Mindfulness For Anxiety - Explanation

Explanation on how to use meditation to ease and calm anxiety. By allowing our mind and body to become familar with feeling a deep sense of safety, we start to see clearly and are able tlet go of unneccessary worries.

Transcript

So this is a short track just to explain a little bit more behind the practice for anxiety.

So being anxious is normal,

We're prone to looking for the negative in life more than we are the positive.

So if you saw a number of faces,

Some happy some unhappy or angry or negative,

You'll notice the negative faces much quicker than you will the happy faces.

Interestingly two-thirds of adjectives to describe people in the English language are actually negative adjectives rather than positive adjectives.

So just generally in life we're more prone to look for what's going wrong or could go wrong than actually what's going right.

And this was very useful when we were evolving on the Serengeti thousands and thousands of years ago because our ancestors who are more prone to worry and when they heard a rustle in the bushes thought that that might be something that could threaten them,

They would run away and they would never know whether or not it was actually something that you should have been scared of or not.

So let's say nine times out of ten they were wrong but the one time that it could have been a threat they weren't around to actually see if it was.

So they passed on their negative genes to us which was useful.

Whereas if you can imagine that some of our ancestors looked out for the positive or just had a more realistic view of reality and actually nine times out of ten they were right the rustle in the bushes was nothing to be scared of it was just a squirrel.

So they didn't run away when they heard this rustle in the bushes.

Now the one time they got it wrong they got eaten and they didn't manage to pass their genes down to us.

So even though they had a more realistic perception of reality just getting it wrong one time means it's unlikely that their genes will survive and come pass down to us.

So this is how this negativity bias has actually evolved.

So in a way we can be thankful we're here today because of it but the annoying thing now is that generally our lives are very very very rarely in real danger.

You know if we mess up on a presentation or people laugh at us it's not going to be life-threatening.

If we don't hand in the report on time it's not going to be life-threatening.

If we feel ostracized from the group it's not going to be life-threatening.

Years ago maybe it could be if we got ostracized from the group maybe we wouldn't get you know food and the shelter and things we needed to survive.

But the thing is our body responds as if the world is still as threatening and dangerous as it was years ago.

And so this fight-and-flight response kicks in and we we genuinely feel physically threatened and feeling that way in today's world isn't actually helpful for us.

So when we're feeling stressed about a presentation getting into the fight-and-flight mode doesn't help us think more clearly and give a good presentation.

When we have a deadline coming up if we get paralyzed by fear where years ago if you're paralyzed you'd either kind of run away from it or you'd be dead still and you'd freeze that would be useful because it'd be likely to help you to survive.

But in a situation where you need to perform well and think clearly these anxious responses really don't help us.

So you know we should be thankful for the fact that we do have a negativity bias and that's allowed us to be here today but really we need to adapt our minds for the environments in which we're in.

So what this meditation does is it helps you to realize that you are safe and that's the key because when we're feeling safe and we're feeling content our mind is much clearer.

It's not constantly looking out for the negative and it can see things more clearly it's more able to problem-solve.

And so what meditation does is it allows us to become more familiar with feeling safe.

And so in this meditation there's really kind of three parts to it.

The first is just calming the nervous system and calming the mind down and the next part is actually realizing that we are truly safe.

This is the reality and so once we know cognitively we're safe we let that feeling of safety sink in to our body.

So our body knows it and it becomes familiar with it and what will happen is as you do this meditation more and more your body will become accustomed to feeling safe and throughout the day you'll have little moments where you'll realize actually I'm quite relaxed and I'm feeling safe and that's really what this meditation is.

To start off with it takes time to build up but as you build up these neural pathways there's this phrase which is what fires together wires together so when your neurons fire to represent safety both cognitively and physically it makes stronger connections so it's easier for that network to be fired again.

Every time you meditate and you really focus strongly on that feeling of safety it builds that neural network of safety and it's more likely it'll fire again and it'll fire with more ease.

So at first you're really kind of starting to create these neural networks to represent safety but it takes time so you might not notice too much in the first day two days three days four days but as you do it over time you'll be able to more quickly snap in to this feeling of safety so you can think clearly and calmly and respond to situations appropriately and it becomes easier and easier and easier.

So if you can try and do this practice every day and your body and mind will get used to feeling safe which is actually more aligned with reality so I really hope this meditation helps you and we'll do that together now.

Reviews

This is one of the best explanations I've ever heard of the origins of anxiety and the ways in which meditation can help to relieve anxiety. Thank you.

This explanation helps me remember how this all works. Thank you!

Thank you for this interesting explanation. As a longtime anxiety sufferer it's most helpful to understand what lies beneath it all. Namaste

Such a good idea to lay the ground for the meditation. And very interesting about the number of positive/negative descriptive adjectives!

Thank you for explaining the science behind negative bias and anxiety. It makes perfect sense to me. I will try the anxiety meditation now. 🙏🏽

👍spot on!

Great! Although I would gladly listen to a longer meditation. It was very helpfull to calm down and to realise why are we so “naturally” stressed.

Makes sense!

Thank you for the explanation. Nice to have a reminder 😊

Thank you for sharing. Nice to feel safe and relaxed throughout the day. 💗🙏 Will check out your other meditations...

Best scientific explanation I've ever heard for why anxiety is counterproductive and how meditation helps. Thank you!

Great meditation! Thanks 😊