is called scaffolding. Providing yourself some extra support while you're building your
abilities. So here's a few ways to do that. You can adapt the length of time that you're doing
an activity. So for example, talking to someone for 30 seconds is easier than for five minutes.
You can add some support, doing some tasks alone might be easier, but having a friend or spouse go
with you could be a big help for others. Changing the time of day. So if you're afraid of driving
over bridges, you could choose to drive over bridge during the middle of the afternoon while
you practice, instead of during rush hour. And changing the environment. For example,
visiting a dog in home versus being at an off-leash dog park. So get creative and find
ways to break down these big scary tasks into smaller doses, and to build up the support that
you need. Now I do like the idea of physiological self-regulation I mean I use grounding techniques,
and I use these pair of sympathy techniques all the time in my life, and they are really helpful
as well at at limiting the amount of anxiety and and sending that sense of security to your body
that you need while you're doing an intense task. But you can't ever use them as avoidance otherwise
it's gonna backfire so that's the one caveat with using self-regulation techniques. Okay,
so once you've broken these tasks down, and you've found ways to scaffold them, the next step is
facing your fears. So starting with the bottom rung on your ladder, begin to repeatedly engage
in that activity. So for example, if you're afraid of dogs, you start by just walking by the dog park
every day. The repetition is important and as soon as you're able, you want to try to lengthen
out the time you're there, or loop the activity. So you might walk by the dog park three times in
a row, or you might stand and look at the dog park for ten minutes, and it's really important for you
to stay with that situation long enough for your anxiety to lessen. Or at the very least that you
set a goal based around the number, so how long you'll be there, or how many times you'll do
something. Never set a goal like I'll stay there until or unless I get too anxious. Because that's
just an invitation to your brain to increase your anxiety levels through avoidance. If you stay in a
situation long enough, or you do it enough times, your anxiety will go down. This is a fundamental
aspect of neuroplasticity. Our brain adapts to situations and when you keep doing something
that feels dangerous, but it is actually safe, your brain has to adapt to that and relabel the
situation as safe. Practice willingness during the exposure. It's normal to feel anxious or afraid
during exposure and this is where your unwritten rules are going to try to take over. People have
anxiety disorders almost always have the rule of if it makes me anxious, it must be bad. It must
be dangerous or I can't handle it. These are rules that you made up, and you believe them,
but they just aren't true. Anxiety is not bad, it's uncomfortable, it's unpleasant,
but it serves a function keeping us safe from real dangers like cliffs and rattlesnakes. But
with disordered anxiety, we feel like we're in danger, but we're actually safe. So you have
to challenge those thoughts that say that anxiety is dangerous. It's not bad, or harmful, it's just
hard. You can do hard things. Keep breathing. Just breathe through it. One way you can do this is by
tracking your anxiety in the situation. So keep a record of the exposures that you do and write down
your anxiety on a scale from zero to ten. Zero being no fear and ten being extreme fear. And then
stay with the situation until your anxiety goes down by half. It can also be helpful to keep track
of your progress by writing down your fear levels and what you learn each time you face a fear. Step
5 repeat. Repeat repeat repeat. Keep practicing. You are building neural pathways in your brain.
These are like muscles. The more you use them, the bigger and stronger they get. And with time,
it gets easier and easier to do the things that were once difficult. Practice as frequently as
possible. The more you do it, the faster the fear will fade. Step 6 reinforce courage. Give yourself
some credit. You are doing something hard for you. Don't compare yourself, with others or put
yourself down. Each time you face a fear say out loud or write down I did something hard today,
I can do hard things, or I'm proud of myself. And allow yourself to feel a sense of accomplishment.
When you do, your brain basically releases more dopamine. This is the reward chemical,
but it's also the motivation chemical. This helps you feel more motivated than next time to do it
again. And if you want, you can set some specific reward for yourself like plan a fun outing,
or buy yourself a book, or a movie after you reach one of your goals. Make sure to keep
track of your progress so you can look back and see how far you've come. When you intentionally
allow yourself to feel the fear, and do it anyway, you're gonna learn that anxiety doesn't have to
control you. You're going to build up your self-efficacy, which is your belief in your
ability to do hard things. And you're going to be able to live the life that you value. Like I love
this stuff. So if you want more of this please hit the subscribe button, and please share this
video because you never know who could benefit from it, thank you for watching, and take care.