The Only Anxiety Video You'll Ever Need

Is your anxiety keeping you stuck, or is it really helping you? Kristina Orlova explains how generalised anxiety affects the body and mind, why the brain treats uncertainty as a threat, and why avoidance can make anxiety stronger. She shares simple strategies, like moving and slowing your breathing, and explains why the thought-challenging that helps with general anxiety can backfire with OCD.

Transcript

So welcome back to the show. Today I want to talk about something a lot of people deal with and that's good old-fashioned anxiety. And before we get into it, I kind of want to make one quick distinction because on this show we also talk about OCD. But today we're not talking about OCD. OCD is a different pattern where people get intrusive thoughts, They feel driven to do certain things to reduce the anxiety. But today we're going to be talking about the kind of anxiety that most people experience at some point in their life. Work stress, Health worries, Money, Relationships, Big decisions, Waiting for something important, That kind of anxiety. So what anxiety actually is, Is basically your brain trying to prepare you for problems. So your brain is constantly scanning the environment. It's always asking things like, You know, Is something wrong? Is something about to go wrong? Do we need to get ready? And when it thinks the answer might be yes, It turns on the alarm system. So your heart starts to speed up, Your body tenses, Your mind starts running through scenarios. And the tricky part is that your brain reacts really the same way to uncertainty and something in the future as it does to real danger. So even when nothing bad is happening, Your brain might still go into what it thinks is problem solving mode. And as we all know, Sometimes with anxiety, We think we're solving problems, Were not. So for some people, It shows up in the body. People can have tight chest, A racing heart, An upset stomach, Trouble sleeping, Feeling restless. For some people, This can show up in their thoughts. So things like your brain starts to jump ahead, Like what if this goes wrong? Or what if I made a mistake? Or what if something bad happens? So your brain is trying to get that clarity, That certainty, But life doesn't always give us certainty. And so that's where anxiety can go. Well, It can grow, Right? Because we want to be able to predict the future in many ways. So. Now here's where it's really helpful to clarify the difference between anxiety and OCD. With general anxiety, The thoughts are usually about everyday concerns, Your job, Your health, Your family, Your future. With OCD, The brain gets stuck in a loop where a thought keeps coming back and the person feels like they have to do something to make the anxiety go away. So that might be checking something, Asking for reassurance, Repeating something in their mind or doing certain routines. So both involve anxiety, But the cycle is different. And because the cycle is different, The treatment approach and kind of what we do it is different too. So. What we want to really look at is that anxiety is treatable. And one of the most well-researched treatments for anxiety is something called cognitive behavioral therapy, Or CBT. So it can sound fancy, But the ideas are actually pretty straightforward. CBT basically looks at three things, Your thoughts, Your behaviors, And how those affect how you feel. So, When people change a few patterns in those areas, Anxiety often improves quite a bit. Let me walk you through a couple examples. Okay, So let's say. One of the biggest drivers of anxiety is the way our brain jumps to the worst case scenario. So for example, I'm probably going to mess this up, Or this is going to go badly, Or what if something terrible happens? So CBT teaches people to slow that down and question the thought. You can ask yourself things like, Well, What evidence do I actually have for this? Is there another possible explanation? What would I say to a friend in this situation? Most of the time, Our brain is predicting the worst, But not the actual most likely outcome. So just noticing that can take some of the power out of the thought and relax our anxiety a little bit. Another tool that we could look at is spotting some thinking traps. So we can look at that our brains fall into certain patterns when we're anxious. And so some of the common patterns could be things like jumping straight to the worst case scenario. Assuming we know what other people are thinking or treating a possibility like it's guaranteed. So when people start recognizing those patterns, They can step back and say, Okay, My brain is doing that thing again. I'm jumping to that conclusion. I'm catastrophizing and that alone can also help loosen the anxiety. There's another tool. And that's changing what you do. So another big part of anxiety is behavior. When something makes us anxious, Our instinct is usually to avoid it, Avoid the phone call, Avoid the meeting, Avoid the situation. I've certainly done it. The problem is avoidance actually teaches the brain that the situation must have been dangerous. So the anxiety gets stronger the next time. One of the most helpful things people do in CBT is gradually facing the thing that they've been avoiding, Not all at once, But step by step. And as they do that, The brain learns something really, Really important, Which is that I can handle this. And that's actually how we build confidence. Now, Another tool is we can look at seeing, Can we actually calm the body a little bit? So anxiety isn't just thoughts, It can be physical. So calming the body can make a real difference when we're dealing with generalized anxiety. A couple of things we could do that are pretty simple. One is slow breathing, Especially longer exhales. Another one is movement, Things like walking, Stretching, Even kind of shaking out the tension. They send the signals to your system that you're safe and that your body can settle a little bit. And when it does, Often the mind follows. So anxiety is really, Really common. It's a part of being human. So the goal isn't just to eliminate it completely. The goal is really to learn how to respond it does show up so that it doesn't run the whole show. And the encouraging thing is that people get much better at this with the right tools and practice. So if anxiety has been showing up in your life lately, You're definitely not alone. And there are real strategies that can help. And I just want to thank you for being here. I want to thank you for, You know, Following this podcast and following all the work that we've been doing and talking about OCD and anxiety. And I want to make sure that you have clarity around, You know, The tools we've covered today are great for generalized anxiety. Some of the things we've covered today we might not use for OCD. So this is where being able to see a specialist who really knows the difference between OCD, Generalized anxiety, Social anxiety, Phobias, Body focus, Repetitive behaviors, Body dysmorphia, And so on, Is really helpful. Because the last thing you want is just to spend your precious time and energy doing a therapy that actually isn't meant for that particular issue. So the thing I'll leave you with is that quite often with OCD work, If we're just doing standard CBT practice, Like looking for evidence for or against our intrusive OCD thought, That usually isn't going to work. It's actually going to get people stuck and want to evaluate more, Which increases the compulsive rumination process where we're analyzing it, Trying to figure our thoughts out, Trying to dig into it. But all that we come up with is always, We come up empty, We come up short. And so that is not the right tool for OCD, But it is a great tool for something like generalized anxiety. I hope that you've got something out of today's episode and I'll see you in the next one. Next one.