Anxious Thoughts | Why You’re Anxious & 5 Tips To Help

are you stuck in a cycle of anxious thoughts that go around and around and around as if you're on a hamster wheel of overwhelm and stress and worry why people ask me why does my brain do this and they feel really defective and I want to tell you why your brain does this and it's not because you're defective it's because our brains are wired a certain way and we're not taught to try to help our brains be more reasonable we're not taught to look at our thoughts and question them and be like hmm maybe there's a different way to think about this so I want to tell you about the five reasons that your brain does this which are Super common and then we're going to talk about something you can do for each one of those five things all right number one humans have a negativity bias this is so well proven in research our brains like to go to the negative now I think this is very helpful in some ways for survival and probably was very helpful for our species very early on it's kind of second nature to worry about whatever the problem is so we can fix it right but we end up having this kind of survival level intensity about these feelings which isn't always applicable to what's happening today but there is something you can do about it number two is what I was just leading to your survival Focus right our brains are focused on how do we survive any threat to my survival that's all I'm gonna think about unfortunately in today's world for most of us we're not in immediate physical danger but our brain wants to think we are so it keeps that Focus as if we're in immediate danger this generates adrenaline it gives you narrow tunnel vision right which is needed if you're running away from something dangerous but it's not needed if you're trying to do your work or talk to your partner so this also contributes to your mind wanting to stay focused on that problem over and over and over and over again even though there is a small part of your brain that says I really don't need to be thinking about this now again I'm going to give you a tip to address that one a little bit later number three thing your brain does IT projects into the future this is a wonderful capacity that we have as humans it's one reason our species has been so successful on this planet we can sort of look into the future we can be like okay there's all these different options that might happen I can see different scenarios I can make choices I can make plans I can move towards things the ability to project into the future can be a super positive the problem is when it's combined with the survival focus and the negativity bias and the other things I'm going to talk about next when it's combined with that stuff are projections tend to be focused on disaster scenarios which leads me to number four thing that your brain loves a story all human brains for whatever reason they have this research that like shows where we're bringing lights up with different things now and stories people love them and how often are you happy watching a story that's kind of boring like okay you're watching a story and and it's somebody who lives a fine life and is pretty happy and nothing is really happening and they toodle in their garden and then you know they might go to a little job and then they might stay up and watch TV and they go to sleep and then the next day it's the same thing how long are you gonna watch that movie you're not right people are gonna watch the movie where it's like oh no the guy's wife left him and he's losing his job and everything is terrible and all these disasters are happening and is he going to make it or not so our brains love this kind of hero's journey okay somebody's faced with a lot of obstacles and they can overcome them but we're all kind of worried we're not the hero right that we're not actually going to be able to overcome it so those stories in your head follow these principles those stories they're not going to be happy if you're just like oh today's a good day yeah it's fine right no that story is going to try to keep your attention so it's gonna be going through disaster scenarios okay number five this brings in a little bit of Neuroscience and how your brain works but believe me I can walk you through this and it will make sense but our brains have Pathways that end up being like highways and if we connect the same thoughts feelings and behaviors over and over and over those Pathways become like super highways so you've probably heard the word neuron all neuron means is a brain cell and their brain cells that send and receive signals those signals can be electrical impulses and they can be chemical you've probably heard the word neurotransmitter those are chemical signals that our brain cells send to each other and actually sensory stimuli that we feel right like sensory stimuli that comes in that gets turned into an electrical impulse in the brain and that activates certain things the term Action potentials is used in terms of those electrical impulses all right so I'm sharing that not because you really need to grasp all of that I think there's some people watching this who might be like oh Barbara you're not even talking about it right cause they know it but most of us don't so I think that's enough to really understand that our brain is made up of cells that talk to one another and some cells get really used to talking to other cells and patterns develop and these Pathways between our cells right they actually become what's called myelinated where a sheath it's some kind of fatty material actually covers those cells and allows them to transmit information a hundred times faster than without the myelination and that myelination only forms if you're going over and over the same patterns if the same neurons are speaking with one another so if you are worrying about X all the time any reminder of X any stimulus that you receive that reminds you of X anything that happens you whoosh you're going to go right there you're not even going to have any control so we have to begin to change change those patterns and again I don't know you can let me know if you think this was too technical or not or maybe it wasn't technical enough but I think it's important to know this because our behavior is tied into all of that our neurons are also giving signals to our muscles and other impulses in the body that connect to behaviors and behaviors feed back information through other neurons so what we are actually doing is I think the most powerful thing causing these super highways so in one of my other videos I talk about OCD and the exposure therapy and changing the OCD cycle and why that's so important right and the exposure element that's important for many types of therapy many types of conditions including PTSD including phobias right exposure is key because that is changing the behavior you're completely changing the Super Highway when you change your behavior all right so we've gone through the five things about your brain that cause this kind of obsessive thinking and worry I'm going to give you an exercise for each one of these things and again here like this is not magic this is not going to work overnight this takes ractus it takes effort but you can change these things so number one was the negativity bias I encourage people in my coaching programs to engage in a practice at least five minutes every day where you allow yourself to focus on something positive if you can do this multiple times a day it's even better and it can be super simple it could be wow I really love this tea so I'm gonna take some extra time and breathe it in and enjoy it and feel it and let myself feel that pleasure if you have kids who likely drive you nuts most of the time they generally smell great right take a few minutes to breathe them in same thing being outside now you might say oh I do this I do I enjoy my tea I enjoy my kids I enjoy this I enjoy that but how much Focus are you getting it your brain wants to focus on the negatives we have to really make an effort to have our brain not just focus on those positives but as I said kind of breathe them in so number two is the survival Focus here is where you will have to begin to strengthen the frontal lobe insight into that survival response talking to yourself letting yourself know you are not in physical danger you don't need all these chemicals you don't have to fight flee or freeze and usually it takes some kind of behavior to communicate to that very old part of the brain that controls the fight flight freeze response that part of the brain doesn't really respond that well to language but it responds well to calming behaviors heading a dog and let's say you don't have a dog but you used to when you were a kid and you loved the dog so it makes you sad to think about the dog instead of thinking about being sad thinking about the dog picture yourself petting the dog like really bring that memory back feel it if you have a puppy or a cat or whatever get down on the floor pet it feel it and let your body physically relax so the third thing I mentioned about your brain is that it has this tool to project into the future I'd like you to label your projections as projections label them my brain is now making up a story about the future that is what your brain's doing my brain is making up a story my brain is projecting this is not actually happening this is a projection that kind of labeling is something that begins to give us distance from our thoughts and again this isn't immediate it isn't going to work perfectly the first time practice it regularly and you'll begin to have some more distance from those thoughts that are going around and around and that brings us to the fourth one which is the that your brain loves a story so an exercise for you is to write down your current worry write the story whatever it is my boss is mad at me he's gonna fire me she's gonna fire me I'm gonna be homeless my partner will leave me I'll be miserable the rest of my life write whatever your story is the negative worry now can you write a different story start with the same problem I'm sitting here worried today that my boss is gonna fire me but let's give this story a different ending let's give it a happy ending I want you to write that story out so if you finish this video come back to this piece if you want pause it as you write but I really really want you to write out the story write out the one that goes around around your head right out the positive one and now let's write out a boring one my boss never really likes me and yeah I never really like my job but I'm okay my partner doesn't like to hear me complain about my work but it's okay write a boring story alright when that story occurs in the future away from your piece of paper let's see if you can bring up those other stories and recognize they are all stories that's all they are okay for Point number five the super highway this is where it's important to know your CBT cycle your cycle of thoughts behaviors feelings and how it interacts what is your typical cycle you have social anxiety you're worried about saying something dumb at a party you're worried about what people are going to think about you so you don't go to the party so write that cycle out with some detail and now we have to choose a different path I'm worried about what people think I'm going to go to the party anyway just do it if you can begin to question some of your thoughts and beliefs those are also just stories I'm gonna say something stupid that's a story maybe you don't say anything at all that's okay like it's all okay right but if you can't change the thoughts very important to change the behavior and practice some of the other things as well but changing those super highways is going to require you to change your thoughts your behaviors or how you feel and honestly changing how you feel is the hardest one nearly impossible if you don't change how you think or behave so beginning to figure out what you can change so you can start to create a new gentler happier possibly calmer Highway in your brain so in the next couple of weeks I am going to come out with a couple of more CBT videos about anxiety if you're not subscribed please do subscribe if you liked this video please do give me a thumbs up it's very helpful very motivating to keep making this material and I look forward to seeing you next week foreign

Channel: Barbara Heffernan

Views: 10,738

Keywords: barbara heffernan, Anxious Thoughts Why You’re Anxious & 5 Tips To Help, Anxious Thoughts, Why Am I Anxious, Anxiety Causes, Understanding Anxiety, Coping with Anxiety, Anxiety Triggers, Tips to Reduce Anxiety, Overcoming Anxious Thoughts, Mindfulness for Anxiety, Anxiety Relief Techniques, Mental Health Tips, Managing Stress and Anxiety, Root Cause of Anxiety

Id: vE5XnnVYqG0

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023