4 Things To Help Your Anxiety

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you wanna keep learning, growing, and improving, I have a brand new mini lesson video that will help you with your journaling. So if you're trying to get better at journaling, it is a free video lesson plus 30 days of journal prompts to help you get better at improving your, help you get better at improving, but help you get better at journaling because of how much you can improve by getting better at journaling.

0:41So if you want that, you can go to mindsetmentorjournal.com. Once again, mindsetmentorjournal.com. Once again, it is absolutely free. Today, we're going to be talking about anxiety. We're going to be talking about the anxiety that you feel. And I'm going to give you four different things to think about to help you when you feel a little bit anxious. It can help you when you feel anxious, when you feel stressed, but also it can help you when you're just not feeling great. The other day I was driving and I was driving to go to dinner. And I remember driving and I just felt like, I wasn't like excited.

1:15I wasn't sad. I wasn't anxious, but I was just like, it was like somebody had turned down the, uh, the, uh, the color of the world. It was just kind of like, everything was okay. It was just kind of there. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was terrible, but the world was just kind of black in that moment. And like the color had been stripped from the world. Saturation had been turned down. And I think a lot of times people get anxious, people get stressed, but then also sometimes we just kind of feel like, whatever, it's just the way that it is. And this is life and it doesn't really have any beauty to it.

1:50And we can get down on ourselves and all that stuff. And I think a lot of people feel this way sometimes. And the first thing I want to say, there's nothing wrong with feeling that way sometimes. The idea that something is wrong means that something must be fixed and that there's an issue. And the thing I want you to realize is if you feel that way all of the time, well, then yeah, maybe there's something that you should work on. Maybe you should talk to a therapist. Maybe you should hire a coach and all that stuff. But if you feel that way sometimes, that's okay. Sometimes that happens. And so what I'm going to go through today are these four different parts, just kind of help you sit there and self-diagnose.

2:31And sometimes when you notice you don't feel good and then you think about not feeling good. You think too much and you actually make yourself feel worse because you guilt yourself or you shame yourself. Well, I shouldn't feel like shit because there's so many other people have it way worse than I do. I'm such a POS that I feel this way and people can guilt themselves and shame themselves and all that stuff. But I think that really what it comes down to is maybe it can help you self-diagnose and get yourself out of a rut that you might be in. And it could go from, I don't feel great, turns into, there's something wrong with me, turns into, I need to fix this, turns into, why does this always happen to me?

3:11And you get all in your head and all of your feels and there becomes a shit storm. And it's like, well, maybe we could just use this to self-diagnose and see if we can help ourself get out of it. And so here's what it is. Whenever you feel anxious or stressed, or it's just been a blad day, you want to go back to this thing called HALT, H-A-L-T. Okay? And so when I was not feeling great on the way to dinner, I asked myself this question. And I went through and I went HALT. HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely, tired. And you might feel one of these things. But if you feel all four of them, they compound and it becomes very aware and very visceral in your body of like something is not right.

3:56because you're hungry, you're angry, you're lonely, you're tired. And so let's go through each one of these and kind of try to help you, right? If you're hungry, now for me, just to give you an idea, like I don't eat a whole lot throughout the day. Sometimes I'll eat breakfast and then I'll just literally skip lunch completely and I don't eat again. And, you know, I eat at maybe like 9, 9.30 a.m. and then I don't eat until like 6 p.m. sometimes. So for me, that works pretty well. But for some people, it doesn't. And if you have an empty stomach, you could have low blood sugar and you could feel worse because of the fact that you have low blood sugar.

4:30Or it could also be that you have a completely full stomach and it's heavy. You had a bunch of greasy food and your body needs to shut down a lot of other things to digest because digestion is the number one most energy-consuming thing that your body does. And so if you're not feeling great or you feel like shit or you feel anxious or you feel stressed, Just ask yourself, how have I been eating today? Am I hungry or did I eat crappy food earlier? Because what you eat or don't eat will change the way that you feel throughout the day. So the first thing is, am I hungry? Think about that one for a second.

5:09Some of you guys are like, yes, that's why I feel like shit today. That makes sense. That could be a piece of it. So hungry is a piece of it. Angry. Are you angry at someone or something? Who is it or what is it? Or are you just angry with the state of your life? And what would make you feel different? Sometimes you need to just feel angry and there's nothing wrong with it. Sometimes, you know, like with me in the gym, like I'll go into the gym and I feel fine. I feel good. Life's good. It's okay. It's great, you know? And I'll go into the gym and I will put on some hardcore rock, metal, you know, I'll put on like Slipknot or something like that.

5:46Then I'll start working out for 30 minutes. and by 30 minutes in, like some just rage comes out of me and I just started working out harder. I'm like, damn, I didn't know that was in there. But it helped me get through. So sometimes you just need to feel angry. Sometimes you need to release anger that maybe you've been storing in your body for a week, a year, 10 years. But sometimes it's been going on too long and you're just angry about something that's just perpetuating in your entire life, just continues to keep going. And you just don't want that circumstance anymore. And so sometimes it's you, Sometimes it's how you're viewing the circumstance.

6:20Sometimes it's the circumstance. Maybe you're just angry. Is there a way for you to safely get that anger out? You know, go to a kickboxing class, go to a boxing class, go to the gym and get it all out. Go for a run. You know, go to your bedroom, pick up a pillow and beat the shit out of it. What do you need to do to try to get that out of you so it's just no longer living inside of you? Maybe you're angry. Next one, lonely. Have you been alone too long? You know, do you just need to be around some good people? You know, do you need to be around some people to make you feel good, that are just happier?

6:54And I will say this, don't be around just anyone. Be careful who they are. Because, you know, there are batteries in this world. There's also vacuums. Like batteries are the people I'm talking about being around, which make you feel good. They inspire you and they give you energy. That's why they're called batteries. They give you energy from being around them. But there's also vacuums. Those are the people that suck the energy from you. You can spend three minutes with them and you're just completely drained. So just because you're lonely doesn't mean go hang out with some vacuums. When I'm saying you're lonely, go hang out with some batteries, some people who give you energy, who make you feel good, who make you inspired, who make you see the light at the end of the tunnel and make you realize that there's something to be working for and life is amazing.

7:29Be around the right people, not just be around people, right? The right people can shift your internal energy and make you feel better. So when you're lonely, can you get around some of those types of people? And then last, tired. Finally, people are starting to take sleep more serious. They're starting to actually pay attention and really prioritize their sleep. But I think if we studied how much people sleep, we'd realize that a lot of people's problems internally and externally come down from just lack of sleep. Like, I think that if people could fix their lack of sleep and lack of hydration, a lot of people's problems I think would be fixed.

8:02Sleep should be a priority for you. You know, 95 % of people, excuse me, 99 % of people need at least seven hours of sleep every single night. right so i have some friends that are just like i don't need more than five hours of sleep and i'm like okay maybe that's true maybe that's just something that you've put into yourself but you know there's so many studies about how great sleep is there's a great you know there's a um the book why we sleep you know there's many podcasts that i think is uh matthew something i can't remember his last name slips me but um he has he talks about why to sleep and sleep's important and all that type of stuff and how to be the best sleeper and um for me i've been going to bed earlier and earlier because I actually usually try to get about eight to eight and a half hours of sleep, you know, and I like to see myself as a guinea pig.

8:48I try some things out. I try six hours a night. I've tried six and a half hours a night. I've tried seven hours a night. I've tried nine hours. Usually about seven and a half to eight and a half is good for me. And so let's go back to what I was talking about though. So now that we've gone through hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Let's go back to me when I was in the car feeling blah. I was hungry. I was literally on the way to dinner. That was the biggest thing for me. I hadn't eaten very much that day. It was 7pm. I probably must have had low blood sugar. I wasn't angry. I wasn't lonely. But I was tired.

9:24Oh, man. Damn it. I didn't think about that. We were at my friend's house the night before for a birthday party and I had to jump on a 7 a.m. call that I couldn't move the next day. So normally I would have moved the call to prioritize my sleep, but for this one, I could not move the 7 a.m. call. So I was at a friend's house for a birthday party and I had to be up at 7 a.m. I didn't get enough sleep. And so I went through Halt, Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, and I realized the reason why I was feeling that way is not because there was anything wrong with me. It's not because I'm screwed up. It's not because my life is in shambles.

9:58It's because I was hungry and I was tired. Man, in that moment, I went from something's wrong to, oh, yeah, no big deal. I'm on my way to dinner right now. That's going to make me feel better. And then I'll just make sure that I go to bed earlier tonight. And just knowing that that was the way that I felt and why I felt that way made me feel way better. Because I knew there was some action that I could take. I knew there was nothing wrong with me. I self-diagnosed in that moment and I felt better immediately because I didn't think there was something wrong with me and I didn't shame myself and guilt myself.

10:33Why do you feel this way? You always feel this way. This is stupid that you feel this way. There's so many people who have worse lives and you need to be more grateful, right? Like we can go down that. But what's cool about is when you know hungry, angry, lonely, tired, halt. You can literally sit there and say, okay, have I eaten today? Okay, am I angry at anybody? Do I need to get around some awesome people? Do I need to get some sleep tonight? and you can literally self-diagnose and say, oh man, like 95 % of the time, you can figure out what's going on and make yourself feel better by going, okay, I know what I need to do to make myself feel better.

11:03Right? Crazy thing. Ready? I had dinner, felt a million times better after dinner. Then what'd I do? I went to bed early. That was it. Woke up, felt great the next day. I was like, all right, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm not fucked up. And it's important to know why you feel the way that you feel. But a lot of times we get so caught up in thinking too much and then creating a story or a narrative that sometimes makes us feel worse about ourself. And then we start to shame ourself and guilt ourself, which makes us feel even worse about ourselves. It's important to be like, hey, let me take a step back.

11:38Let me look at myself as if someone comes to me, someone that I am in charge of taking care of and says, I don't feel good. I'm not going to be like, well, of course you don't feel good. It's because you're stupid. it's because you're, you know, you've done this today. You'll always feel this way. You're why do you do this way? And then they just like start to yell at them. You're gonna be like, okay, well, you know, why do you feel that way? How's your day been so far? Are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely? Are you tired? And literally help that person. You wouldn't yell at them. You want to guilt them.

12:03You wouldn't shame them. It's important to talk to yourself the way that you talk to someone that you love. It's important to take care of yourself as if you are someone that you're given the only, you're the only person in charge of taking care of this person. And it's your job to take care of them. And your brain and body have a connection. So if you start to think there's something wrong with you, then you start to feel like maybe there is something wrong with you. And your body starts to talk back to your brain. Your brain's like, something's wrong. Your brain's like, something's wrong. And then it starts to get worse and worse.

12:31No, let's just take ourself out of our body for a second. When you're in the jar, you can't read the label. Let's take ourself out of the jar. Let's look at the label of, okay, Rob Dial, Kyle, he doesn't feel amazing right now. He feels very blah. What's going on with him? What's been going on this day? Has he gotten enough water today? Did he get enough sleep last night? Is he hungry? Oh, is that little boy angry? Oh, is he lonely? He'd been by himself too much today? And so it's literally like taking yourself out of your body and looking at yourself and trying to help as if it is a friend that you're trying to help versus guilting, shaming, all that type of stuff.

13:07And an easy way to try to help yourself self-diagnose, it doesn't fix everything in life, I promise you that, is just ask yourself, am I hungry? Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I tired? And the more of those that you have, if you have all four of them, it can feel like a shit show. Then what you do is you start to work through them and try to make yourself feel better. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. and once again if you want that free mini course on how to journal it is mindsetmentorjournal.com once again mindsetmentorjournal.com is absolutely free you'll get the video and then 30 days of journaling prompts as well so with that i'm gonna leave you the same way i leave you every single episode make it your mission to make someone else's day better i appreciate you and i hope that you have an amazing day