Destroy Your Anxiety

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn who you are as a person, how to grow yourself as a person, and improve yourself, because if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. I've been doing it for nine and a half years now, almost 10 years, so if you want to grow yourself with me, hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about your anxiety and how to stop feeling so anxious about your anxiety.

0:36I'm going to take you through the ultimate guide to beating your anxiety, and we're also going to talk about why anxiety exists in the first place. And if you can understand why anxiety exists and why it's in us, it makes it easier to work through it. And so, you know, I'm going to give you evidence-based strategies to overcome your anxiety. And there was a study that was done in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, which has got to be a really fun journal to read. The Journal of anxiety disorders have found that anxiety has gone up over 300 % over the numbers that they had pre-pandemic levels. And so anxiety is on the rise, but anxiety itself is very natural.

1:20And so people are like, I want to get rid of my anxiety. And I'm like, no, you want to get rid of certain aspects of your anxiety because anxiety is a natural response to fear and to stress and to uncertainty and more specifically perceived threats. And so if you have anxiety when you're walking down, like you start getting a real anxious feeling when you're walking in the dark, going through a crowded dark room and you start getting anxious, well, maybe that's something that's telling you you should be anxious so that you protect yourself. Or if you're going through a dark alley and you get anxious, that's a good thing.

1:56But when you're anxious and feel anxiety, when you're sitting in your house, watching TV or just hanging out, probably not the best time to be anxious. There's nothing to really fear in that moment. And so it's a good thing for humans because what it is, is it is our brain projecting itself into the future and then telling our body to prepare for some sort of possible threat. So think about that for a second. Anxiety is our brain projecting into the future and telling our body, get ready. So at the core of anxiety is the thought of I am not safe. Really, that's what it is. No matter what form of anxiety shows up, it's the thought of I'm not safe.

2:40I need to prepare my body for some sort of attack or to be able to run or to be able to fight or to be able to freeze. And so your safety in some way feels threatened, believe it or not. And so the question is, what does it feel threatened by? That's what you really need to figure out. You need to take a step back when you're feeling anxious and saying like, where do I not feel safe right now? So if you get, I'll give you a couple of examples. You get anxious about public speaking. You might show up in sweaty palms and your heart's racing and you start to think about, oh my gosh, I'm getting really anxious about this public speaking that I need to do.

3:17The fear behind it might be, I'm not safe because I might be humiliated. or I have to give a presentation at work. I'm not safe because what if I screw up this presentation in public speaking and then I get fired and I lose my house and then I go broke and they live on the street. That's my safety being taken from me in some sort of way. So my body's preparing for some form of attack. If you start to get real anxious when you go out to social events, it might be like, I'm not safe. I might say something wrong or I might be rejected. or I might be kicked out of the tribe. And so I don't feel safe.

3:56And so I have this feeling of anxiety when I think about social events. Maybe it's you were raised by a mother who like was really, really worried about health concerns. And so, you know, maybe you get anxiety about your health. And so how it shows up is you're like excessively Googling anytime your elbow hurts or something like that. And so you get body scans or you're doing frequent doctor visits all the time. And it might, it was like, I'm not safe because there might be something wrong with me. There must be something wrong with me. I got to make sure that anything that's wrong with me, I've got to fix.

4:29You know, maybe you, you're, you're getting really anxious about being late somewhere. And so you're rushing and you're frantic and you're sweating and your heart's racing and you're irritable. And it's like, I'm not safe because if I show up late, nobody's going to, everyone's going to see that I'm late. Others might think that I'm irresponsible and then they might not want to hang out with me. So once again, I'm getting kicked out of the tribe again in some sort of way. Maybe you're sitting at work and you're having a great day and you're just putting your stuff together and just writing your emails.

4:57You're sitting there and then bing, a notification from your boss pops up and it says, hey, are you free today at four? And you just get anxious immediately. And you're like, oh my God, I'm not safe because I might get fired. There must be something that I did wrong. Maybe they're downsizing. Maybe I'm not good enough in some sort of way. I can't lose my job because I got to feed my children. I've got to to feed myself. I've got to pay my mortgage. Or maybe you're sitting there and your phone buzzes and it says, mom calling. And you get all anxious. You get all tight. You can feel yourself start to get anxious.

5:33You're like, oh my God, I'm not safe. Maybe there's something going on with her. Maybe there's something going on with dad. I might have to deal with something stressful. Maybe she tells me that dad fell down the stairs. And it's like, there's all of these safety and these fears that are there. And so in some sort of way, when you have these anxious feelings, it's you feel like there's a threat in your environment in some sort of way. But, you know, it's good to have anxiety when you need it. Like I said, when you're walking through a dark alley to have those anxious feelings to prepare you just in case.

6:04It's not good when it's like an everyday all day kind of thing. You know, chronic anxiety interferes with your daily life and we need to address it and it can be overcome. That's the best part about it. Anxiety almost always comes from your thoughts. So really when we feel anxious, we need to take a step back and be like, what was I just thinking? And so we're going to go over some research back techniques to kind of help you overcome that anxiety, those anxious thoughts, and to be able to pull your body out of that anxiety, that anxious feeling that you have. And so when you look at anxiety, first off, the definition of anxiety itself is a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear that can range from mild to severe.

6:47It is normal and essential human emotion that serves as an adaptive response to danger or challenges. That's the definition of anxiety. So let me say it one more time, just so you can understand the actual definition is a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear that can range from mild to severe. And it is normal and essential human emotion that serves as an adaptive response to danger or challenges. See how we think that there's some sort of danger? And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. And so anxiety can show up in two different ways for you. It can be emotional symptoms, worry, fear, irritability, difficult concentrating, restlessness.

7:30It can be physical symptoms, muscle tension, headaches, sweating, trembling, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath. You can even have gastrointestinal issues. So that's how it shows up in the body. And so let me just show you a few ways that you can kind of let it out of the body, okay? The first strategy is a relaxation technique for reduction of your anxiety. You've heard me say it over and over and over again. Deep breathing. When your emotion is high, in some sort of way, your logic is low. You're actually not thinking very well. And so when you're really anxious, you tap into your fight, flight, or freeze.

8:09And that's where your animalistic survival part of your brain turns on. And your thinking and processing and executive decision-making turns off. And so get yourself feeling a little bit better by using the next few strategies where you can calm yourself back down so that you can think the right way so that you can realize that maybe it's not that much of a threat. So the first thing I always recommend is deep breathing because if I'm going to sit there and go, oh my God, I'm anxious. What was I just thinking? What am I fearing? Why do I not feel safe? But like, I'm not calmed down at this point.

8:46It's going to make it really hard for me to think in a smart way. And so deep breathing exercises help activate your body's relaxation response and in turn reduces your anxiety levels. And so it's real simple. I always recommend five seconds in, 10 seconds out. And it slows your heart rate down. it releases more carbon dioxide from your body and it lowers your stress levels. So as soon as you start to notice anxious feeling, immediately go back to the breath. The fastest way to change your state is to go back to your breath every single time. Okay, that's the first thing. You got to deal with the body.

9:20You got to calm it down. Then we can start to talk about the thinking side of things and how to change it, which goes to strategy number two, which is something called cognitive restructuring. It's a technique that involves identifying and challenging negative thought patterns or fears that are contributing to your anxiety, right? This is where you're going to be like, well, what was I just thinking? I was thinking this, you know, email for my boss. I'm definitely getting fired. It's like, well, hold on. Let me, let me not just go down that road. It might be, you know, he wants to talk with me because I've been doing so well.

9:54Might be because of the fact that we have a presentation for a competitor to beat a competitor out in a week or something like that. And so what you want to do with cognitive restructuring, it's rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, and it's been shown to be effective with treating anxiety disorders specifically. So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to identify your negative thoughts. That's the first step is to become aware of the negative thoughts that fuel your anxiety. Notice when you don't feel good, become aware of how your body feels. and usually you'll start to notice the anxiety inducing thoughts after you notice your body's reaction to it.

10:32Most of the time our anxiety, like our thoughts around anxiety come under the conscious mind, the subconscious. So it's like, bing, the email from the boss comes through immediately, it's like almost immediately, holy shit, I feel anxious. I'm feeling all this anxiety. You don't even notice the thought that is in between the bing and the body, but there's always some sort of thought. And so you have to understand when you take a step back, when you do the breathing and then you say like, what was I just thinking? You'll usually start to notice the thought after that. You can usually start to use cognitive restructuring.

11:12And so what you want to do, that's the first step is to notice it and all that. And the second step is to challenge the negative thoughts. Once you identify the negative thoughts, evaluate the accuracy of these thoughts. Try alternative explanations. Try another perspective. How valid is your thought that is making you anxious? You know, psychologists have found that 85 % of what we worry about never happens. Never. Out of the remaining 15%, only 3 % of it happens the way that we think that it will. The other 12 % of that 15 % doesn't happen as bad as we think, which means 97 % of what we think and worry about and have anxiety over and mull over and ruin our day, 97 % of it doesn't happen or turns out better than we think that it's going to.

12:02And so it's like, how can I take a step back and use cognitive restructuring to challenge the thought that is giving me anxiety. So that's the second thing. And number three is to replace your negative thoughts. So after you challenge the negative thought, replace the negative thought with a more balanced, realistic thought that can help you reduce your anxiety levels. Okay, I'm starting to notice I'm getting anxious. Why is that? It's because my boss just emailed me. What was I just thinking? What am I afraid of? Where do why not feel safe? I feel like maybe my boss is going to fire me. Okay.

12:39All right. Is that real? Am I actually going to be fired? Probably not. Is there possibly another explanation for why he's sending me an email about wanting to meet with me at four o 'clock today? Well, actually, yeah, that does make sense because I was talking to him yesterday about X, Y, and Z, and maybe he wants to meet with me about it. Okay, that makes more sense. So that's strategy number two, use cognitive restructuring. Strategy number three is to use something called exposure therapy. So it's a proven technique that involves gradually and systematically confronting whatever situations, your situations or objects or thoughts that you fear until the anxiety subsides in some sort of way.

13:22And so this process will help you learn that your fears, most of the time, are pretty irrational. And it allows you to start to tolerate the discomfort of those fears and the anxiety that you're starting to have. And so what you're going to do is you're going to, first off, identify what's causing your anxiety. This alone, when you just are able to kind of shine a light on the actual fear or the limiting belief or the quote unquote lack of safety that you're feeling, just being able to kind of put it into words and to identify it helps a lot of people feel less anxious. A lot of people feel less anxious after they identify it.

14:02And people feel less anxious when they take a step back and they find out what they're anxious about, which is real funny because most people think they know what they're anxious about, but then they take a step back and they realize that they're not anxious about that thing. They're anxious about the way that they're perceiving that thing or the thoughts around that thing. And so you identify your anxiety inducing thoughts and that alone in turn can make you feel less anxious. You'd think that it would make you feel more anxious, but it actually makes you feel less anxious because you're like, oh yeah, it's usually not that big of a deal or it's less of a deal than you thought it was.

14:35So maybe you notice that you've had this like underlying feeling of anxiety all week long and you don't know why. You're like, I've just been feeling it's Thursday and I feel like I've been anxious the past four days. You're not really sure why. Okay. We'll take a step back, breathe, realize that you felt anxious. Since what time? When did you start noticing your anxiety? Oh yeah, that's right. Since I had the meeting with my boss on Monday, today's Thursday. And on Monday, he told me I'm going to need to give a presentation for work in two weeks. And I am terrified of public speaking. and I'm even more terrified to do it in front of the entire company.

15:14Okay, so that's the first thing is to identify the anxious feeling. And then maybe I give myself gradual exposure to this presentation. And so that's why when you're doing public speaking and you have to give a presentation, try to finish it and then practice it as many times as you possibly can. You're trying to expose yourself to it. The same way if someone's like terrified of a snake, you don't wanna just take a snake and put it on their lap, But if you have them in one room, on the complete opposite side of the room, and on the opposite side of the room, they have a snake, they might start to freak out.

15:47But if snake is in the box, it can't get out. They might start to freak out. They might start to freak out. Gradually, their body will calm down. Gradually, it'll calm down. You bring it a little bit closer. Gradually, the body will calm down. This is what exposure therapy is. So you can expose yourself to the thing that's making you anxious. And so what you do is you finish your presentation. And what you're going to do is you're going to read it out loud, maybe 10 times the first day. And then what you're going to do is you're going to go home. And the next day, you're going to practice the entire presentation.

16:14You're going to take your slides. You're going to put it on your TV at home. You're going to present it for nobody. Maybe your children's teddy bears when everybody goes to sleep. And you're going to go through the entire thing. Practice it in your living room with PowerPoint 10 times. Okay, that's a little bit more exposure. Okay, I feel a little bit more confident about this. and then what I'm going to do is maybe the week before the presentation, I'm going to stay late at work one night after everybody leaves and I'm going to practice it in the room that I will be presenting and I'm just going to practice it 10 times over and over and over again and then the night before, I'm going to be practicing it again and I'm going to come in early the day of and I'm going to practice it before anybody else gets there and what happens is I've had so much exposure to this presentation, by the time I actually give the presentation, I've already done it 50 times.

17:10And I've done it multiple times in the room that I'm actually giving the presentation. The only difference now, besides the fact that it's basically memorized, is that there's humans inside of the seats. This is what exposure therapy to your anxiety will look like. And so that's really where to help you. And so that's the three tips, the three strategies to help you with it. There's some simple lifestyle changes that I want to give you guys to help you reduce your anxiety that are just proven that you can do where if you have more anxiety, this is just ways to help. First thing is exercise regularly.

17:40Physical activity has been shown over and over and over again to reduce your anxiety by increasing your endorphins. It promotes relaxation and improves your overall mood. And so regular exercise, at least 30 minutes per day can have really massive long-term benefits on your anxiety reduction. That's the first thing. Second thing is your nutrition. When you have a really good, well-balanced nutrition, it manages your anxiety as well. If you have too much coffee, it gives you more anxiety. If you have too much sugar, it gives you more anxiety. If you eat too much bags of chips and shit food, it's gonna give you more anxiety.

18:15So try to eat more whole foods. Try to limit your caffeine. Try to limit your sugar. Try to stay hydrated. Dehydration can actually increase your anxiety levels. So many people just don't drink enough water. Like so many of your problems will be fixed if you just drink more water. Your anxiety, your fat, you might have less fat if you end up doing it. You might have better bowel movements. So stay hydrated. Drink less alcohol. That's another thing as well that will help you. So that's number two. Pay attention to your nutrition. Number three, prioritize your sleep. Sleep is really important. Poor sleep can worsen your anxiety a lot.

18:53I don't know about you, but if I have a really bad night of sleep, sometimes I notice that I'm more anxious throughout the day. And so prioritize your sleep. Have some sort of regular sleep schedule. And then the fourth thing that is huge that I recommend that you guys do is spend less time on your phone. Spend less time in front of your TVs. There's been study after study after study that has shown that people that spend more time in front of screens have more anxiety than those that don't. Put your phone away. Get away from your TV. Go for a walk in nature. Be around people who you want to spend time with.

19:24All of these things help with your anxiety as well. And so I just really think that it's important for you to understand that first off, anxiety is not a bad thing. Chronic anxiety is a bad thing. Anxiety is built into you for a reason. It is a protection mechanism. When it is happening, when you're sitting at your desk at work, what is that protection mechanism trying to protect you from? And then also to understand that anxiety is something that we can all work through. As long as it's not a chronic, like actual anxiety disorder, that is something that's happening inside of your brain that is uncurable or whatever it might be, usually most of us are just anxious because of our thoughts and because it's just simple adjustments that we can make in our lives.

20:03And so that right there is the ultimate guide to stop feeling anxious about your anxiety. So if you love this episode, please do me a favor, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. There are many people I'm sure that follow you on all of your platforms that have anxiety. And I just want to help them hopefully be able to free themselves from that. So if you would do that, it's the best way of saying thank you for the podcast and putting it out there for you. And so if you do that, I'd greatly, greatly appreciate it so we can impact more people's lives.

20:33And with that, I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.