Anxiety gets in our way more than anything. We'll get into some self-care
strategies for anxiety today. And give you some practical solutions. Here today
to share with you some self-care strategies for anxiety. Let's jump right
in. There are two components of anxiety. Both of these are extremely important to
understand. There is a brain component and there is a mind component. Your brain
and your mind are not the same thing. Your brain is not your mind any more
than your toe is your mind. It's part of your body. It's an organ in your head. It
operates on physiological and neurophysiological principles. We have to
feed it, we have to nourish it, we have to exercise it just like any other part of
your body. Let's be clear about that. There's a brain component. Now, your mind
is you. It's the you inside of there, okay? It's the agent inside of the machine.
It's the observer, it's the decision-maker. And that's you,
okay? So, you might think of it as your soul or your spirit. The true you inside
of there. You've got a body which has a brain but you're not your body. You're
inside of there, okay? Brain, mind. What is the brain side of anxiety? It's all about
our natural fight-or-flight response. There are different parts of your brain
that do different things. One of those parts of your brain is responsible for
keeping you safe. And that part of your brain reacts to any perception of threat.
Threat is anything that challenges you or makes you potentially in danger, right?
So, what if we're both out here just hiking through the Utah foothills
outside of my office here. And we encounter a big old angry bear comes out
from behind a tree, wants to rip your face off. How would you feel? What would
happen to your heart? Start beating really hard and fast, right?
Normally, you can't even feel your heart. Well, now you can. Because it's pounding
away. Your breathing gets shallow, shallow and fast, right? Do you notice that? You
feel kind of woozy a little bit of surge of different things. You might lose it
out one end or the other or both. Yeah, this happens because your body (Starting
with your brain) is reacting to the threat of the bear in this case. It could
be anything. This is good news folks, yeah. Because your brain loves you. Does not
want you to be lunch. -Bear chow? Not a good option for us today. So, your mind
loving you kicks you into what we call fight-or-flight response. The
fight-or-flight response is a chemical response to the perceived threat. Your
brain, specifically the limbic system of your brain including the amygdala and
some other structures, sends a signal through your brain stem into your spinal
cord down to different glands in your body. Some of them are up in your brain
area. These different glands just create and store chemicals. Like your adrenal
gland for example, right above your pancreas, creates and stores adrenaline.
Just holds it there for you. Just in case you want it. Made this for you. And when
it gets the signal from your brain that there's a threat, oh it's time to squirt.
and it squirts it right into your bloodstream. it's a direct injection of a
chemical. there's adrenaline, there's cortisol, there's others. We won't get
into all of those. Just to understand that you've got chemicals in your
bloodstream now. Those chemicals go to every organ in your body. When they hit
your heart, caused it to speed up and beat hard and fast. Just like we talked
about before all those feelings that you have. Chemicals, takes a little while for
chemicals to run through your system for your body to metabolize those and flush
them out of your system. So, once the chemicals are in there, it's going to take a
minute. In fact, one of the things that I like to
tell my clients is, "Don't respond until the adrenaline
is gone." Yeah. Give it some time to flush on through before you make any hard
decisions. Because when this happens, when the limbic system in your brain is
active, we've actually got brain scan studies that prove that there's a
decrease in blood flow to the prefrontal part of your brain. This prefrontal
cortex is all about logic and problem solving and reason, rational thought. Okay?
All that's happening up here. Also fun things like compassion and empathy and
some of that? We got to have that part of our brain to solve some of the problems.
So anxiety. We're talking about self-care strategies for anxiety today. You have to
understand that anxiety is associated with your body's fight or flight
response. That is the brain component here. And it can become habitual. You
probably notice that things that you practice a lot get easier for you. What
if you've been practicing having a fight-or-flight response? The things that
aren't even really a threat. Notice this, your limbic system is in a primitive
part of your brain. It doesn't do any thinking. That's for up here. Because of
that, it can't discern and quite frankly, it doesn't care. It can't discern between
a threat that is real and a threat that is perceived. It's all the same thing to
your limbic system. That's why you get all fired up in a movie. You're sitting
in a movie, it's getting a little intense, what do you find your heart doing? You
see? We're getting into that fight-or-flight response.
When's the last time you got up screaming out of a movie theater? You
know. Because your thinker interferes and says, "Whoa, hey, you're in a movie, you
haven't finished your popcorn. Chill for a minute." I'm glad we can do what I call
the "Cognitive Override." But just notice that your brain can't discern between a
real threat and perceive threat. So, it's going to kick you into fight-or-flight,
if you feel threatened to by your spouse, for example. Or your child or your boss.
This is not a bear, folks. I asked you to my seminar some time. How many of you are
married to a bear? Don't raise your hand for this, okay? This is somebody you love.
But your limbic system does know that. So it reacts as if that's a
real threat. And then we're off to the races with the chemicals. So, a couple of
tips for you on the brain. These are the self-care strategies. Number 1, brain
maintenance. I've gone over this in some other videos too. But the quick version,
first, get enough sleep. Take care of your brain in that way. You need to have good
sleep. Number 2 eat a balanced nutritious diet. Number 3, get regular
exercise. There's different suggestions about how to do this. About 3 times a
week, 30 minutes good aerobic exercise. Seems to be a pretty consistent
guideline. And number 4, regular periods of prayer and meditation. This is
mindfulness, quieting all of the noise. So that you can just connect with your
purpose in your source. Those four steps that came from Dr. Ed Hallowell at
Harvard University. This is solid stuff that we're talking about. So, tip number
one, strategy number one, for self-care on anxiety,
brain maintenance. Here's number two, and you'll add this to the brain maintenance.
Practice breathing. Practice breathing. Why do I need to practice, doc? I do it
all day. In and out, all day long. No, I'm talking about a specific focused
kind of breathing that helps you to calm your limbic system response and redirect
the blood flow back upfront. Which we're going to need for the mind part. So, stay
tuned. The breathing exercises... A lot of them out there.
I simply recommend that you breathe in through your nose over inflate the lungs
a little bit hold for maybe five to ten seconds and then nice and slow out
through the mouth. Restrict the flow here so that you can take about twice as long
to exhale as you didn't inhale. Good breathing exercise to do 3 to 5
reps of that. A couple of times a day for several days. You're going to feel
different and then that can become a tool for you. Take care of that brain. Now,
let's go to the mind part. What is the mind component of anxiety?
It's basically encased in a subconscious question, okay? Subconscious. Sub means
below. Like subway or submarine. Conscious means awareness. So, this is often below
your awareness. The question that we have problems within the mind is what if in
an anxious sort of way. "What if this happens? What if that happens? Oh!" Because
the what if question creates a threat. And it's not so much the question, it's
your subconscious answer to that question.
Your subconscious can't go without an answer to the what-if question. So, it
makes one up. And then what it makes up is, "Oh my gosh, that would be terrible,
horrible, you can't handle that." Sound familiar? Yeah.
This is happening in your subconscious. We know that it's happening because it
manifests as anxiety. It triggers your brain into the fight-or-flight response.
This is where the brain and the mind interact, okay? So, here's what we're going to
do on the mind level. A couple of things. Tip number 1, answer the what-if
questions. Bring them up to the conscious mind. Answer them truthfully. What if? Okay,
well, what if that thing happened? Here's the answer folks. Quick version? You can
handle that. Now, notice some resistance that you feel
when I suggest that. Because your what-ifs are extraordinary. Your what-ifs
really are threatening. Your what-ifs scare you to death. And that's because
your subconscious is telling you you can't handle it. I'm here to tell you
that you can. You don't even know that yet. I've learned this through 24
years of clinical practice. I've learned it through 52 years on
this planet. I've been paying attention. There is nothing you can experience in
this life that you can't handle. I'm not saying it would be pleasant. I'm not
saying it would be painless. Some of those things are very unpleasant and
painful. But I have talked to so many people who have endured the things that
you could hardly even imagine. That I'm convinced that we can handle anything.
What would happen to your fear and anxiety if you believe that?
Play with that. We'll work it over in some other videos too. Get some coaching
if you need to because this is big. You've got some great tools now. Come
back tomorrow. We'll share another video with you. You can come back every day. I
know I'm going to.