Okay. So in the last video we learned that our
brains and bodies are wired to have a strong, loud reaction to perceived danger - the
fight/flight/freeze response - but they're also wired to return to a sense of safety when
the danger has been faced and resolved. So why the heck do so many of us get stuck in chronic
anxiety? Why are people so anxious these days? It's because people aren't closing the loop
on their anxiety. They're getting stuck in chronic states of anxiety and immobilization
because they're able to perceive a lot of danger without taking action on it. And humans
are just really good at avoidance. So in this video we'll explore the subtle ways you
sneakily increase your anxiety by avoiding it. This video is day four from my online course Break
the Anxiety Cycle in 30 days. I'm publishing the 30 main videos to YouTube for free. If you
want all the bonus resources, workbook, and extra videos and Q and A's with me, check out
the link in the description. Okay. So in the last video we learned all about the anxiety cycle. Your
default mode is safety. If you perceive a threat, you have a fear response, and then you face it or
resolve it, and your body has a natural ability to shake it off and return to a sense of safety. But
when we perceive something as dangerous and then we avoid it, our brain adapts by upregulating
our anxiety. It makes us more anxious. But here's the thing: we humans are
uniquely just really good at two things: thinking of danger, imagining danger, and
avoidance. We have the incredible ability to envision threats that aren't happening, like
worrying if we have enough money for retirement or imagining people rejecting us. And this
can help us prevent problems down the road, but it does keep us in the fear response in the
present moment. And the second thing that we're really good at is using complex and contrived ways
to escape discomfort. We're smart enough to know how to suppress our emotions. We can distract
ourselves, procrastinate, find creative ways to avoid people or places that bother us. We can make
excuses, justify ourselves, and just hide from our fears in general. But while avoidance brings us
short-term relief, it increases anxiety in the long run because we aren't closing that loop and
returning to a sense of safety, restoring that sense of safety. So what keeps us anxious? Running
from our feelings, avoiding our problems, and immobilization, not taking any action. So anxiety
isn't quite the same as a hot fear response. It's much more of a cold, frozen, dread response.
On the polyvagal ladder it hovers somewhere between that fight/flight/freeze response, that
activation response, and the shutdown response. Okay. So let's do some examples of how you make
yourself more anxious. So let's say that you had a panic attack in a public place for some
unknown reason. You're at the supermarket, and you got overwhelmed with anxiety. You thought
everyone was staring at you and thinking that you're crazy and that they're judging you.
And you never want to feel that way again, so you stopped going to the supermarket. Initially
you feel some relief. You just order in your groceries. No big deal. But remember how the
brain works? When we avoid something and survive, it upregulates our anxiety. So pretty soon you
start to feel anxious about driving around town. What if you get a flat tire and you panic?
Right? That makes you feel anxious, and you don't like that feeling. You want to avoid it. So
you stop driving. Then you feel a lot of relief, right? Now you don't have to worry about
that, and you can still walk places. You can't go to a lot of places that you once enjoyed,
but at least you don't feel so much anxiety. Except for now you start to worry about
walking around, about leaving your house, so you stop going anywhere without someone to go
with you. Pretty soon you aren't leaving the house at all. Now, initially this feels safer, right?
You feel a sense of relief. But pretty soon you just start to feel anxious about everything. When
the mailman comes or the phone rings, you jump. Every little sound seems amplified. Every time you
avoid something and don't die, your brain learns, "Phew. I could have died. I'm gonna make my human
more anxious so that they avoid that thing in the future." And the cycle of anxiety just spirals.
Right? Avoidance makes your anxiety louder. Now to be fair, it's actually harder than ever
for humans to close their fear loops, so let's explore a few ways that modern humans get stuck
in immobilization and anxiety. Now, if you were to ask people if the world is safer or more dangerous
now than in the past, what would they say? Most people would say that it's more dangerous,
but they're wrong. The world is actually safer than ever. Lifespan is getting longer. Extreme
poverty is down by more than half. Infant mortality is down. So is violent crime. Like
if you don't believe me, check out some of the links in the description below. So so what's
going on? There is more perceived danger than ever. We think and feel like the world is more
dangerous than ever. And we can thank modern technology for that. So let's do an example
from anytime more than a hundred years ago. You're getting ready for bed. Suddenly there's
a knock at your door. You hear some bad news: the neighbor's tree got blown over into their
roof. And you see that the danger they're in. You have a fight/flight/freeze response. The stress
response activates. You you go. You're not tired anymore. Right? You have energy. You feel like you
need to get out of bed and do something. Right? So you go over to their house. You help them get
physically safe for the night, whether that's like fixing up their roof or setting up shelter
for them. They tell you the story of it. You tell the story. And all of this makes it so that
you can return to a sense of safety. You go back to your home and you go to sleep. Right? This is
how a healthy nervous system responds to a danger or a stressor. So you start in safety, in the
parasympathetic response. You perceive danger, you approach it, and you resolve it, and you return
to safety, back to the parasympathetic state. So now let's think about what happens in our
modern world. You're getting ready for bed, you turn on the TV, and you scroll
through your phone. You watch the news. You learn about a dozen bad things happening
everywhere except in your own neighborhood. You hear about floods in Pennsylvania. You hear
about drought in Texas. You hear about meteors hitting the ground in Antarctica. You hear
about like all of these natural disasters, and the fight/flight/freeze response is activated.
You feel that anxiety. You no longer feel like sleeping. Your muscles are ready for action. But
there's no physical action to take, so you're immobilized. Right? You you feel that intensity,
but there's not a lot of action to take. So you avoid that feeling by scrolling somewhere through
your phone while laying physically still. The anxiety loop is never closed, and you're just
distracting yourself from it. You're just avoiding it. We get stuck in mounting anxiety
when we perceive a threat, we don't face it, we avoid it. It's like coming across a rock in
the road and instead of moving it out of the way, we put it into our backpack and carry it around.
Our nervous system gets stuck in chronic stress. And this is the thing that makes it so hard these
days. So many of the threats we face are mental, not physical. Right? School is a
mental danger, not a physical danger, so we can't burn off that stress response by doing
some physical action. Friends are a social danger, not a physical danger. Work for many is a
cognitive or social challenge, not a physical task to be accomplished. So it's harder than ever to
close the loop on a task because many of our tasks aren't physical now. It was different for our
ancestors. Our ancestors might have worried about not having enough food. So that's the perceived
danger. So they'd walk outside - physical action, right? - and they'd farm or they'd hunt. They
could physically approach a threat and resolve it. Now we face the challenges of modern work
in emails and drama with our co-workers. There are less physical opportunities to solve problems
for for many people now. It's not for everyone, though. Let me give you an example. My neighbor
is this awesome HVAC guy, and he fixes furnaces and AC all day long. The other day he told me,
"I love my job because I get to help people solve problems every day." Right? He gets, he he shows
up to a house, there's a physical problem - my AC isn't working. He tinkers, he moves things, he
fixes stuff, he solves things, he tests things, he gets it solved physically. Right? But many of
us don't get that opportunity, and the emotional problem loop gets stuck open. Um and I worry
about kids too, like growing-up kids, right? Um kids grow up now with much more focus on
academic development, so that part of their brain that has the ability to conceptualize future
problems and danger gets like super strengthened, like if we think of that as a muscle, but they
don't get as many opportunities to solve physical tasks. So physical work and physical play helps
kids develop the other parts of their brains that help them solve problems and resolve emotions.
So our modern society is harder than ever for people to manage their anxiety because
there's more opportunities for avoidance, less opportunities to solve physical tasks.
And I think this is one of the reasons why people love watching other people make stuff,
fix things, and even just clean or mow lawns. Like they find it so satisfying because it's like
getting to close that loop, at least in surrogate. Okay. So let's talk about solutions for a minute.
I mean, obviously the rest of this course goes into a lot more detail about how we solve this
problem, but there are three things you can do to get out of that anxiety cycle. So the first
one is you got to learn how your nervous system works and how to soothe it. Right? And we've been
talking about this as we've explored the anxiety cycle. The second thing I would say is limit your
exposure to media, but especially news media, right, and anything toxic that's on social media.
I just would say be very intentional about when, what, and where you watch. Now, I guess
technically I'm a social media influencer, and the way I handle that is I have deleted social
media off of my phone because I want to be able to choose when I engage with it and not. So I engage
with it on my computer. The other thing I would say about social media is, you know, add in good
news, which is perceived safety. The thing about news is, the news channels know that they make
money when they grab your attention, and the way to grab your attention is taking advantage of your
brain's risk aversion channel - that's the part of your brain that's basically like, "I want to be
very careful about anything risky, so I'm going to pay attention to anything that's potentially
dangerous." So we're more likely to click on a news story that's like, "Oh my gosh, something
awful happened" than "Hey, guess what? Good things happened today" or "Nothing bad happened in Provo
today." Right? Like that's the boringest story ever. So um news channels take advantage of your
brain that way, so you need to be intentional. Add in good news and tailor your feed to include
the positive out there. You don't want to decrease your viewpoints or your perspectives, you
know, just get stuck in an echo chamber, but you do want to add in positive sources. And
the other thing is you can learn how to take action on news. So whenever a story bothers you,
you could um, you know, clarify is this something I can act on or something I need to accept? You
could write letters. You could Advocate. You could pray for people. You could ask how you could
create change on that issue in your own circle. Um and and just finding ways to be a little bit
more active to the news stories can help you break that immobilization/anxiety cycle. Okay. Number
three I would say is do more physical tasks. So um it's very satisfying to complete projects
in a physical way. And if a lot of your tasks are mental or digital, like you could physically
check off to-do lists. Right? So you make a big to-do list that when you're done you get to check
it off. Or you could create physical reminders of your accomplishment or physical reminders that
you are safe right now. And I also would just say like let kids play outside, do dangerous
stuff intentionally, solve physical problems, build stuff, fix stuff. Right? And when when you
make a mistake or when you have a problem or when other people make a mistake, help them physically
resolve it. Okay. So that's the first reason why we're anxious: the our ability to perceive and
imagine danger when we're actually safe. And later in this course we're going to dive into how we can
decrease perceived danger and help our minds send a message to our nervous systems that we are safe
right now. So that's all of week two is what we're going to be talking about there. And the second
reason why humans can be so anxious in general but people are especially anxious right now is because
avoidance is always at hand. Literally. Like any time a big emotions comes up you can immediately
distract yourself by looking at your phone. So imagine what it does when every time your toddler
throws a fit if they don't get like the color plate they want at dinner, and instead of talking
it through with them and solving the problem and teaching them how to handle a big emotion like
disappointment, you just hand them a phone with a kid show playing. Right? It's so comfortable.
It's so easy. It feels so relieving. And that that toddler and that parent never learn to solve
emotional problems. We just put them on hold. We put another rock in that backpack. And then later
we wonder why do we feel so anxious all the time? We all just have so many opportunities to avoid
our feelings. Every time you distract yourself from what you're feeling you send a message
to your brain that that feeling is dangerous, that you can't deal with it. And what does your
brain do with stuff that it thinks is dangerous? It makes anxiety louder around that thing. So we
all just have so many opportunities to distract ourselves. So let's talk about some more examples
of avoidance. You've got a big test coming up at school. Every time you think about it you get a
little queasy. How is that a perceived threat? Well it impacts your grades, which impacts
your ability to graduate and get a job, which impacts your ability to buy food. Your
ridiculously smart brain can tell you that you might starve to death in the future if you
don't pass this test. Okay. I'm joking a little bit because I think that it helps if we laugh
at fear. But when you put it into perspective, your brain thinks that you're in danger,
and you're not. Okay. So next, avoidance. Try not to think about it. Try not to think about
your homework. Did you starve? Nope. Your brain is going to increase your anxiety. Procrastinate.
Feel some relief. Play a bunch of video games. Watch a bunch of TikToks. Completely forget
about it. Did you starve to death? Nope. Your brain believes that avoiding studying for your
test is keeping you safe. It's going to increase that anxiety. What about the opposite approach?
What about frantically running from your fears by being a perfectionist and studying all day
and all night? This is another sneaky form of avoidance. When you do it and you don't starve
to death, your brain also increases anxiety. So this was me in high school. I would never let
myself fail a class, and so I never got to see that I would actually survive if I did. And my
anxiety around school just went up and up and up. So what's the alternative to avoidance? Sitting
down, allowing your anxiety to be there, and choosing how many hours you're going to devote to
studying for this test, and then doing it. Right? Studying and then going on with your life. We're
going to touch more on this in the next video, but sitting with your feelings and choosing your
actions, stopping running, is the most sure way to show your brain that you are safe enough and that
you can handle this. You can handle this feeling. Okay. Let's try a harder one. You've got a really
big project at work. It's really important, but it's also really difficult. It stretches you
to the limits. So how do you deal with this? You avoid the problem by distracting yourself.
You gossip about your boss. You engage in a bunch of drama with the other co-workers. You use
humor. Sometimes you fear that you aren't capable, and that's a pretty uncomfortable feeling, but you
avoid that feeling by blaming your boss for being a jerk and reminding yourself how perfect you are.
Maybe you daydream of escaping by quitting your job and moving to Thailand. Um and when you have
a great idea and your boss like just challenges you to back it up with some evidence, you just
run away inside. You shut down your emotions. You try not to care. You try to numb yourself
off. And can you see how each of these sneaky defense mechanisms is an attempt to avoid your
initial feelings of anxiety, of a lack of safety? The situation here isn't straightforward. Right?
Relationships are complicated. But we can learn to problem solve without chronically escaping to
avoidance. Because every time we avoid a problem we make our anxiety louder. Okay. Let's do one
more. Let's say you've got a painful history of abuse. You've got intense memories of a
traumatic childhood. You have these painful feelings of unworthiness. Maybe you get flashbacks
of fear or you get overwhelmed by intense sadness or every time a memory comes up of your mom
screaming at you you feel intense anxiety. And in the past, when you were a child, that feeling of
anxiety meant that you were in danger. And anytime there's a little conflict in the present, whether,
you know, the restaurant gets your meal wrong or you and your husband disagree about parenting,
you get super anxious. You're like terrified of that feeling because in the past that feeling of
anxiety indicated something was wrong. So let's look at another way you might avoid that feeling.
How do you deal with that feeling or cope with that feeling? Let's say you use pleasure-seeking,
right? You love to shop. You love the thrill of finding a great deal despite how it impacts
your credit card. When you're stressed you run from it with some Ben & Jerry's. Uh maybe you've
gotten into the habit of drinking every night, but now that's kind of messing up your sleep, uh
messing up your health or your relationships. The more you run from your feelings, the worse
you feel, and your brain starts to believe that these memories are too painful to face, so it
actually increases your anxiety around them. You feel panicky now. You you fear these memories will
destroy you. But in truth you can face them. When you start with a therapist and you tell them the
things you've never told anyone and she doesn't judge you and you don't die either, suddenly your
amygdala starts to re-categorize these memories. Maybe you can face them. Maybe the memories hurt,
but they won't harm you. The more work you do, the more confident you become at feeling
your feelings. Now, I know these examples are oversimplified, but I hope you can see in
yourself how these sneaky patterns of avoidance keep you trapped in cycles of anxiety. So now you
know what's keeping you anxious. You're constantly exposed to perceived threats, um you feel like
you're in danger, but you're likely engaging in these chronic patterns of avoidance, um even,
or especially, these really subtle patterns of avoidance. So let's explore the role avoidance
plays in your life. Um what function does it serve for you? I want you to use the workbook to
explore a bunch of, you know, really impressive and brilliant ways that you avoid your triggers.
What are your go-to ways to avoid things? I've got a lot of sheets in the back uh for you to explore
this this question. Because when we understand how you're avoiding things we can really
unlock the key to the antidote to avoidance, and that's going to decrease your anxiety over
time. So this video is day four of my Break the Anxiety Cycle in 30 day online course. If you'd
like to access the workbook and live Q and A's and dive deeply into what you're doing that
increases your anxiety, please check it out. Um the link is in the description, or you can
find it at my website therapyinanutshell.com. [Music]
