Marketing Representative (7:34)

So really when we feel anxious, we.

Capital One Representative (7:36)

Need to take a step back and be like, what was I just thinking? And so we're going to go over some research backed 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 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. It 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 with HubSpot.

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Capital One Representative (10:03)

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. It could 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. And 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, it'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 5 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 gotta deal with the body, you gotta 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 gonna be like, well, what was I just thinking? I was thinking this, you know, email from 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, might be because of the fact that we have a presentation for a competitor to, you know, beat a competitor out in a week or something like that. And so what you want to do with cognitive restructuring, it's, 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.

Marketing Representative (12:58)

That's the first step, is to become.

Capital One Representative (12:59)

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. Most 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. And 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. And 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.

Marketing Representative (15:11)

Why is that?

Capital One Representative (15:12)

Because my boss just emailed me. What was I just thinking? What am I afraid of? Where do I not feel safe? I feel like maybe my boss is going to fire me. Okay, all 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 4:00 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. And 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. And 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. So 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. Okay, 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 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 want to 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 the snake, they might start to freak out. But 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. You'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, 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 and 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 why we're here to help you. And so that's the three tips to 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 or if you have more anxiety, this is just ways to help. First thing is exercise regularly. Physical 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. 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 gives you more anxiety. If you have too much sugar gives you more anxiety. If you eat too much, you know, bags of chips and food, it's going to give you more anxiety. So 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, you know, 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. I don't know about you, but if I have a really bad night of.

Marketing Representative (21:39)

Sleep, sometimes I notice that I'm more.

Capital One Representative (21:41)

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. All 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. And 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. Robdial Jr R O B D I A L J R um, 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 greatly, greatly appreciate it. So we can impact more people's lives. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I'll 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.

Rob Dial (23:25)

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