Mind Manners
Mind Manners
The Unexpected Secret to Taming Stress and Anxiety
Ready for a counterintuitive take on managing stress and anxiety? Brace yourself because this episode could rock your beliefs. I invite you to challenge the well-worn advice of "relax and calm down", arguing that this might be escalating your anxiety rather than soothing it. Together, we dissect the complexities of the rebound effect, delve into the risky business of suppressing emotions, and highlight the importance of understanding our emotional experiences. You'll gain a whole new perspective on the mapping of emotions and how they shape our reactions.
But don't worry, I'm not leaving you with all theory and no practice. I got some groundbreaking, yet simple solutions at hand that focus on mindfulness and acceptance as powerful tools against anxiety. You'll learn why observing your anxious thoughts and sensations without judgement can be a game-changer, and how the art of redirection can morph your anxiety into a manageable experience. Uncover the secret to embracing the power of doing nothing, and find out how these unconventional methods can revolutionize your approach towards stress and anxiety. So, are you ready to pave your way towards a balanced and peaceful life? Tune in.
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The more I work with people who are struggling with anxiety and depression and overall stress, the more I realize how our minds can play so many tricks on us and sometimes we just have to rely on our bodies and our biology to bring us back to balance. In this session today I want to talk about why trying to relax and calm down when you're stressed or anxious can actually backfire and make it worse. This goes against conventional thinking, I know, and what you might have heard of, but yes, trying to relax can actually make you more anxious.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Mind Manners, hosted by licensed psychotherapist Albert Nguyen. Albert helps his clients overcome past trauma, change their mindset and accelerate their personal and professional development. This podcast covers a wide range of mental health and self-development topics, with each episode offering an actionable step towards a better you. If you're on a wellness journey, keep listening.
Speaker 1:So you probably are wondering shouldn't we relax and calm down when we're stressed, and isn't that what we're supposed to do? Well, let me ask you this question have you ever tried to stop worrying? When you're worrying, it doesn't work right. In fact, it does backfire, leading to a known phenomenon called a rebound effect. Trying to suppress or control certain thoughts or emotions actually leads to an increase in the frequency and intensity of those emotions and thoughts. For years now, I've been telling a lot of my patients that how you respond and react to your emotional experiences creates a message on that experience. If you do it often, it basically creates a map of meaning around those emotions. You're basically giving them a prescription which can either lead to maladaptive or adaptive habits. Here's why this happens. When you try to stop worrying or try to calm yourself down, your mind becomes hyper-focused on the very thing you're trying to alleviate. This increased attention can make the experience more intense and persistent. It's like shining a flashlight towards a dark hallway. You start to notice things that weren't there before. I'm sure you understand that trying to suppress anxiety, stress or emotions tend to not work that well. It piles up and then you can blow up the mind. Is very interesting. It's like a reflex muscle and it likes to bounce back to thoughts or worries that you try to avoid. It's like me telling you right now to not think of a pink elephant, yet the image of the pink elephant pops up into your mind. What's more, trying to willfully and forcibly relax, calm down or not worry can create or add additional stress, unnecessary pressure that you need to perform or succeed in trying to reduce your anxiety or stress, which what often happens that I see from my patients is that they become more and more self-critical. Like I can't calm down, this coping skill doesn't work, something's wrong with me and I just can't do it. This only increases the anxiety and stress and overwhelm and can lead to another vicious cycle on top of a vicious cycle. So what can you do? Does that mean I'm telling you not to try and calm down or use coping skills? I'll get to that in a moment.
Speaker 1:For now, I want you to understand that, in essence, the more you attempt to forcefully relax or calm down in response to an anxious state or stressful state, the more you are likely to magnify your focus on your anxiety and inadvertently intensify it and ultimately condition your mind to interpret the emotional experience of anxiety as a threat and that you must alleviate yourself or suppress it somehow. So let me be 100% with you you do not need to do anything to calm down. In fact, you should not train yourself to be afraid of your own body and how your body is responding. The truth is, if you do nothing at all and simply sit and wait, your body, in fact, will calm itself down. Most problems with anxiety and stress come from the actions you take in response to it, not the anxiety itself. I say this often and I will say it here Anxiety itself cannot kill you.
Speaker 1:It may feel like crap and it may feel like you're dying sometimes, but it cannot hurt you and it's fine to experience anxiety in your body and you should learn to be okay with it and hold space for it. It's your body, after all. If you can't feel safe in your own body, no matter where you go, run to or hide, anxiety will be there. You can't run from yourself. Anxiety is a human experience. So, instead of relaxing, trust your body. When you do this, you unlearn that anxiety is something you should get rid of or be afraid of, to relearning that it's just a biological experience and it's okay. It really is okay. Your body is built to bring you back to balance. Let me solidify this concept even more.
Speaker 1:There's a popular TED talk and book called the Upside of Stress, and a researcher of this book found that believing that stress is harmful can actually make stress more detrimental to your health. And the research also suggests that when people view stress as helpful, it prepares you to face challenges and embrace stress as a natural response, Our body releases more of a hormone called oxytocin, often referred to as the bonding hormone. This hormone helps counteract some of the negative physiological effects of stress. This reminds me of the Buddhist quote what we think we become. Of course, it's important to note that individual experiences with stress vary and the impact of stress on health is influenced by a multitude of factors. But I think understanding the power of belief and how you create your own placebo just by how you think about something, can help you in many ways. It may not be the only solution, but it is a solution.
Speaker 1:So what do we do? From my personal experience and my experience with working with patients who struggle with OCD and if you understand anything with OCD, it can get very intense the number one thing I recognize is that it's not the anxiety, stress or even the obsession that is the major problem. Yes, it's emotionally draining and it's not a good feeling, but the problem tends to come from the reaction and actions you take that would determine how it would be conditioned. The key is this you truly don't need to do anything to relax. It will happen, as long as you let the natural process run its course. In therapy, I tell my patients to hold space for it and sit with it. Just let it be and be with it. It's like the weather forecast when it rains, we can't stop the rain, so just let it rain. So why does this work? The same reason why meditation works it allows our body to regulate itself.
Speaker 1:Without getting too far into the science and jargon, each of us you, me, all humans have a nervous system with something called the autonomic nervous system, or ANS. This is responsible for the unconscious body functions such as breathing, digestion and heart beating. The ANS has two subsystems, called the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. When we're stressed or anxious, it activates the sympathetic nervous system, or more commonly known as the phytophyte response. It's the parasympathetic nervous system that calms the physical body down through slowing down the breath, decreasing the heart rate. These things happen automatically on their own, so you don't really need to try and intentionally relax when you're feeling anxious. All you need to do is sit and just trust your body. Trying to control and calm yourself down can often make it harder for the parasympathetic nervous system to do its job. This is why, the more we try to avoid stress, anxiety or worries, they actually get worse. So let's talk about what you can do instead. Instead of trying to immediately subdue your anxiety, trust your biology. Sit with it and don't try to calm down. Let your body do what it's built to do. And while you're sitting and holding space for your body to do its work and job, here are some things to keep in mind that you can apply.
Speaker 1:While the body is working, use mindfulness. Rather than trying to change your anxious state, practice mindfulness. Just observe your anxious thoughts and sensations in your body without judgment, allowing them to exist without resistance. I often describe this as being a nature and allowing the wind to pass by. Experience the wind. Don't resist it, let it pass. As you practice mindfulness, you will naturally become more self-compassionate. Just by acknowledging that anxiety is a natural response can allow you to let go of the need to control it and eventually let go of any self-criticism, because nothing is wrong with you for having this biological experience.
Speaker 1:Another thing you can do during this time of holding the space is shifting your attention. This may seem contradictory to the concept of doing nothing, but for some of us starting out, especially kids, we have a hard time just sitting and doing nothing. So I encourage using redirection. Think of this as planned ignoring. You're not really trying to calm down, you're just redirecting your attention and focus away from the anxious experience so that the body can do its job while you go back to just living your life. Try engaging in activities that captures your attention and brings you to the present moment, and you might even forget that you were feeling anxious to begin with. This redirection can naturally help calm your mind without actually trying to calm your mind.
Speaker 1:And finally practice acceptance. Accept that anxiety is a part of your experience at the moment. Allow it to be present without trying to change it. My hope for you as you practice this is to change how you feel in your own body, to have a healthy relationship with your emotions, pleasant and unpleasant, because they are a part of you and they are the very essence of being human. Remember this you may feel horrible, but these feelings can't harm you, and through exposure therapy of just sitting with it and doing essentially nothing, you prove to yourself that you're not going to die just for feeling this. I want you to give yourself permission to be grounded in your body. Imagine your body becoming like the mountain grounded, solid and still.
Speaker 1:Before I end this session, I want to also encourage you to embrace the power of doing nothing when you're not anxious or worried or having a biological experience. Intentionally create time and space for yourself to do nothing, whether it's a few minutes of meditation or sitting in a quiet space. Also, disconnect to connect with yourself. Disconnect from technology, electronic devices, screens and anything that can distract you from being fully present. And please, go get some vitamin N, and by vitamin N I mean spend some time in nature, where you can enjoy and experience the natural environment through your senses, like a dog sticking their head out of the car window and feeling the wind. Remember that doing nothing doesn't mean being unproductive. Rather, it's an intentional practice that allows you to slow down, reset and recharge and appreciate the value of stillness in an increasingly busy world Because, truthfully, only time that matters is now, right now. Now is all you have.
Speaker 1:My final message to you the feelings can't hurt you physically. Don't be afraid of them. Your emotions, especially the hard ones, are there for a reason. They matter and they provide you insight into what's important to you. So practice and train yourself to hold that space and let yourself know you are safe when you react or even respond, even with the best intentions. You can easily send yourself a message that whatever emotional stress or anxiety you're having is a problem, that you must do something about it.
Speaker 1:This conditioning can lead to you feeling unsafe in your own body and that you need to calm down every time you feel this. Your emotions is never the problem. Your situation may be the problem, but not your emotion. We need to reframe and retrain this and remind ourselves that emotions are neither good nor bad. They just are, and what we believe or think of them makes them the way they are, and it's because of the belief that drives and influence the actions we take.
Speaker 1:So the next time you are feeling stressed, upset or anxious, know that your body has got your back. Sometimes we just have to get out of our own way for things to work. Trust your physical being and take space and hold space so that you can have this biological experience. Over time, you will build a healthier relationship with yourself and this self-trust will always be beside you. And, what's more, when you learn to contain these powerful emotions effectively, you will be able to leverage and channel them in ways that will enhance your ability to live with courage and bravery. We will talk more about this in another session. Take care everyone.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to Mind Manners with Albert Nguyen. We hope you found value in this episode. If you'd like to work with Albert one-on-one, visit optimindcounselingcom to learn more about his private practice. Thanks for joining us. If you'd like to join a community of like-minded individuals, search Mind Manners podcast community on Facebook and join our group to connect with others on their wellness journeys. Finally, if you haven't already done so, please write us a five-star review on Apple Podcast and let us know you're enjoying the show.
