How to get rid of anxiety.
Hello everyone. I'm really excited about today's video,
because I'm someone who's suffered from post-traumatic stress
disorder for many many years.
This means that anxiety is something I've struggled with for a long time.
And the thing about struggling with something for a long time is
it has a way of forcing you to figure out what to do about it.
Taking medications for anxiety is not the best option.
Not only is it the least effective way that you can deal with anxiety,
it's very harmful to the body to take these medications,
and these medications are addictive.
Any time you take something, a medication, a chemical,
your body compensates for the presence of that chemical within your system.
So what your brain essentially does is it stops producing the chemicals
that you're taking via that pill.
So what you'll find when you try to go to get off that pill
is that your body is no longer producing those chemicals on its own.
There's a lag time between the time that you've stopped taking the medication,
and the time that your body recompensates for the absence of that chemical.
And most people can't make it through that lag time.
In other words, living life is just too painful off of the medication
because the body hasn't recompensated fast enough
for the person to be able to cope with their life.
Anxiety is a worldwide problem.
It is a problem where our own biology,
which was designed to ensure our survival as hunters and gatherers,
is sabotaging our bodies and minds.
When we feel fear or stress, our body releases cortisol,
which is a stress hormone.
This cortisol release is part of a fight-or-flight response.
Back in the day it enabled us to do things like
jump out of the way of an attacking predator or a falling rock.
In today's world those kinds of dangers aren't as relevant.
But even though they aren't relevant
we still have the same biological reaction to stress.
Any time we perceive danger, our body reacts the same way it would
if our survival were at risk, and our fight-or-flight response is triggered.
The body releases cortisol when we get cut off on the highway,
our body releases cortisol when we think about
being unable to pay the bills on time,
our body releases cortisol when we are approached by our boss.
What's more, our body releases cortisol every time we think a fearful thought.
Basically, instead of our modern lives being less stressful,
they're an absolute minefield of stress-inducing scenarios.
This means that cortisol, the stress hormone,
is wreaking havoc on us in our day-to-day lives.
Elevated cortisol levels doesn't just affect the way we feel emotionally,
it interferes with learning and memory;
it lowers immune function and bone density;
it causes an increase in weight gain,
blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart disease;
it can trigger other mental illnesses;
it increases the likelihood of depression;
and it lowers our resiliency.
Anyone who suffers with anxiety
has a problem with one of our basic human needs,
and that basic human need is certainty.
What do we mean by certainty?
We mean that feeling of internal security
that we know that we can avoid pain and gain pleasure.
Those of us who have anxiety don't know that this is true.
That basic human need isn't met. Instead we feel powerless to our own lives,
we feel fear relative to our own lives,
and that causes our body to trigger the fight-or-flight response.
It causes us to release cortisol, and when that happens we feel more anxious,
so our body releases more cortisol, and that causes us to feel more anxious,
which causes us to release more cortisol, and now we're caught in a snowball;
we can't stop feeling anxious,
our anxiety snowballs into serious panic attacks
because we don't have the ability to meet our own need of certainty.
Normally there would be an outlet for this rush of anxiety when
the fight-or-flight response is triggered,
such as running away from the perceived threat
or screaming and crying, which brings up cortisol within the body.
But in today's modern world
there is no obvious course of action for the anxiety we feel,
there is no outlet for that energy. So we have to create one, or many.
One of the best ways to do this is through exercise on a daily basis.
Any aerobic or cardiac activity will burn cortisol.
It will create an outlet to release the pent-up energy that is associated
with the fight-or-flight response, and 20 to 30 minutes is all you need
to engage your body's natural ability to produce endorphins.
Endorphins are a bit like naturally ocurring opiates,
they relax you and induce a feeling of well-being.
Eating foods that reduce anxiety is really important.
There are foods that increase your anxiety,
and there are foods that decrease your anxiety.
It's important that you choose a diet that stabilises your blood sugar.
When your blood sugar drops and it's low, the portion of your brain that's in charge
of the fight-or-flight response is triggered,
so you're more likely to feel anxiety throughout your day.
Avoid fried foods, caffeine, high-glycemic carbohydrates,
sugar, and alcoholic beverages.
Some foods to include in your diet that have been shown to reduce anxiety
for various reasons are: seaweed, also called nori; kimchi;
whole grains such as brown rice, farro, and quinoa;
blueberries; dark chocolate; maca root; vitamin B-12 and vitamin B-6;
omega-3 fatty acids like flax-seed oil;
chamomile tea, oolong tea, and oatstraw tea;
nuts, pumpkin seeds, and edamame.
Any kind of meditation, visualization,
or relaxation technique such as yoga, qigong, or tai-chi,
will lower cortisol levels in the body,
so sign up for those classes.
Form close-knit human bonds. It's been shown over and over again
that when we form connections with other people
we are reducing cortisol within the body.
Our parasympathetic nervous system is sedated
when we are in close physical contact with other people,
when we feel a sense of connection with them.
Develop these connections.
Humans are a social species. Isolation will increase your anxiety.
Seek opportunities to laugh;
when you're laughing your body can't perceive that it is in danger,
because you're sending it the message that it's safe.
So watch that stand-up comedian,
watch those youtube shows that make you laugh.
Seek any kind of fun that you can find,
this will significantly reduce your levels of anxiety.
It's also really important to get enough sleep,
let yourself get 8 hours a night at least.
Sleep is designed to reduce stress levels. When you fall asleep, you are realigning
with your non-physical perspective, you're releasing all of the resistance
that you carry with you on a daily basis,
you're coming into alignment into a state of allowing,
which is the opposite of anxiety.
Allow yourself the opportunity to release your resistance in this way.
Sleep is essential for those people who suffer from anxiety.
Your fight-or-flight response is triggered when you don't get enough sleep,
in the same way that it's triggered by low blood sugar,
so it's really important that you let yourself get at least 8 hours a night.
Sleep is the opportunity for you to come into alignment,
to release all of the resistance that you've built up in your day-to-day life.
Take advantage of that opportunity.
Release your emotion. One of the best ways to do this
is to talk to someone about it, or if you don't want to do that,
to release your emotion by writing or typing it out.
I don't want you to judge what's coming up.
Whenever you feel anxiety, just sit down
with that paper or in front of the computer,
and start typing anything that comes out, all of your worry and stressful thoughts.
I want you to just type them as fast
as you can possibly type them without judging them.
I want you to put down anything, no matter how nonsensical it may seem.
Your body needs to release that energy, so let it release that energy.
I have an example of a page that I wrote this week
to release my own anxiety, so this is what this will sound like.
I'm flipping out, I hate my life, what the hell was I thinking?
My stomach hurts, I feel like crap.
I hate people. I'm not getting anywhere.
They won't publish my book. My fan is making me cold.
I don't want to move, I can't move I'm stuck.
I hate life, I should quit. I'm the worst parent on earth.
I'm not hungry. I hate that everyone expects me to make breakfast.
God dammit. I have a session today. I don't wanna do it.
What the hell am I gonna say to them?
Kill yourself now coz it doesn't get better?
Fuck my life. I hate it here. I wanna die.
I'm too fucked up to do anything good.
I wanna remind most of you
that there'll be a lot of swearing in this exercise.
This expression process is not the time to be politically correct or polite.
I want you to get out anything that you emotionally feel and are struggling with.
Listen to music.
Deliberately create playlists for yourself that reduce your anxiety.
For me, dinner jazz works wonders, as does any music that allows me to bleed emotion.
Certain musicians, for me it's Thomas Newman, have the ability to create tones
that make you feel like the emotion that is trapped in you is being leeched out.
Motivating music works well too because it inspires you
towards seeking an outlet for your stress.
You want to avoid any music that stimulates your nervous system,
makes you feel stressed, or provokes negative emotion.
Breathing exercises works for anxiety, that is, taking a long deep breath in,
and a long deep breath out, breathing deep into your belly
instead of staying up here in shallow breathing
where you're just pulling energy into your lungs.
Breathing techniques have been shown to reduce cortisol again and again.
My anxiety was so bad throughout my life
that breathing exercises was a little bit like
chipping at a glacier with a spoon, so I prefer to use breathing exercises
in conjunction with other exercises instead of purely on its own.
But try these breathing exercises, you can find them all over the internet,
and see how they work for you.
The bottom line if you suffer from anxiety is that you have to allow yourself
to do what is necessary to make yourself feel good throughout the day.
You've got to be deliberate about how you wake up.
You've got to be deliberate about how you go to sleep
and how you structure your life in between,
and this kind of self care has got to be okay for you.
If you suffer from anxiety you have a highly sensitive system,
that doesn't mean that something's wrong with you.
Potentially it means that something's right with you,
and everyone else is just shut down.
Take the time to structure your life to give yourself this TLC.
You need to really commit to self care if you suffer from anxiety.
I was one of those people who woke up with such bad anxiety attacks
that after an hour or two of struggling with them in the morning,
I'd end up suicidal or self-injuring.
But I have actually found a routine that works for me perfectly.
But I will tell you that even to this day, if I don't do this routine
I still wake up with anxiety attacks.
I'm gonna share this routine with you today.
Keep in mind that the routine that works for you may be different
than the one that works for me.
The goal, if you suffer from anxiety, is to collect all kinds of tools
and all kinds of processes that you can apply throughout your day
that work specifically for you, to set up your own individual unique routine.
Here's mine:
1. When I first wake up, before I even open my eyes, I take 8 deep breaths
where I'm holding my breath for the count of 8 at the top, so it looks like this.
I do that 8 times.
2. I immediately go get something to eat.
Cortisol levels are highest first thing in the morning,
which is why so many people who suffer from anxiety
wake up with panic attacks. When blood sugar is low,
like it is first thing in the morning, it triggers your fight-or-flight response,
so we need to get our blood sugar levels up and quickly.
But we don't want to spike our blood sugar.
That's just setting ourselves up for failure later in the day.
So we want to choose foods that stabilise our blood sugar.
I usually choose a handful of almonds and berries,
a raw formula meal replacer or protein powder
mixed with coconut milk or almond milk,
or a banana with mixed nuts and water.
3. I write in my expression journal.
This is the place I allow myself to unleash all my fearful negative thoughts
and worries so I have an outlet for that anxious feeling.
4. I write in my gratitude journal.
This orients my focus from my thoughts that were causing me to panic,
to the thoughts that induce a feeling of well-being.
It forces me to look for and pay attention to things that make me feel good
and thus begin to feel that the life I'm living might actually be good,
and this causes my fight-or-flight response to shut off.
5. I exercise.
I have collected a group of people who feel
more motivated to work out when we're together,
and now we all go out together in the morning and hike
or speed-walk or do plyometric training, or ski together.
The connection I feel with them reduces my cortisol levels
and the exercise itself burns off cortisol
and introduces endorphins into my blood stream.
6. When I get back from exercising I drink two 8 oz glasses of water.
This allows my liver to rid my body of excess hormones.
Your liver is the organ in your body that deals with excess hormones
and remember that cortisol is a hormone.
I also keep sipping water throughout the day,
and I make sure that this water isn't tap water;
I make sure that it's spring water or artesian well water,
or some kind of water that isn't completely full of chemicals.
7. I let myself be a diva.
What do I mean by this?
Most of us who suffer from anxiety
have perfected the art of forcing ourselves
to do things that feel terrible to us emotionally.
We end up having breakdowns because our nervous systems
perceive danger everywhere we turn.
We need to allow ourselves to live a little unconventionally
and do unconventional things
if it would enable us to feel safer and more relaxed.
For example, I get extreme anxiety
when I am going anywhere by myself.
The traditional model of dealing with fear
says that you should force yourself to be alone
so that your body will desensitize to it.
This forcing your body to desensitize
is forcing your body to dissociate,
so it's not actually solving any major problem,
what it's doing is causing you to shut off to your emotional guidance system.
It's pretty much the dumbest thing you can do.
It's never self loving to force yourself to get over something.
That is a harsh approach, it is not a gentle approach.
And if you take a harsh approach to something that's feeling anxious,
what you're doing is you're adding punishment on top of fear.
Sounds like a good idea to me. [sarcasm]
More often than not, all a rough approach does
when it comes to fear is cause us to have mental breakdowns.
So, I allow myself to take people I associate with safety
and home with me when I go places.
Remember that if anyone else thinks you should or shouldn't
live in a specific way, it is projection. They are imposing their perspective
on your life and asking you to validate their perspective.
This is not your job.
Your job is to find out what feels most empowering and joyful to you personally
and then allow yourselves to do those things.
We do not get upset when someone who is in a wheelchair
needs to structure his or her life a little differently
in order to have a pleasant experience.
We should not get upset with ourselves if our tendency towards anxiety
causes us to have to structure our life
a little differently in order to have a pleasant experience.
If we are all loving in alignment, we would all be structuring our lives
a little differently according to our own desires and needs.
If you suffer from anxiety, it is extremely important
that you practice the art of self-loving.
This is how it works:
If you're a person like me who has an issue with anxiety when you are alone,
in the beginning it's not very loving to yourself
to force yourself to go somewhere alone.
But eventually you might find that something happens.
It no longer feels empowering, it no longer feels self-loving and good
for you to be stuck in a situation where you can't go places alone.
And that's the time that you can start venturing out
and practicing being alone, practicing taking trips alone,
and only at that point will that action be self-loving.
Only at that point will it be in alignment with your empowerment,
instead of fuel your anxiety.
So you need to be very honest with yourself about where you currently are,
and you need only take steps towards self-love, that means the only time
you should try to solve anything relative to the anxiety you suffer
is if it feels self-loving and empowering to do it
8. I make sure that before I go to bed I'm in a good vibrational space.
That means, I watch funny movies,
I watch proposal videos on youtube, I play board games,
I cuddle with my communal family members.
I do anything that puts me in a good mood so that my focus is not on worry.
This is a good time to write in your gratitude journal.
Sometimes, right before I go to bed,
I sit down and I write an entire list of things
that I feel grateful for throughout the day.
We dream in accordance with what we think about during our day-to-day lives,
especially what we think about right before we go to bed.
So you don't want to have nightmares based on thinking about things
that cause you to feel anxiety right before you go to sleep.
And another thing, when you wake up and you rephase with your physical body,
you will pick up where you left off, meaning that if you've been thinking about
things that cause you to feel anxious, you will pick up in an anxious state of mind,
and that will set your day off already on a very bad foot.
So you want to make sure to structure your life,
especially relative to before you go to bed,
in a way that you're building a platform for success for the day
that you're about to lead when you wake up in the morning.
9. I ask someone to rub my feet or tickle my skin softly when I'm laying in bed.
This physical contact makes me feel safe,
and like all human connection, it reduces cortisol levels in my body.
If the idea of physical contact makes you more anxious, you can buy
hand-held massagers, massager pillows, and massage chairs,
to help you wind down at the end of the day.
10. I'm very deliberate about what I eat.
I've structured my diet in a way that stabilizes my blood sugar all day long.
I make sure that I eat small snacks throughout the day,
Instead of eating three large meals, and letting my blood sugar drop in between.
I have found that diet is one of the most important keys to controlling my anxiety,
so it's really important that you try that out relative to yourself as well.
Anxiety is the body reflecting the thoughts that you're thinking,
and if you suffer from anxiety that means that you spend your time
thinking thoughts that vibrate in the body at the frequency of fear.
Questioning your fearful thoughts and changing them
will do more for your anxiety than anything else.
When you feel that feeling of anxiety, try to identify the thought or thoughts
that you're thinking, and question them one by one.
Byron Katie developed a process called The Work,
for questioning your beliefs.
In my opinion it's the best process out there for questioning beliefs,
and I developed a process for changing beliefs.
You can find it on youtube.
I present it in a video titled:
How to change a beleif.
Now remember if you're having a full blown panic attack
I made a video called:
How to stop a Panic Attack.
It's on youtube as well.
In this video I'll lead you through a process that ends panic attacks.
Panic attacks are a little bit different than anxiety.
They're a more intense extension of anxiety.
So if you're having a panic attack,
instead of watching this video, and utilizing these tools,
I want you to go turn to that video, and follow along with that process.
As I said earlier, people who suffer from anxiety have a difficult time believing
that they create their own reality. They don't have a way yet
of fulfilling the basic human need of certainty. The certainty that they can
structure their life to gain pleasure and not experience pain.
This means if you suffer from anxiety
it's extremely important that you're deliberate
about what you put your focus on.
Withdraw your attention from anything that
makes you feel powerless or like a victim,
or like you don't control the circumstances of your life.
Don't watch that news station. Don't watch those movies.
Don't read those books or articles
that make you feel as if the world happens to you,
your life happens to you, and all you can do is cope with it.
Instead, place your attention on any material
that makes you feel empowered,
place your attention on anything that fills you full of the truth
that you can control the reality that you're living in, that it is absolutely
in your hands whether you feel good or feel bad.
This sense of empowerment is the opposite vibration of the feeling of anxiety,
so try out these tips and techniques and see how they work for you.
Have a good week.