[Music] Okay. So you want to stop overthinking, or you
want to stop worrying so much. You really want to stop being anxious all the time, but when someone
tells you, "Stop worrying," it's super annoying because if you could just turn it off, you would.
It's just not that easy. Now, in the last four videos we've talked about four cognitive skills
that can help with anxiety. One is challenging your automatic negative thoughts. The second one
is cognitive defusion. The third is dropping the struggle with anxiety about anxiety. And the
fourth one is scheduled worry. And hopefully you're using these skills, um like the scheduled
worry practice. And if you're like me, this practice has decreased your worrying drastically.
But how do we manage overthinking and worrying throughout the day? How do we get good at defusing
from our thoughts or shifting our attention from anxiety about anxiety to the stuff we care about
in the present moment? The single most effective way to de decrease anxiety is to stop worrying
and to stop bringing to mind the perception of danger all the time. It's the perception of danger
that triggers that anxiety response over and over again throughout the day. And the single most
effective way to learn to control your attention is through mindfulness practice. But most people
don't understand how mindfulness really works. They misunderstand how to use it. So in this
video you're going to learn a super practical, straightforward way to use mindfulness to retrain
your brain to be less anxious and to get back to living the life you value. And just, you know,
mindfulness is super hard for me personally. It is not my favorite skill. It's just so effective
that you've got to try it. So in this video you'll learn how to do it even if it's really hard
for you too. Okay. So we're going to learn how to actually use mindfulness. But I'm going
to be honest with you; I'm kind of a novice at mindfulness. I've used it on and off for a decade.
But I really wanted to bring in an expert for this video, so I've invited Nick Wignall here to really
teach us how to do mindfulness the right way. Nick Wignall is an expert in anxiety. He's treated
hundreds of people with generalized anxiety disorder, and he's an excellent teacher, and also
my friend. So hey, Nick. Thank you for joining us today. You bet. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm
so I'm so grateful that you're um here to teach us and um bring all your wisdom. So um talk to
us about why is it so hard to stop worrying? Oh, man. Um yeah, worry is really tough because
there's a lot of reasons, like there's all sorts of causes of worry and situations that that
that make worry difficult. But I think one of the biggest things that is very counterintuitive but
that is key for overcoming um chronic worry is, there's there's a a concept called thought
suppression in the kind of research on psychology. There's this famous psychologist, Daniel Wagner
was his name, um and he did this famous experiment that's called The White Bear Experiment. And what
he did was he had two groups of people, and he showed them both a picture of a white white bear.
One group he said, "Whatever you do for the next 20 minutes or whatever, do not think about a white
bear." And the other group he didn't say anything. And then he, basically at the, he he measured
how often did people in both groups think about the white bear. Guess what? The people who tried
really hard not to think about the white bear, their minds were constantly bombarding them with
images and thoughts and white bears all over the place. So there's this very counterintuitive thing
with a lot of thoughts where the more you resist them, the more your brain throws them at you.
So I think one of the reasons why we have such a hard time not worrying so much is because we,
understandably, we resist worry so much. We try so hard to stop worry or to escape from it or to get
rid of it. And counterintuitively, what that tells our brain is, "Oh, yikes, this thing is really
bad, so we're going to be more attentive to it, and we're going to keep reminding you of it,"
because it thinks worry is dangerous. So I think fundamentally, like on a mechanics level, that's
a big part of why chronic worry especially is so tricky to deal with. Yeah, like our brain, it's so
paradoxical. Like we wish or we've been told even, "Oh, you can control your thoughts. You can
control your brain." We can influence our brain to a massive degree, but the minute we try and
tell it like, "Okay, you can't think about this, or this is, it's threatening to think about
worrying, like it'll harm you if you think about worrying," all of a sudden your brain's like,
"We're going to pay a ton of attention to that." Absolutely. And it's good to remember, to a large
extent you cannot actually control your thoughts. You can control your attention, what you choose
to focus on or not. That doesn't mean it's easy, right? It's, sometimes it's hard. And we'll get
into that more. But I think that distinction is really, really important, that - Yeah, I
think that's so important because even, you think about someone who's depressed, and they're
like having a bad day, and they start thinking all these negative thoughts, and they're like,
"Oh my gosh, I shouldn't be thinking this. I'm so bad for thinking this. What's the matter with
me? Why am I thinking this? And all of a sudden they're like trapped in this like rumination
cycle, basically, that makes things worse. So, yeah. Yeah, and it's the same with worry,
right? We get trapped in these cycles. I like to tell people that what's really helpful
to me is, your thoughts are going to talk to you all the time. You don't have to talk back. You
don't have to get into a conversation with your thoughts. You can if you want, if it's helpful,
right? Yeah. But if a worry pops into your head, it's so easy to just automatically assume, okay,
I should keep talking to this and elaborating on this. And and while that can often be tough not to
do, it absolutely is possible to set boundaries on that that chatting with our unhelpful thoughts
and decide no, it's there, it's talking to me, but I'm choosing not to talk back. Yeah. Awesome.
So how can we train our brain to be able to choose what we put attention on? Well, the first thing, I
love you bringing up, bring up that term, you use that word "train." How do we train our brain?
Because the way to think about this really is, it's about training. It's about exercise. Just
like you would train a dog not to pee in your house, right? You potty train a dog. Or just
like like you would train kids to learn how to play piano, right? Learning how to control
your attention and not get caught up in worry, it's a training exercise. Um so the the basics is
when you have that distracting thought, whatever it is - in our case we're talking about a worry -
it's about acknowledging, "Hey, there's a worry," right? "A thought, and my brain is talking at me,"
but having the presence of mind to say, "That's happening, but I don't actually want to do that.
I don't want to continue elaborating on that worry or having a conversation with that worry, and I'm
going to practice moving my attention." Remember, attention is like a spotlight. Think about like
old movies in prisons, right, where there's a big spotlight on the - Yeah - prisoner, you know,
like up on the wall. That's your attention, and you can shift it. Now, it's hard. Your brain
thinks something's wrong, so it's going to tend to kind of pull you back to the worry. But with
practice you can get better. Like a muscle, you can get stronger at pulling it away from a worry
and putting it onto something more productive or helpful. Okay. And and so the way to think about
it, though, is that's it's a muscle, and like all muscles, the way you get stronger is you exercise
them regularly. So how do you do - what is that exercise? There's a lot of ways to do it. A really
- arguably the most effective way to do it is what I call mindfulness training. Now, mindfulness,
big term, right? Super big term. Yeah. Now, we we just touched on mindfulness for a second.
We're going to come back to it. You're going to teach us how to do it. But um what do you think
people get wrong about mindfulness? Because this is like probably the buzziest word in psychology
of the last decade. Oh my gosh. Other than narcissism. Okay. So here's the thing. What
you get wrong about mindfulness, the big one, is, what they ultimately want is to worry
less and feel less anxious or less stressed, but they think about mindfulness as a coping
strategy, this thing you do - okay, I'm super stressed and anxious. I'm going to like open up
my tool belt of coping strategies, and I'm going to do mindfulness real quick and then hopefully
that'll make me feel less anxious. Yeah. They use it like a Band-Aid or a way to avoid a feeling
and replace it with a different feeling. Yeah. 100%. And while it's so understandable, because
when you're feeling really anxious, it's awful, right? You really, you just don't want to feel
anxious anymore. The problem is when you try to, when you avoid something, including your
anxiety or worry, or try to get rid of it, you might get some temporary relief - this is
why people keep using coping skills, is because they're they're addicting, frankly. They give you
temporary relief. But long-term you're training your brain to think that worry and anxiety are
bad, which means they're going to show up more, like those white bears, right? They're going
to keep showing up even more intensely and frequently. So I believe when it comes to
how can mindfulness be useful for anxiety, what people get wrong is they think about it
as a coping skill. What they should be doing is thinking about it as an exercise, something you
do when you're not anxious or worried so that when anxiety and worry pop up you are stronger and
better able to deal with them in a helpful way so that you don't end up super anxious and worried
in the first place. Yeah. So what we're doing is training our brain to be better at shifting its
attention, and that - they've shown that that can literally change the structure of people's brains.
So, I I mean, I think it's a little bit annoying, but sometimes people talk about like your muscles
in your brain, right? Like they imagine your brain like doing weightlifting because what's happening
is when you practice or when you exercise this, it's it's literally shifting what your brain
is focusing its energy and attention on, and sometimes in a physical way. Like they can
they can see this in in brain scans, people who are really good at mindfulness. Totally. Yeah. So
so how do we practice it? Like what is the basic mindfulness practice, the exercise that you
would recommend people try when they want to train their brain to be better at choosing where
they put their attention? Totally. So I'll give you my little uh formula. There's a very simple
approach to mindfulness for attention training, for building this muscle that allows you to take
control of your intention instead of letting it be controlled by your worry and anxiety. And so here
here's what it is. It's so simple. You sit down, you relax, you close your eyes (if you're
comfortable with it; you don't have to), and you focus on the sensation of breathing.
You're not deep breathing, you're not doing diaphragmatic breathing, you're not doing anything
special. You're literally just sitting there and you're focusing on how does it feel to breathe?
Not, you're not thinking about breathing - "Am I doing it right? Am I doing deep bre" - you're just
like, "Oh, like hmm, that's interesting. Like the bre, air feels cool when it's coming in through my
nose, and it feels a little warm when it's coming out of my mouth." It's a very descriptive
exercise. You're just noticing or sort of describing what breathing feels like. That's it.
Yeah. Now, inevitably, what's going to happen is you're going to get distracted, and that's okay.
You're going to end up thinking about the bananas you forgot to get at the grocery store or some
terrible thing in politics that's happening or whatever it is. Right? Or, really commonly, am I
doing this right? You're going to start thinking about the practice, right? Like, "Oh my God, I'm
so distracted. I'm not - " So the first thing is, that's totally normal. When you get distracted you
go, "Oh, I'm distracted. That's fine. I'm going to refocus my attention back on my my breath, on
what it feels like to breathe." Yeah. And you're going to do that, and you're going to notice
how you're breathing. And then inevitably, literally two seconds later you're going to get
distracted by something else, and you're go, "Oh, I'm distracted again." Yeah. But you're going to
try. You're going to be as non-judgmental with yourself as possible, and and just say, "Huh."
Like, "All right, I got distracted again. That's okay. And actually, it's a good thing because
it allows me to practice the essential skill that I need to get better at controlling my
attention." Which is, number one, noticing, being aware of when you're getting distracted,
right? So in terms of anxiety it's like, oh, like, anxiety has hijacked with my worry. I'm being
controlled by my worries. I don't want to do that. I want to be focusing on my kids that I'm playing
with right now or the conversation I'm having with my spouse or whatever it is, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So notice, mindfulness, when you get distracted, it it teaches you to more quickly notice when
you're distracted, and then it gives you the opportunity - it's an opportunity; it's not bad
that you're distracted. The distraction gives you the opportunity to practice shifting your focus
back onto something you care about instead of letting it be controlled by something else. So
this is like the mind-blowing thing, you have to get distracted. This would not be a helpful
exercise if you didn't get distracted. People get so down on themselves for like, "Oh, I got so
distracted. It was a bad session." No. Nonsense. It's a really good session. That's like saying,
like, "The the weights were really heavy when I was working out. It was a bad session." They're
supposed to be heavy. Like you can be proud of like being a little sore. Like you're like, "Oh,
I'm so sore cuz I just really lost attention a lot this exercise." Like. So that's that's it. That's
the whole thing. You pay attention to your breath, you get distracted, you notice that you're
distracted, you refocus back on your breath. That's it. And you do everything non-judgmentally.
You're not being critical with yourself. You're not thinking about why this is happening or
what you should be doing differently or - it's just very, very simple. It's it's like exercise,
and you do it. And we can talk a little bit more about logistics for how long do you do it and when
you do it and all that kind of stuff, but I just want to really get across the idea that it does
not have to be and really should not be any more complicated than that. That's it. Love it. I love
it. I love it. And mindfulness training has been shown to be very effective at treating anxiety and
depression, right? I have found this really simple approach to mindfulness the most effective for
that specific goal. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to grab my poster just to illustrate what we're doing, and
then we're going to come back and you're going to explain people, explain to people like what, how
to implement this in their daily life. So one sec. Great. Look, Nick, I got a poster made. Whoa.
Look at it. Props, you got props. I'm so proud of myself. I used Staples, you know. So when people
are in like their default nervous system mode, they're in a state of safety, they experience
a stimulus, which they interpret as dangerous, like, oh, someone jumps out at you from a tr -
when you're on a trail, and your brain's like, "Oh my gosh, it could be a bear," and that's
what triggers the anxiety response. But the reason people have anxiety disorders is, right
here, all day long they're having these worries pop into their brain. They're like, "Oh my
gosh, what if I fail that test?" "Oh my gosh, what if - I have that email I have to respond
to." "I don't do good at work," or whatever it is. We - "I need to do this, and I need to
do that." and those worries all day long are triggering this fight/flight/freeze response.
So when people are engaging in mindfulness, they're bringing their attention to noticing those
worries and maybe redirecting their attention, or they're noticing those worries and redirecting
their attention to like, hmm, other things around them or thoughts, like, "Oh, everything's going to
be okay." And that interrupts this anxiety cycle because, all of a sudden, instead of believing
something's dangerous, you're like, "Actually, I'm safe right now, here in the present moment.
I'm safe enough." And you go from stimulus back into the parasympathetic response. That's how I
think of this, at least. So. Yeah. Totally. I, so I would say two things on that. Yeah. This
this ability to to let go of and shift your attention off of something unhelpful, like worry,
and onto something productive or or helpful, like, you know, the conversation you're in or the work
you have to do, whatever it is - Yeah - it's it's helpful on two levels. A, in the moment,
you're going to worry less, and therefore you're going to generate less anxiety, right? So
it's actually really, it's hard, but it's helpful just literally in the moment. You will you will be
less anxious. Right. It's also helpful long term, though, because what it does is it it teaches your
brain. When you stop getting obsessed with those worries every time a worry comes - each time
you you have a conversation with your worry, you're giving it attention and you're reinforcing
your brain's tendency to throw those worries at you. If you put boundaries on them and you say,
"Okay, I hear you talking to me, but actually I'm not going to reinforce that with attention.
I'm going to go on my way and do something else," over time you teach your brain to throw
fewer worries at you, which it getting - which helps get you out of that cycle long term. And
that's the real magic of learning to control your attention and getting stronger at that ability,
which mindfulness is one way um to do. Yeah. And I I think - I I love that. Okay. So if someone
wants to practice mindfulness, how do they do it? Okay. So I have another hot take on this.
Most people are way too slow and gradual when they work into mindfulness. It's tempting to think
with anything difficult - and a lot of people have a really hard time with mindfulness - I'm one of
them - in part because they think it, they think, "I shouldn't get distracted" or "It should be
easy. It should be relaxing." Yeah. Nonsense. It's a workout. It should be hard. Getting
distracted helps you build that muscle. We covered that already. The other mistake, though,
I see is that, people, you're going to get more benefit just - so imagine this: you decide, okay,
I'm going to start lifting weights because I want to get stronger, right? But you only lift weights
for five minutes a day. Now, that's nice, right? And I'm sure there's some benefit. Better than
nothing. Better than nothing. Absolutely. Right? But but here's the thing. For, to stay motivated,
to really be able to lift weights significantly, progress is the most powerful motivator. You got
to feel like you're making progress. You got to feel like you're getting stronger. Yeah. You got
to look at your biceps and go like, actually, hey, they're a little bigger, right? Yeah. Like
I'm looking, I'm looking a little better. I'm lifting stronger. That, long term - Yeah - that
progress is is what's going to motivate you to keep going and make this a really consistent and
effective practice. So what happens is if you go too slow and too small for too long, you lo, you
lose motivation, and you just give up because you're not getting anything out of it. Mm. So
mindfulness is the same way. It doesn't mean you can't start small. You should start small, right?
So this exercise I described, do it - set a timer on your phone for five minutes - two, do it for
two minutes, right? Do that for a day or two. But pretty quickly jump up to 10 minutes for another
day or two, okay? Then relatively quickly go to 20 and 30 minutes, because you will get so much
more out of this if you're in the 20 to 30 minute zone than if you're in the five minutes zone. And
I know that sounds hard. Like Emma, it looks like you're having a panic attack over there. Yeah.
That sounds really hard for me, and I'm going to try it. And I'm gonna like film the results. So
yes, but like the thought of sitting still for 20 minutes for me is like, oh my gosh, that sounds so
hard. Yeah. And of course, everyone's different. Take this with it. But what I want to get across
is this general principle that if you want to stick with this long term and see the benefit
of it - Yeah - you have to see results from it, and you're you're just not going to see results
if you're only doing 5 minutes a day. Like it might be nice, and you might get some benefits
from it, but if you want to put a serious dent in your anxiety by really learning how to control
your attention, like 5 minutes a day is not going to cut it. I'm just going to be straight up. All
right. It's not going to do it. Okay. It's got to be more than that. So is it 30 minutes? I don't
know. Maybe it's maybe it's 15 or 20 minutes. But the point is it's got to be a significant thing
if you want those muscles to get stronger. But the good thing is, after the initial hump it's
not like you have to grin and bear it the whole time it. You will enjoy it more. Huh. You will
feel yourself getting stronger. Okay. And it so it will become a more enjoyable thing. It's like
if anyone out there is a runner - I I had, there, this, I - we have this family friend who was a
triathlete. And I I never used to like to run. And she used to see, she always said ,"How, well,
how far do you run?" I said, "I don't know. Like a mile." She was like, "Nobody likes running the
first mile. Like it's awful. Your body's like, 'I don't want to do this,' you know. You always feel
bad. You never feel good until you start getting to higher mileage, like three, four, five miles,
and your body accepts, 'Hey, this is something new,' and you kick into a different gear."
Mindfulness training is exactly the same way. Everybody feels crappy the first five minutes,
which is why you need to push through and quickly get to a place where you're doing 20-, 30-minute
sessions. Okay. So I I I love this. And I know a lot of people really really benefit from this. And
I'm going to try it. And if I come back - because I'm gonna I'm going to record my progress on this
- if I come back and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I enjoyed a 20-minute, like a 20-minute mindfulness
session," I'm gonna I'm gonna like buy you lunch to anywhere you want to go. Fanciest place you
want to go. Arizona. All right. Remember, though, it's all about expectations. Okay. Right. This
is not a coping strategy to feel relaxed. Yeah. The goal isn't to feel - if you went out of,
if you went out of a workout and felt relaxed, you'd actually be disappointed. You'd think,
"I probably didn't get a very good workout in," right? Yeah. Yeah. You want to feel like, "I'm
sweaty. I'm kind of nasty. I'm stinky. I'm like, I'm sore." Yeah. Yes. A good workout. And I can
totally get that when it comes to like physical exercise. Like I really enjoy exercise, and I love
a good, hard exercise. So we'll go see if I can do do this. I'm I'm gonna do it, Nick. I'm gonna
give it, I'm gonna give it my best. I believe you, Emma. I believe you. So so do that, so a
couple minute, start with two or five minutes, do that for a couple days, up to 10 minutes couple
days, and then get to 20 or 30 within a week. Yep. Exactly. And do do you have to sit cross-legged
and hold your fingers like this and say, "Ohm"? [Laughter] It doesn't matter. I mean,
you can if you want. No. Doesn't matter. I mean, if you're doing this late at night, you don't want
to be laying on your bed because you're just going to fall asleep, right? But whatever. The, these
are the kind of details that don't ultimately matter for this type of mindfulness. Okay. Just
find someplace comfortable - Okay - and get to it. Great. Okay. And the goal of this is to exercise,
not to just feel good. Exactly. It's an exercise, not a coping strategy. Great. Okay. Awesome. Do
you come across any other like common worries or difficulties people have when they start
mindfulness? Hmm. Gosh. The big one is just - it's it's wild to me how judgmental people are of
themselves with mindfulness. I don't know where this comes from. But the thing to really keep in
mind is that you just really want to be gentle with yourself. Like think about how you are with
like a best friend or, you know, with your kids or like - There's no reason you shouldn't treat
yourself trying something new and difficult with the same level of gentleness that you would
you would approach, you know, someone else, a good friend or someone who was trying something
to - You' be like, "Dude, that's awesome. That's super hard. I know it sucks, like parts of
it suck, but like good for you. Like that's so great." Like why can't you extend the same
attitude to yourself? You can. You're probably not in the habit of doing it, but you absolutely can.
And I think that's probably another ultimately maybe even more important benefit that you can get
out of mindfulness training -Yeah - is that it it teaches you to be kinder um and to have a better
relationship with yourself, which is just like, the, that's everything. That's like the core
of everything. Yeah. So be gentle. I think gentleness is like the key word when it comes to
mindfulness training. Okay. So so we're going to get out there, go to - start with five minutes
a day, let yourself notice your breathing, not try to change it, not try to think about
breathing, practice noticing, and you're going to lose track of what you're -you're going to, your
mind is going to wander. That's normal, natural, and to be expected. Gently bring it back with
love and compassion. Bring your attention back to your breath, and then do that over and over again
until your timer goes off. That's the main idea, right? That's it. Okay. And remember, look, this
is not the only way to lower your anxiety. I've just found that this is a particularly effective
way, especially if you struggle with getting lost in conversation with your worries. If if if
if you can do this, this is such an effective, concentrated dose of working through chronic worry
and anxiety. It's just so effective, so it's at least worth giving it a really good shot, I think.
Yeah. I love it. I love love it. Well, I'm going to try it, and I'm going to come back and tell
y'all how it went. I'm really looking forward to my big steak lunch that you're going to buy me.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited. It's going to be, it's going to be awesome. So thank you
again, so much, Nick. Really appreciate you taking the time to be here today. Of course. Thanks for
having me on. I always love chatting with you, Emma. Yeah. And for all of you out there, you
can find more of his teaching. You can sign up for his newsletter and see some of his articles
at his website, nickwignall.com. Cool. Well, thank you. Really appreciate it. Have a good
one. Of course. See you. Okay. All right. [Music]
