Techniques For Coping With Anxiety

Our modern world seems to have created an environment that makes us all very susceptible to anxiety. The fact that we know a lot about a little, plus unnatural lighting and noises, combined with a lifestyle that is always moving at a 100 miles an hour all come together to create and exacerbate the problem. There are many coping techniques and we all need to find out what works best for us. This lecture provides a few methods.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Sean and welcome.

Today we're going to talk about the techniques used to cope with anxiety.

First and foremost,

It is important to differentiate between an environmentally triggered anxiety and anxiety that is actually due to illness.

If anxiety is due to illness,

Then it is much better to visit a doctor,

Of course,

And fix up the problem.

In traditional medicines,

For example,

A weak heart always causes what they call FAI,

Fatigue,

Anxiety and insomnia.

One then will use tonics to tonify the heart blood with herbs such as dried lychee,

Which in the long run may help to strengthen the heart,

Blood,

Whereby the fatigue,

Anxiety and insomnia disappear.

Some anxiety is normal,

But chronic anxiety,

Of course,

Is abnormal and can cause many problems.

Chronic anxiety is really a mismatch disease.

The list of mismatched disease is far and varied and is actually truly massive.

A mismatch disease is a disease created by the fact that we were meant to live environment A,

Which is what we've been living in for the last 299,

000 years.

Now we are living in environment B for the last 2,

000 years and our minds and our bodies are just simply not adapted for them.

One example is our wisdom teeth.

How come now we suddenly need to get our wisdom teeth taken out,

Where for the last 299,

000 years we didn't need to?

This is caused by the fact that we are not chewing hard enough food when we are children,

Whereby our jaws are 10% smaller than what they used to be.

With the jaw being 10% smaller,

Your wisdom teeth no longer have space to grow outwards and therefore become impacted and then we need to get them taken out.

So chronic anxiety is also seen as a mismatch disease,

But we will discuss this further in a moment.

In terms of the history of anxiety,

You might be interested to know that the word anxiety comes from Greek,

Anko,

Which means to choke.

A more excessive type of anxiety is panic.

Panic comes from the Greek god Pan.

Pan was the Greek god of the wild and used to shake the bushes when lonely travellers were travelling on their roads at night or when they were travelling with their carriages on long journeys through the forest.

So,

Anxiety and depression are normally grouped together and in my personal opinion,

This is a very odd grouping.

The reason for this is that anxiety and depression tend to be two ends of the same scale.

Sometimes they can come together,

But that does seem to be relatively rare.

So for example,

In traditional medicines,

If someone has anxiety,

They always use medicines that are extremely sour,

Because sour kind of astringes and holds back the release of stress hormones.

And they also use tranquilizing types of medicines such as oyster shells.

So,

Sour restrains and oyster shells is heavy,

So it tranquilizes.

When it comes to depression,

The herbs tend to be completely opposite.

They're very light and very pungent and increase movement of energy and blood around the body.

So,

One slows movement,

One increases movement.

In diet and lifestyle,

These same methods are followed.

So for example,

In depression,

We want the person to move more,

Move more,

Move more,

Wake up more,

Exercise more,

Do more,

Have more stimulants,

Etc.

,

Etc.

Now,

When it comes to anxiety,

The diet and the lifestyle needs to follow the opposite principles.

So,

There needs to be less vigorous activity,

Less vigorous movement.

Stimulants need to be taken away such as coffee,

Tea and chilli.

One needs to have more sleep instead of less sleep.

One needs to reduce bright lights,

Loud noises,

Flashing lights and any activities such as gambling that are also mental stimulants,

Even movies that are very mentally stimulating.

The foods then also follow the principles as mentioned before.

The foods need to be sour as the main governing food.

So,

Foods such as sauerkraut,

Kefir,

Vinegar,

Sour berries,

These are all good examples.

One does though just need to be aware that sour foods such as kefir can sometimes slow down the digestive system a bit.

One needs to be wary that if that is happening,

Those sour foods need to be reduced.

When it comes to anxiety,

At the end,

Always needs to deal with the root cause,

The root problem.

This always comes down to fear.

Anxiety is just another form of fear,

Except that it generally adds on the excessive thinking loops of the worst case scenario.

Anxiety also always has triggers.

A trigger could be,

For example,

Going to the doctor or doing a public talk.

But for a lot of people,

The triggers tend to sometimes be very odd things or sometimes unusual things.

So,

Of course,

One may think to themselves that there's one way to deal with this,

Just take away the triggers.

In the end though,

This doesn't fix the root cause of the problem because in life,

Of course,

It is inevitable that those triggers will at some stage come forth again.

This means that to overcome the anxiety,

One needs to conquer the fear.

Conquering the fear though needs to be done in a very,

Very slow process and in one's own time and own pace.

Let's say you have a fear of flying.

It's not a good idea to jump into a four-seater aeroplane and fly for five hours.

It is,

Of course,

Much better to do a 30-minute flight on a jumbo jet and slowly increase that time over months to years.

In this way,

One can conquer the fear or even if the fear remains,

It is much more controllable.

It's also important to mention that in terms of overcoming these fears,

Which cause so much anxiety,

You need to pat yourself when you are able to conquer it.

For example,

Let's say you had a public talk.

Maybe for many people,

A public talk is not a big problem at all.

But for you,

It is a big deal and you went out there and you did it.

And more importantly,

You had the courage to do it.

At this moment,

You stop and you say,

I had the courage to do this.

Pat yourself on the back and put this experience into your back pocket.

And next time you have the public talk,

Remind yourself,

I did it in the past.

I had the courage to do it so I can do it again.

Anxiety also needs to be sorted or treated in a special way.

You cannot treat the anxiety while you are having the anxiety.

You can only treat the anxiety while you are relaxed.

So one needs to remember that,

Otherwise it becomes very difficult.

So let's just recap here of the techniques that we've spoken about.

First of all is sour foods.

Secondly is an overall calming,

Non-stimulating lifestyle.

Thirdly is conquering the fear that is causing the anxiety at your own time and in your own pace.

The fourth method is to use meditation.

Meditation can be done in two different ways.

First of all,

You can use meditation to slow down the spinning of the mind over time.

The meditation you choose doesn't matter as long as it's a non-stimulating meditation.

This means that one needs to be careful that they're not chanting or over chanting.

Meditation needs to be relaxation and needs to be sending the energy downwards,

Not upwards.

When one is having a lot of anxiety,

It's very hard and nearly impossible to meditate.

But what you can do is use some meditative techniques.

Whenever anybody's anxious,

There is undoubtedly a problem with the breath.

And normally it is that one is holding the breath.

So what one needs to do is take a normal breath in and then take a slower breath out.

Do this four or five times,

Then stop.

And then maybe an hour later,

You need to do it again because you notice you're holding your breath.

You can do this throughout the day.

The second one is a relaxation technique.

Again,

It's not something that you're going to spend hours on doing.

Instead,

It's going to be something that you're going to do for a short period of time.

So what one needs to do is look at the places that hold stress and make sure they're relaxed.

So you need to make sure you're not squeezing your eyes,

You're not squeezing your eyebrows,

You're not cleansing your jaw,

Your shoulders are lift up and you're not squeezing your stomach.

So what this means is that every hour or so you check,

Relax my eyes,

Relax my jaw,

Relax my neck,

Relax my stomach.

You also need to be careful to try not to loop,

To loop your thoughts again and again and again,

Especially when looping thoughts are always about worst case scenario or another worst worst case scenario.

There are a few methods for dealing with this.

Some people say label the thought.

So let's say you keep looping your thoughts in a public talk.

We say,

I think I'm going to embarrass myself by stuttering.

Well,

You can label that as thought one.

Sometimes when you label them,

The thoughts are unable to grow in strength.

There are many methods,

But this is one of them.

There are some techniques used when you're actually in the moment of anxiety.

Normally,

Let's say for example,

You're doing a public talk again.

Once you start it,

All the anxiety is gone because you're no longer able to think about it.

Sometimes you are in a situation where that thing which is causing anxiety is in a type of scenario where it's very hard for you to forget about it.

In this way,

You can use two methods.

One is counting.

One,

Two,

Three.

This will help your excess thoughts and to stop thinking about it.

Some people even sing.

Another way is to use your index finger on your thigh and tap.

One,

Two,

Three.

All these different methods can be used while you're in that anxious scenario.

I hope these techniques have some benefit for you and are of use.

Reviews

Really excellent talk! I look forward to exploring more of your work.

Very helpful information.
Thank you. More!

Very helpful 👌🌸

Very interesting and helpful! I have personally found meditation and practicing mindfulness most beneficial for me. Thank you!

Very interesting
Thanks

Some great tools there, thank you.

Absolutely Great tips,need these tools often. Thank you 🙏

Very interesting information! Thank you. 💜🙏😁

Very beneficial and the techniques are much appreciated! Thank you!

Thanks, good information!

Very helpful. Thank you.

Some really great suggestions that anyone can use.
One thing that has been helpful to me is to pop on a talk (with earphones) from Insight Timer and go for a walk. The talk focussed my mind on something other than my anxiety trigger and the walk eases my jitters. And I usually learn something too. 😊

Lots of great advice! I’d like to add that anxiety and depression can coexist even though they are different. Broadly speaking, depression is negative preoccupation with one’s past, while anxiety is negative preoccupation with one’s future. Another comparison is flailing in a deep, dark, yet calm river, while slowly moving toward rocks and rapids ahead. Since many individuals experience both states, treatment plans for those individuals need to account for both. That may be why they are often grouped together.

Thank you for the insight, namaste!! 🙏🏻