High scholars. In this video,
I'm going to conclude my talk about
communication apprehension by looking at physical stress.
Now, just like with psychological stress,
we're first going to look at the symptoms to
help us see is it
physical stress that we're experiencing,
and then we'll look at the cause and how to reverse it.
Now, the symptoms of physical stress when somebody says
I'm feeling nervous and you ask them the symptoms,
there's a very good chance that
these are some of
the things you're going to be talking about.
Muscle tension, shaking, shallow breathing,
the heart racing or sometimes pounding.
Maybe they'll get dry mouth,
feel nausea, butterflies in the tummy.
Sometimes they'll get headaches.
If you want to get this list of symptoms,
go ahead and pause the video
and write down any of these that you want to write down.
What's more important than knowing
specific ones on this list is just
recognizing that these are
physical manifestations of stress
where before was psychological,
it was about thinking.
We got a few more. Reduction in cognition,
we begin to not think as clearly.
We have difficulty remembering things.
We struggle with words, vocabulary.
Sometimes our appetite changes.
Sometimes people lose their appetite
and don't want to eat.
Sometimes people get hungrier,
they become more irritable,
etc., you get the idea.
Physical stress is really
the physical manifestation of stress within us.
Now the best way to really talk about the cause of all of
this is to focus on
a little story or to tell you a little story.
Before I do that though,
when you look at this list of physical symptoms,
it should tell you that this is a physical condition.
I mentioned during the overview video
that sometimes when we're
feeling stress and we might tell someone like,
gosh, I feel really nervous. They go, why, what's wrong?
I got a big test and I'm
just feeling really nervous about it.
They'll say, don't worry about it.
You'll do fine, you're smart.
People like you, whatever.
Then 10 minutes later, they say, What's wrong?
You aren't feeling nervous and stress.
They said, I told you, don't worry about it.
If it's physical stress,
that would be like going up to
somebody who has the flu and say,
don't worry about it, you feel
fine and expecting that to help.
Instead, this physical condition has a physical cause,
and we need to address and reverse that physical cause.
I'm going to tell you a little story of
physical stress because I think
it helps illustrate this cause.
You're not going to be tested on this,
you don't have to worry about that.
4.5 million years ago,
when our ancestors roamed the plains of Africa,
they weren't actually the predators.
See, the earliest humans were actually the prey.
Does anybody know who the predators were?
Who is our natural enemy?
Well, think Africa and could hunt and kill humans?
Immediately, of course,
you think about the large cats, and you would be right.
Now, you've all heard that our
survival response is fight or flight.
In actuality, our survival response
is freeze flight, fight.
You see, when a human would notice a large cat nearby,
you have the fight or flight crowd,
first name fight, they turn and attack the cat.
Well, the cat's 400 pounds,
has big claws, big jaws,
killed them, got them out of the gene pool
before they bre and became us, thank God.
The second group, or the flight or fight crowd,
were only a little bit smarter.
When they saw a large cat, they took off running.
Well, in addition to cats being
much bigger and having natural weapons,
they're also much faster.
They would chase the human down and.
The third group, the group that became us,
had a very well developed what we
call limbic system in their brain.
Now, if you don't mind, go ahead put your hand.
I'll see if I can get this in the camera.
Like this, put your thumb
over your palm and your forefingers over your thumb,
that wouldn't exacerbate an injury or something.
This is a very, very simple model of your brain.
This is the brain stem.
From your knuckles forward
is called the prefrontal cortex.
That's the part of your brain that is in charge of
higher ordered thinking or executive functions.
It's the CEO of your brain.
Where your thumb is deep inside
the brain is called the limbic system.
The limbic system has a variety of jobs,
but its primary job is in survival.
The third group that was facing that cat,
they had a well developed limbic system
and that ended up getting passed down to us.
The limbic system can
short circuit the prefrontal cortex.
In other words, turn logic
off and go into a survival mode.
So they did the least logical
thing anybody could think of.
Large cat nearby, freeze and do nothing.
Now, they probably didn't know this.
But cats, like a lot of animals,
their vision is actually blurry.
Except when something moves.
When something moves, it becomes
crystal clear. It gets attention.
Oftentimes, the person that froze,
the cat would wander off
not even never knowing that they were there,
and then the person would walk off.
If the cat turned and begin to stalk them,
in other words, gigs up,
the cat sees me.
The second thing that this person would do is run.
Now, they're not running to try to get
away from the cat because that's not going to happen.
Sometimes people say, maybe
they're looking for a big rock.
Well, a boulder to stop a large cat is
probably too heavy for this human to
pick up and wheel real quick and easily.
Instead, what this person is oftentimes
looking for is another cat.
Think about that for a moment.
The biggest problem in your world is that there's
a giant cat that's about to
kill you and your solution is,
let's find another one.
Well, if you've ever watched the animal channel,
you know how this works.
If they find another one, the second predator
doesn't attack the prey.
The second predator attacks
the first predator and they fight over the prey.
Meanwhile, the person escapes.
If that doesn't work, as a last option,
the person turns and attacks the cat and gets killed.
Now, this is actually ingrained
in us this freeze flight fight.
If a child is stealing
a cookie from the cookie jar and they don't
know mom's right behind them and
mom suddenly says, Steven.
What's the kid do? They freeze.
No, we don't stay frozen for long
because obviously the gigs up, Mom sees us.
Then the second thing the child does is escape.
They probably don't physically
run because mom knows where my room is.
We use our words, we use our language,
they go, I wasn't stealing a cookie.
They're trying to escape the situation.
I wasn't stealing a cookie.
I was counting the cookies.
I was just moving the cookies around.
I was bringing you a cookie.
You want it? In other words, they're escaping.
When that doesn't work, the third thing is fight,
hopefully not trying to hit mom.
Instead, once again, we use
our language, we use our voice,
they cry and they scream and they try to lay on guilt.
I never get a cookie, whatever.
Hoping that Mom, not
wanting to deal with this pain will finally say,
just be quiet and go to your room.
Then if that doesn't work, then they get punished.
This freeze flight fight,
so when we're perceiving a danger,
when we're perceiving a stressful situation,
which could be anything.
It could be physical danger,
it can also be social danger
of embarrassment or loss of face.
Then our limbic system kicks in and
the first thing it does is
has the chest muscles tense up.
The chest muscles tensing up.
Now, this is the strongest muscle
that you have conscious control over.
Having that muscle group tense
up not only gets it ready for action,
but it creates a heartened shell around
vital organs that the limbic system
knows it needs in order to survive.
Now, if we went from relaxed to stressed,
we would probably notice that.
But we're naturally stressed.
I'm going to pull up the symptoms
here just to show how this is.
We're on symptom number one, muscle tension.
We would notice if we went from relaxed to stressed,
but we live stressful lives naturally.
So we just go from stress to more stressed.
So when our chest muscles tense up,
they constrict around the lungs,
making it harder to breathe.
But because we're not aware of that,
we don't put in more effort to breathe,
so our breathing becomes more shallow.
Sometimes in really tense situations,
people actually forget to breathe.
They have to be reminded to breathe.
For anybody who does scuba diving,
you know that don't die is rule number 2.
Rule Number 1, remember to breathe.
Because when we're in a stressful environment
or stressful situation,
breathing actually becomes more
shallow and sometimes we actually hold our breath.
We get shallow breathing.
Now, when we breathe, we take in
oxygen and we expel carbon dioxide.
By the way, I apologize this video
is probably going to be one of the longer ones.
We expel carbon dioxide.
But when our breathing becomes more shallow,
the blood comes to the lungs to pick up oxygen,
but instead, it delivers carbon dioxide to the body.
Carbon dioxide is like a toxic gas to our muscles.
When the carbon dioxide is delivered to the muscles,
the muscles begin to cram,
they begin to tense up and it creates an internal energy.
That internal energy has to
escape and the way it escapes as we begin to shake.
You might notice that your hands
shake more than most of your body.
The reason for that is because
the muscles in your neck and
your shoulders can't escape
directly. We don't shake our neck.
The tension makes its way down to
the extremities and it escapes through our shaking.
When there is carbon
dioxide rich blood reaches the brain,
the brain realizes we don't have enough oxygen and
instructs the heart to beat
faster because that's the way the brain gets more oxygen.
Is the heart beating faster,
so more blood gets to the lungs to
deliver more oxygen to the body.
The heart begins to beat faster,
but all it does is deliver more
blood to the lungs that don't have
enough oxygen and that delivers to the rest of
the body and it just has more carbon dioxide.
At this point, the brain
realizes this is potentially an existential threat.
The existence of the brain is in danger.
I have to have oxygen to
survive and the way I know to get oxygen didn't work.
Now the brain is going to try to
conserve as much oxygen as it
possibly can so that then it can try to solve.
How do I get more oxygen?
The first thing the brain is going to
do is it's going to begin to slow down
the oxygen flow to things that it doesn't need right now.
For example, the brain
doesn't really need advanced
cognitive thinking right now,
doesn't need to remember algebra at the moment.
That might be upsetting to
you because what might be causing the stress is
that you had a big algebra test and
the brain is concluding it doesn't really need math.
That's why people in stressful situations
will make very simple mathematical errors.
It's like seven plus four, eight.
It also doesn't really need detailed memory,
and so the memory becomes more difficult.
We don't need an advanced vocabulary in this situation,
and that's why we
oftentimes have difficulty finding the words to say,
or if we're talking to
somebody and they ask us a question,
sometimes we have difficulty understanding it.
If things that you're stressed about is
a big history test and you look
down, you read the question.
You recognize that the words are English,
but you have a lot of difficulty trying
to figure out what is it they're asking.
I mentioned before doing
consulting work for human resource departments and
sometimes an interviewer will ask
a question and the person being
interviewed will give a great answer,
but that wasn't what was asked.
The reason is because
their vocabulary is affected by the stress they're under.
The brain knows it doesn't need muscle memory.
Muscle memory isn't necessarily that
important in that circumstance and that's
the reason somebody who makes 100 free throws in
a row in practice games
on the line and sometimes they miss the rim.
Or a quarterback playing in a big game
will throw the ball and it will go flying
off completely different than
what they intended to throw to.
It's because they're relying on muscle memory and
the muscle memory is basically being interfered
with or possibly been turned off.
The brain knows it doesn't need fine motor skills.
That's the reason when we're in stressful situations,
it's difficult for us to do things that
are minor fine motor skills.
It needs improved gross motor skills.
In stressful situations, your gross motor skills actually
improve because it might
need that in a survival situation.
When that's not enough, in other words,
the brain still is losing oxygen.
The next thing it's going to do is it identifies
a bodily system that it doesn't need right now.
Of course, you can't turn off
the nervous system because then you die.
Circulatory system can't really turn that one off.
The respiratory system would be ironic if it turns that
off since it's trying to deal with a lack of oxygen.
It doesn't really need digestion right now,
so it slows the digestive system way down.
This is where you get things like dry mouth,
butterflies in the tummy, nausea, etc.
If that's not enough, in other words,
it's still running an oxygen deficit
as a last ditch thing,
almost a last ditch thing,
the brain will begin to pull
all the oxygen rich blood to the core and to the head.
The reason for that is because the brain can
survive without your hands,
your feet, your arms, and your legs,
it doesn't want to lose those things.
But if it loses the core and the head, it dies.
It pulls oxygen rich blood to the core end of the head,
and you begin to feel very flushed very warm.
Meanwhile, your hands and
your feet are beginning to get cold.
Now, because oxygen rich blood is pulled away,
you don't necessarily feel them as well.
They begin to go a little bit numb.
But if you take your hands in that situation,
you put them to your head or to your core,
it's shocking how cold your hands are and
how warm or hot your head or core is.
If that's not enough, as a last ditch effort,
the brain shuts the body down and the person passes out.
While unconscious, the brain
restores a rhythmic breathing pattern
to re-oxygenate the blood,
expel excess carbon dioxide,
and that solves the oxygen deficit.
Once the oxygen deficit is solved,
it turns the body back on in
reverse order and that's
the story. It's also the end of the story.
Back to things that can be on the test now.
As you listen to that story, what was missing?
What would you expect to play
a prominent role in
the story and yet it wasn't even there?
Of course,
the answer is that
the cause of physical stress has
nothing to do with the communication event.
The speech isn't what's causing your physical stress.
Asking the person out on a big day,
going in for a big job interview,
talking to a person of authority,
the big math test, whatever it is,
isn't actually what caused it.
What caused it was inadequate breath support.
It was the brain's natural reaction
to not getting enough oxygen
and having too much carbon dioxide build up.
The solution to reverse this is rather easy.
Now, you'll notice at the end of the story,
the way the brain reacted to
now go back to a normal state,
restore rhythmic breathing pattern,
re-oxygenate the blood,
expel excess carbon dioxide and everything was okay.
The solution to these symptoms,
rather than having the brain
go all the way to the end there,
is to start solving it now.
The first thing I want to talk to you
about is breathing with your diaphragm,
what we sometimes call diaphragmatic breathing.
Now, what I'd like you to do is put one hand on
your upper chest and you can't see down below,
but one hand on your abdomen. Then breathe normally.
Now as you inhale and exhale,
I want you to make note of which hand is moving.
Now, if you put the hand on your chest on
your lower chest and you breathe,
there's a good chance it's going to move some
because you're covering the lux.
But upper chest and abdomen or tummy,
the one on the chest should not be moving as you breathe.
The hand that's on your abdomen should be moving.
If the hand that is on your chest is moving,
what that means is that you're relying on
your chest muscles to inhale and exhale.
It makes sense why we would do that.
Our chest muscles are the strongest muscle
we have conscious control over.
However, because our chest muscles
are located above the lungs,
using our chest muscles can only fill our lungs
to approximately one third of their capacity.
Now, below the lungs is
a very thin muscle membrane called the diaphragm,
much weaker than the chest.
However, because of where it's located,
it can fill your lungs to full capacity.
That means diaphragmatic breathing
potentially can get you
almost three times the amount
of oxygen as breathing with your chest muscles can.
We can breathe in
almost three times as much oxygen as breathing with
your chest muscles can and
expel an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
Now, when you're sleeping, you breathe
with your diaphragm naturally.
Babies breathe with their diaphragm
pretty much all the time.
The reason that when we're awake,
oftentimes we breathe with our chest muscles is
because of the tension and stress we feel during the day.
The way to breathe with
your diaphragm is to build a muscle memory.
That way, when you breathe, you
naturally breathe with your diaphragm.
Now, some people like singers,
theater stage actors because
they have to project their voice and such.
Athletes, they naturally build
their diaphragm muscle memory up.
When they breathe normally during the course of the day,
they breathe with their diaphragm.
They almost never use
their chest muscles or rely
heavily on their chest muscles to breathe.
How do you build this muscle membrane?
Simply through practice.
You can practice simply
by putting a hand on your abdomen or
a hand on your upper chest and make sure that
the only thing that's going in and
out while you're breathing is your abdomen.
If you put your hands
behind your back and lift them up high in your back,
or on your head.
When your hands are on your head or high up in your back,
it stretches your chest muscles
out so your chest muscles can't be used to breathe.
You just breathe normally
and you're forced to breathe with your diaphragm.
These things help build muscle memory,
they strengthen the diaphragm,
and it becomes natural to breathe with your diaphragm,
which again, breathes in three times
roughly as much oxygen
and expels a lot of carbon dioxide.
Now if you're feeling physical stress,
one technique you can use
is something called four by four breathing.
Some of you may have heard of
this called square breathing,
which is perfectly fine name for it.
I prefer the name 4 by 4
because the name actually says what you're doing.
The technique is using your diaphragm,
you inhale through your nose for four seconds,
pause, exhale through your mouth
for four seconds, and then keep repeating.
What this is going to do is it's going
to restore rhythmic breathing pattern,
inhale, pause, exhale, inhale, pause,
exhale, and it's going to breathe in a lot of oxygen,
and then exhale a lot of carbon dioxide.
Now if you're really stressed,
inhaling for four seconds is going to be almost
impossible because your body
is struggling getting oxygen.
You can only breathe in for a second
and a half, that's fine.
Next breath, try to maybe do two seconds and
just build up to where you can inhale for four seconds,
pause for a moment, exhale for four seconds,
and the physical symptoms that are caused
by inadequate breath support should melt away.
I mentioned that this was probably going to be
a long video and it sure was.
Thank you very much for being so patient
and watching the video,