How to Calm 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 since you never miss another podcast episode. Today, I'm gonna be talking about the strategy to help you get yourself out of your anxious thinking whenever you find yourself ruminating or stuck in a loop of anxious thoughts. This is a strategy that I've used with many of my clients. And in fact, the reason why I'm talking about today is because it's a strategy I literally had to use for myself last night. So last night around 3, 3.30ish, my wife woke up. She went to the bathroom.

0:40When she went to the bathroom, she accidentally woke me up and I could not fall back asleep. I had one thought and then another thought, another thought, another thought, another thought. And I had all these thoughts. And, you know, a lot of them are business. And once I get into business, I start thinking about, oh my gosh, we got to do this. And this thing's coming up. And I started thinking about other stuff. And so, you know, even though I am the mindset mentor, there's no way I'll ever get rid of anxious thoughts popping up or stressful thoughts popping up at some point in time. And to be honest with you, I was up for about an hour and a half last night, just sitting in my bed.

1:14And then I was like, it's not working. My brain just is not turning off. I don't know if you've ever been in that situation before where you're like, how in the hell can I get my brain to turn off? Because I had so many thoughts. And what's interesting about humans is that when we have a thought, that thought is like spread out. It's like a mind map when you have just like one thought and then it spreads out and there's all these other thoughts that could possibly come up. And so one thought turns into another, turns into another. And so I had to actually get out of bed and I went and got my journal and I was like, okay, there's a lot of stuff that's happening in my head right now.

1:48There's a lot of stuff happening in my life right now. And that's just the way that life is. And I've got a lot of stuff coming up. I'm really busy right now. And clearly my brain is stuck in this loop right now and it's not allowing me to go to sleep. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to get out of bed. I'm going to go grab my journal. I'm going to go to living room and I'm going to start to work through what's going on in my head. And I have worked with many people who have anxious thoughts, anxious feelings. And this is one of the best strategies that I have found. And it's a strategy that I work on for myself.

2:18So the first thing that's really important is awareness. I was aware that I had some anxious thoughts that were coming into my head. And one of the things that's really important about having anxiety or having anxious thoughts that come into your head is it's not a chemical imbalance, which is good because if it's not a chemical imbalance, you're not stuck with it. It means it comes from your thoughts and you can work through your thoughts. It's something that you can work out for yourself. It's a pattern that usually comes into a loop. And I noticed the loop happening last night when I was sitting there for an hour and a half.

2:53I noticed a loop where it was like I would start at the top and then I would go back down again. I would start at the top and I go back and it's just a loop of these thoughts coming through. And so the first thing that's the most important is really the awareness. What are the thoughts that are going through my head? Sometimes you guys might have thoughts about, oh my gosh, I've got so much to do tomorrow. I've got to go to work and I've got to take the kids to school and I've got to then pick up Johnny and take him to soccer. Sometimes those anxious thoughts can be, oh my gosh, I've got a presentation tomorrow and I don't know if I'm going to have it done before presentation time.

3:25Sometimes those anxious thoughts are, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay my damn bills this month. And so I've worked with many people who have anxiety. I've worked with some people who have had so much anxiety that they can't leave the house, like crippling anxiety. And the important thing I want you to realize with your thoughts is that our thoughts are so ridiculously complex. And you have your thoughts in your head. You have every emotion you have. You have all of your programmings, everything that you've picked up, all of your beliefs, all of these constructs that build this reality that you happen to see.

4:00But then you've got your relationships to every single person, what you think has to be done, how they're supposed to show up, what you want to say to them, what you want them to say back to you. Oh my gosh, if I say this thing to them, they're going to probably say this thing back to me. And so when your thoughts are in your head and you try to work them out in your head, as I was for a good hour and a half last night, usually doesn't get you anywhere. It's usually like trying to work your thoughts out in your head is a lot like trying to grab water. It's hard to grab water. You might grab a couple drops, but you're not grabbing the entire bit of water, right?

4:30And so it's really important to work through them. If you can talk to somebody, I recommend talking to somebody as well. And, you know, whether that's a therapist, whether that's a friend, whether that's a spouse, talking to someone saying like, hey, there's like, don't wake your husband up and be like, hey, I have anxious thoughts. Let me tell them my anxious thoughts. But if you notice that you've been really anxious, maybe you've been on a high stress level for the day, and you come home, just talk to your spouse if you can, or call your sister up on the way home, or call your mom, or talk to somebody about it.

5:02Talk to your therapist if you have one. And saying, hey, listen, I'm noticing myself in this thought pattern. Can I just talk it out with you? I don't need you to solve any of my problems. You can help me if you want their help, ask for their help. But if you just want to say, hey, can I just tell you this and you can just let me know what you're seeing? Maybe they'll be able to actually help you see patterns in your thoughts that you are not able to see. A lot of times another person and talking to another person is like a mirror for you where sometimes just speaking it out loud starts to make the connections.

5:32Sometimes somebody else hearing this and knowing you, they can also help you make the connection as well. So it can be really important to talk to someone, someone that you trust, someone that loves you. But I know some of you guys don't want to talk to someone. And the reason why you don't want to talk to someone is because you don't want to be judged or because your anxious thoughts are around that person. And so if you can't talk to someone, can you talk to someone on a piece of paper? And that person would be you. Because when you're trying to fight it in your head and you're trying to figure it out, it's like trying to fight someone in the dark.

6:06It's really hard to figure out where they are. And so here's what I did. Last night, I got up and I was like, all right, damn it. Looks like my brain doesn't want to turn off. So I wrote down a bunch of questions. The questions were, what am I feeling anxious about? And I wrote down, what are the thoughts that are making me anxious right now? Then I started writing down, what's the worst that could happen? Because all too often, we start thinking about all of the worst things that could happen. So I want to play out all of the worst things that could happen. Because if I can see all of the worst things that could happen, now I can make a plan to make sure that those things don't happen, right?

6:42So I asked myself, what's the worst that could happen? I worked through all of those things. and I looked at it and I was like, hmm, it's really not that bad. It's pretty okay, right? Then I asked myself, what's the best that could happen? And then I started looking through it and I was like, oh damn, there's actually a lot more good than bad that could come from this. I was stuck on all of the bad, which we tend to do as humans. We stick on the bad, we stick on the stressful things. We stick on the worst thing that could happen. When in reality, usually ends up a whole lot better than we think it's gonna be.

7:12And statistically, 85 % of what you worry about will never happen. This is found out by psychologists. And out of the 15 remaining percent, out of the 15 remaining percent out of the 85, you know, 100 minus 85, 15, the 15 remaining percent, 12 % of it doesn't happen near as bad as you're imagining it, which means only 3 % of what you actually worry about happens as bad as you think it's going to. And so you ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen? And you play out all of the worst scenarios so that you can then make a plan against how to making sure that those things don't happen. Then you ask yourself, what is the best that could happen?

7:45And you're like, oh man, there's actually a lot more positives that can come from this than I was thinking. And then you ask yourself, what I ask myself is what is my next best step to make me feel better? What's my next best step to make me feel better? And we will be right back. And now back to the show. And then so you look at it and if it wakes you up in the middle of the night, you look at it and you write, what's my next best step to make me feel better? Usually that thing can't happen at three o 'clock in the morning. And so you go, okay, well, that's what I need to do, but I can't do it right now.

8:15So I'll do it when I wake up. And a lot of times that just allows your brain to release it. Because ultimately what you're trying to do is you can work on all of those things when you're awake and conscious after you've had your coffee. But you don't want to work through them at three o 'clock in the morning, four o 'clock in the morning. And so you write down the question. So first question, let's go through it is, what am I feeling anxious about? Or what can I not stop thinking about? Now we've turned the lights on. We've identified the party that we're fighting. We've identified what is making us anxious.

8:48So we're no longer trying to fight someone in the dark. We can see, oh, there's the person that I'm trying to fight. So there they are. I can see them. I can identify them, right? Usually just identifying the thing that's making you anxious gives you some sort of sense of relief. And you're like, okay, I've identified what it is. Because sometimes we get anxious about the fact that we don't know what's making us anxious. And so if we can identify, hey, this is the thing that's making us anxious, we can start to work through it, right? Because lots of times we don't even know what's going on in our heads.

9:18And it's just, we have anxious feelings, but then we have anxious feelings because we don't know what's making us feel anxious, right? And so a lot of times it's just about the awareness, flipping on the light switch. What's going on in my head? Next question, when we dive into it, what's the worst that could happen? Like I said, a lot of times we make things to be way worse in our heads. in 97 % of the time, it doesn't end up being that way. Last night when I was writing out what's the worst that could happen, I was like, this is never going to happen. I'm looking at, I'm like, this isn't going to happen.

9:50I know it's not going to happen. So why am I wasting my time? Why am I wasting my energy? Why am I wasting my freaking time that I could be sleeping by thinking about this thing? When in reality, I'm looking at the worst that could happen. I'm going, that's not going to happen. There's no way that that's going to happen. Okay. Next question. What's the best that could happen? Let's look at what could happen positively. It probably won't go as bad as you think it's going to go. It's probably not going to go as good as you think it's going to go, but a lot of times it goes way better than the worst that could happen.

10:19And then the last question, what's my next best step to make me feel better? What action can I take to make me feel better? Maybe in that moment, you know, maybe you weren't woken up and maybe you just start feeling anxious at 2 p.m. and you're like, oh my God, I can feel this anxiety inside of me. And I'm looking at what's making me anxious. What's the thoughts going through my head? What's the worst that could happen? What's the best that could happen? What's the next best step? You know what? Maybe I can just take some really deep breaths. I've heard that Rob Dial guy say that six deep breath can change our state.

10:49So I'm going to do six deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth, and I'm going to try to calm down my nervous system because my nervous system just seems to be really agitated right now. It might be agitated because the thoughts that you have, it might be agitated because you had too much coffee today as well. It might be agitated because you haven't eaten today and your blood sugar's low. There's many things that can make you feel this way. And so maybe what we need to do is just calm the body down, calm the nervous system down, and just figure out a way to just do some deep breathing.

11:17If after 60 breaths, you feel better, but still not as good as you could feel, go to 10. Go to 20. You don't have to stop at six. but I do know that when you take deep breaths into the nose, out through the mouth, and your exhale is longer than your inhale, I usually say try to exhale through your mouth like you're breathing out through a straw, that long exhale actually slows your heart rate down, and it releases extra carbon dioxide from your body and from your muscles, which allow you to relax more. And so it's really important to do this breathing exercise. Then you start to change your focus.

11:51So you can say, okay, I have these anxious feelings, no big deal. They're there. I want to come at these anxious feelings from a better state. And so I'm going to focus on something I could be grateful for. What is someone, something, anything that I can be grateful for right now in this moment? What can I be grateful for? And you can switch. Maybe it's meditation. Maybe it's breathing. Maybe it's gratitude that you work on. Maybe you need to have a conversation with someone. Maybe that can make you feel better right now. Maybe you're like, you know what? I'm feeling at such a heightened state.

12:24I just need to go for a freaking run. I need to go for a run. I need to move my body. I need to get my heart rate up. I need to just not listen to any music, but just be completely with my thoughts. And maybe that's what you go for. Completely different for every single person. Figure out what works for you. Maybe what you need to do, and the thing that's going to make you feel the best right now, is to call a friend. Call your friend. Talk to them about it. Ask them to come over. What I don't want you to do is go, I need to have a glass of tequila because that's just numbing your feelings versus actually working through them because it's going to come up again and again if you don't work through it.

12:57And so you've identified my anxiety culprit, the one that's there. You've shined the light on it. You've identified what could happen, the good and the bad. So I'm aware of both so that I can figure out which actions I need to take to make me feel better, which is what's the best action I could take right now. And doing this made me feel so much better. I was like, oh my gosh, this is what was going through my head. It wasn't anything crazy. Like it's not like doom and gloom, but it was just like, for some reason, my brain was just stuck in a loop and I couldn't get out of it. So I put it all down and I said, okay, do I feel like I'm done with, with journaling?

13:30Yeah, I feel like I'm pretty done. Okay. Let me see if I can relax my body. And so what I did was I put on a meditation and I breathed consciously, inhaled, exhaled. And I just, instead of doing 60 breaths, I did the exact same thing, 20 minutes or so. Wasn't trying to think about anything. I was just thinking about calming my body. And instead of my mind going to whatever I was anxious about, my mind was going to, I'm going to relax with every single deep breath. Every time I breathe back out, I'm going to just relax my body. And what happened? I was gone. Passed out eventually. Right? And so woke up, did my morning routine, got my journal, did my reading, started knocking out things that were on my list that were making me feel anxious.

14:12And so what it comes down to is I want you to realize that sometimes people say, oh, well, I just have anxiety. and sure you might have anxiety but it doesn't mean you can't work through your anxiety doesn't mean you can't make positive steps towards it to just say that hey i've got this and there's no way i'll ever get past it there's no way i'll ever be able to work through it it's not going to help you in any sort of way it's not something that you have to be stuck with forever because anxiety comes from your thoughts it's not like depression where number one first off about 61 to 80 percent of people who are diagnosed with depression are actually misdiagnosed there's stats on that You can Google it if you like.

14:45But depression can be a chemical imbalance inside of your brain. Anxiety is not a chemical imbalance inside of your brain. It's just a pattern of thoughts that you continue to keep going down. And you can just decide that you're going to interrupt this pattern of thoughts and put something else in instead, which is ultimately comes down to you and what you want to do. And that's what's important. It puts you back in the driver's seat and in control of your own mind. 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 at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R.

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