Ep. #15: Anxiety and Worrying: 3 Brain Hacks to Try

In this episode,  I talk about: 
1) what anxiety is and how it feels in our body
2) why anxiety and worry are maladaptive, but fear is not,
and
3) how we can conquer anxiety and worry by paying attention to our thoughts and emotions.

I offer 3 brain hacks that can help with anxiety and worrying, especially with regards to the pandemic and the holiday season. One of the most creative ways is to reframe anxiety as excitement and I offer some tips for that. 

Transcript

Janny Chang  0:10  
Welcome to unleash your inner power with Dr. Janny Chang, the podcast that helps women from all walks of life use ThoughtWorks research and storytelling to help rewire your brain and kick ass in your personal and professional life.

 0:27  
Hi, my friends, I hope you all had a great Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas, or just a holiday break in general, I do want to thank all the central workers out there, I know there are people who can't take time off. And that includes you know, public health professionals, postal workers, all of you that do that, I salute you. And I think you I see you, and all that ancestral essential work that you do. I am so grateful I have so many of us are grateful. And for those of you who were lucky enough to take a little break, I hope you had a good time. You know, whether with your chosen family, or with your blood flam family, I know for myself this year, it felt like Christmas just came so quickly. I was still working on the 23rd even up until the 24th. And I remember thinking oh, well, after Thanksgiving, you know, is really gearing up for Christmas. I have two little kids four and two years old. 

So if you're a parent, you understand how Christmas is such a big deal for little ones. And I remember thinking, Okay, I have all this time. And all of a sudden, you're it was just like the whole year it came so fast. Now, I wanted to talk in this episode about anxiety. You know, I've been posting a lot about anxiety. I've been discussing anxiety, and I haven't really done a podcast episode on it yet. I know I've mentioned it here and there. But I was like, I really need to talk about it, especially with the holiday season upon us. Right. And with the pandemic, not seeming to end. My Right. Right. This has been a challenging pandemic year. You know, we're now going on year two. And I know many of my friends are wondering when will this ever end? Right with Omicron. 

And now the restraint of going out again, and the widespread? You know, the prevalence of COVID It feels like we're back in square one. I don't know if anyone else feels that way. I certainly do. And that can be anxiety inducing. Right, the holidays are challenging enough, in terms of, you know, people grieving for loved ones that they lost, or the anxiety of having to be around people who say things that hurt us, you know, or even the anxiety of having to draw boundaries to people we know, or in our lives, or just the stress of hosting, right, you know, parties and events, or whether to host or not to host right, the pressure of having to do holiday things. And then add on top of that, you know, there's also the stress of Omicron and COVID, right. And for those of us that are introverts, I'm actually introvert extrovert both, and really just right in the middle 50/50 I find that as I get older that I do want to

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you know, use that energy to be alone, you know, and, and to read and reflect right? As a coach. Also, I think it's so essential to have those moments when we're by ourselves, right? And so if you're like me, right, that the pressure to have to socialize and host and entertain, that can be a lot during this year. It can be anxiety inducing, right? So the holiday season overall, while it can be so precious and fun, and exhilarating and and there's nothing like it like seeing the joy in your kids eyes, right when they, you know get gifts or when they just see Christmas lights, you know, and however you celebrate it, but there is a joy to the season for sure. But it can also be overwhelming, you know, for many people, including myself, okay, so Alright, let me dig in. 

Okay, so what is the definition of anxiety I do want to say I'm going to go through some of this, but I am going to offer some really incredible brain hacks that I find to be useful so stay with me and and let me know also if this is helpful at all, okay. So the definition of xiety is the feeling of worry, nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome, when there's uncertainty, we get anxious. And our inclination is to do something, our brain comes up with a solution, right? Like worrying, actually worrying is a solution. And it can feel like we're solving the problem. It's like playing a slot machine in a casino and winning just enough times to keep people coming back. A lot of the research shows that anxiety can become as negatively a reinforced habit loop, it can trigger worry, as a chain of thoughts and images, that then trigger anxiety, which then triggers worry, and back and forth, back and forth, like a loop. So it's, it's cyclical. Now, we all have fear, okay, fear helps us survive. If you step into a busy street, right, and you see a car speeding by that's about to hit you, you feel fear, your body physically reacts in fear, and you know, to step back onto the sidewalk, or quickly get away from a car, right? Now, anxiety, worry, on the other hand, are maladaptive. Right? It's not really there to help us survive. It's our thoughts and feelings spinning out of control, when we don't have enough information, but we want a sense of control.

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Now, we can get addicted to worrying. Sometimes worries are a way to exert control over the situation, it can actually feel pleasurable, like as if you're getting something done by worrying. For me, I remember, when my worrying thoughts became pleasurable. There was a certain point in my life, I was in middle school, I think it was actually a tween. And I remember having anxiety about an upcoming test. And I started with one worrying thought, right, like I'm going to fail. Well, it definitely amplified and became, not only will I fail, but I'll get kicked out of school, people will find out, they'll all see me as a failure, my parents would get so mad, the list goes on and on. Right. But it was at that point that I remember, I could even like, reflect on that point, I'm bracing myself indulge in these worrying thoughts. Because there was like the simultaneous, like undercurrent of a thought that I still carry with me to this day. 

And it's it went along with this allowed me to amplify and escalate all these thoughts, these worrying thoughts. And here's the recurring thought and underlying thought that I had, which is that if I worry enough, then the worst won't happen. All I have to do is keep worrying. And I can somehow control the outcome. It's such a brain trick, right? It's like, oh, I just have these warning thoughts. My brain, it's like a distraction. And, you know, I feel like I'm actually exerting control over my life, which is totally false, right. But notice, it was my way of my brain's way of saying, Yeah, I can exert control of the situation, right. And it's kind of like first parents who think lying awake at night, worrying about our kids, is going to somehow change the outcome. Right. And I know, I worked at an independent school before World, the parents would, you know, worry so much about their kids, and they would lie awake at night. And they would talk to each other about it right, as if, like, they're worrying and talking and complaining with somehow, you know, change the behavior of their kids or change the outcome of their kids, right? And really, it just, it didn't, it didn't really change anything at all right? So, but it's a distraction, it's a distraction for our brain. Right. 

Now, the other thing that happens is that, as I talked about before, is the feeling anxiety can trigger the behavior of worrying, which then leads to feeling more anxious, and the more worrying right, so it's that feedback loop I was talking about, but just like with worrying, how that's a distracting behavior, we can engage in other distracting behaviors in a coaching call that buffering, right so like, you know, checking out our smartphone, or one of my you know, clients who said, it's like Doom scrolling, you can do scroll as a buffer, right. overworking, over drinking, you know, there are people that I know who work a ton to avoid feeling bad or worrying about something. You know, creates a new habit, right? Any sort of habit that we do to avoid feeling anxious or stressed, right, it doesn't really make us feel less less stressed or anxious. It just does. Praxis temporarily. Okay. Now, on to the good stuff, I am going to go over a few brain hacks to help us with anxiety and worry. And I first I want to just say it is totally normal to be anxious, and to worry, okay, we all do it, we're human part of that 5050 human experience, right 50% of the time, we have positive emotions 50% of the time we have negative emotions, well, that's part of that that's part of life. Okay. And even with therapy and coaching, and all the tools, you can learn even the brain hacks, you will still have, you know, anxiety, you may still have anxiety, you may still have worrying thoughts, you know, you may still worry, but I do think that it does, fade it more into the background, you know, so it will become less impactful in your life, and less

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influential in the decisions you make, and in the experience you have in life, right? Because when you're stressed and anxious doesn't feel good, you know, you might have a great outcome, let's say that tests that you took, or the competition you went to, or that job promotion turns out really well. And you might think, yeah, stress and anxiety really helped, you know, because I got that adrenaline pumping. But really, it's like, imagine that you could actually have a very different experience, you could have a joyful experience, you could have a neutral experience, and you would still have the same outcome. So the point is that anxiety worry, it doesn't really improve your experience. In fact, it makes it worse, right? And so even though it'll still be there, these tools are so helpful, it's not to completely eliminate them, it's to make them more like white noise in your background, and to make them such that they do not, you know, um, color your experience in a way that's negative and unsustainable for the long run, right? Because in the long run, a lot of like, you know, anxiety and worry, isn't really good for us, you know, mentally, emotionally physically. Okay. 

So, I'm going to go into these brain hacks, the first brain hack I have, is to just cultivate awareness, right is to be more aware of our thoughts, and using this non judgmental and curious approach. Right, it means like, when we start to feel anxious, okay, or we become aware of a thought we're having that's triggering our anxiety, it's always a thought that triggers it. You know, although I will say that if you have trauma in your life, it's hard to know that separation between thought, or just like, you know, it's all kind of blended together, right thought emotion. And, you know, the, you know, the anxiety can trigger the thought, right? So, it's not so clear. But assuming that we're aware of we've worked through our trauma, or we're trauma, I don't think it's really trauma free, but we've worked through it. Right, we can be aware that there's a thought that's trigger anxiety, and we can just step back and observe the thoughts we're having, right? We can ask ourselves, these questions like, why am I doing this? What triggered this behavior? What reward Am I getting out of this? Is this part of some larger story or narrative that's making me feel this way, or think this way? 

Now, part of this awareness is also recognizing that we don't need stress or anxiety to do a good job, right. And I talked about how it's very common for people to romanticize that stress equal success, right, especially for folks in high pressure professions, you know, you talk about, you know, the surgeon or, you know, you know, a journalist in war zones, right, you can get addicted to the adrenaline stress. Now, again, I do want to offer you that even in those high stress professions, again, we can think about a different experience of one that's calm, or even neutral, right. And that's also sustainable in the long run, it doesn't lead to burnout, and doesn't have physical repercussions, right in our lives. Right. So that's one thing that we can, you know, be aware of about this attachment to romanticizing stress in our lives, right? So now, being mindful and aware with curiosity isn't about just clearing your head of thoughts that you don't like, or it's also not about shaming yourself for having anxious and worrying thoughts. It's actually just observing yourself and recognizing that you are not your thoughts, your emotions, it's about changing our relationship with our thoughts and emotions rather than changing the thought and emotions themselves. And the reason why I also say this is because it's not only possible that we become attached to this idea that anxiety, worry equals success. We can also become attached to our identity As an anxious or worrying person, right, think about how many people we know who say, I'm a worrywart. Or she's a worrywart. Or people that talk about other people as, oh, that person so high strung are so anxious. You know, I'm

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just so wound up. That's what I hear. Right? So, you know, we are not our thoughts. Okay. And so that's two things I really want to make clear here is the attachment that we have to the idea that stress and anxiety equals success. And then the second thing is this attachment, we have to identifying with our thoughts that it becomes who we are. And that's not a position of, you know, power, right? Or agency. It's like, from there, where can you go and make a change? You can't because like, Oh, I am so this, I'm fixed, which is also not true, because we have, like so many thoughts a day. It's not who we are. Right? And that's because of the thoughts we have or because of societal conditioning. It's because of background. You know, it's because also how we're hardwired as humans, how the brain has evolved, right? So it isn't actually who we are. And with the research on neuroplasticity, the brain is very malleable. And in fact, you know, it is not just fixed. Right? So when you say I'm a worrywart. Well, no, it means that you have some habits that created these, you know, seven synapses into networks that show some thoughts that express worry in your brain, but you can create new neural networks in your brain. How miraculous is that? Right? How amazing, right? So remember that thoughts are just mental words and images that come and go. And we can view them with curiosity and skepticism. They're not good, they're not bad. They don't define who we are. And we can change them. They don't have to be part of our narrative, we can also let them fade into the background. And over time, they become less powerful in our experiences in a way that we see ourselves and we see our lives, right. So that's all the first brain hack is curiosity, in observing and being aware of our thoughts. 

The second brain hack is to is really related to the first, but it's about being aware of our emotions. Okay, so now, worrying really oftentimes refers to thoughts. And anxiety refers to emotions, but really, like the two are very similar, right? So, in this case, with if you have anxious emotions, you can pay attention to your breath. And I often do this right. Pay attention to how you're feeling. Okay, be curious. Again, always curious, but not in a judgmental way. Just curious. And I'm curious to know, and I'm curious to learn kind of way, how anxiousness feels in your body. For me, it's tightness in my chest. It's shorter breaths. It's clammy hands, right. Now, when I was getting, you know, feedback at work, for instance, about my performance, I noticed, and I knew going in that I would, having xiety. But I just stepped outside of myself. And I observed I coach myself beforehand, during and after, you know, but I went into there, just stepped outside. It's almost like just watching. It's a very meta thing, like watching my own brain and observing my thoughts, and how also how I was feeling, you know, I could feel my face was getting flushed, my breaths were getting shorter. My chest was tightening up, you know, and my hands were getting clammy, I could feel myself also just start to slouch, right? You can feel in your posture, I could feel tightness in my jaws. Right? It's like, right, carry some stress.

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And just as I was observing myself, like my thoughts, and also observing my own emotions, it really helped me because I could see that I wasn't my thoughts or my emotions. I wasn't this person who was getting anxious about receiving feedback. It was just a temporary state that I happened to be in. It didn't define me. It didn't define my current state. It didn't define my future state. I have full control over it, because I have control over my breath. Right. And I also had control over like naming the experience like how I felt where it showed up in my body You know, I noticed the sensations and emotions and thoughts, and instead of resisting them or pushing them away, or you know, crafting a story of myself being high, strong and not being able to handle pressure, or that I was a victim of this event, I just allowed it to be, you know, it's like, it was like, time slowed down, I just watched myself, my thoughts like a CNN ticker. 

And I just watched also how I was feeling in different parts of my body. Right. And then by doing that, I allowed it just to move through, move through my body, I took note how my body was performing, you know, how it was performing, just as it should be. Because to me, it's like, I perceived it as a threat. And so just like my body thought it was a threat, it started to demonstrate, you know, physical sensations of a threat, right, was pumping more blood, right? But because I was mindful, and I was curious, and I was like an anthropologist exploring a new culture, and that part of that was discerning and understanding the thoughts and emotions that merge for me, during this process, I could just move through the experience, just move through and allow all those physical sensations to move through my body as uncomfortable as they were. But that's all they were just physical sensations, right? Like when you get nervous or anxious, or stressed, they're just by brain shifts in your body. Right, I didn't die. I didn't have a nervous breakdown, even I thought I would coming into it, right. But I just let it go through my body. Right? Right. So that is my second hack is is to just be aware of your emotions. And name it and observe it and allow it to be there. And course through your body. Okay, and focus on that breath. Inhale, deep, and exhale, loud, right. And if you do yoga, this might come as very easy to you. But if you don't do yoga, whether you do or not, doing those deep breaths are so helpful, or even just like shallow breaths, sometimes when I'm stopped at a stoplight, I'll do those, you know, shallow breaths, right? And whatever helps whatever keeps that belly going. In and out, in and out. Right. So alright, the third and final hack that I recommend, and I absolutely love this and have practice that myself is turning anxiety into excitement. Right? So obviously, exciting. citement are two different emotions. But what's interesting is that in our body, they are the same. Whether we're anxious or excited, we experienced the same physical sensations heart pounding, feeling sweater you're jittery, sweaty, or jittery, you know, sweating, right? shallow breathing, right? 

Remember that when you experience anxiety. The first thing that happens is you have a senses that observe the environment and you feel this rush of cortisol in your brain as you prepare for fight or flight. Right? It's like survival. Right? Now, the difference between anxiety and excitement is just fear. Right? When we remove that fear element, we can turn what we're feeling in the thoughts we're having into excitement. Now, you can definitely have both anxiety and excitement, right? I can imagine Olympic swimmers, who have a huge competition coming up, or you have some, you know, huge event in your life that you've been looking forward to, but you're also anxious the same time, you might have both feelings, right? It's okay to have both, right, we're just human. But what's interesting is being able to reframe it as excitement just

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turns your experience a notch up, you know, it just improves it. And, you know, kind of see the differences in energy that you have when you are excited versus anxious, right when you have more and you can have both, but let's just say excitement is like 6040. Right, like, you know, having more excitement, you know, it can motivate you to do the things that will help you to feel less anxious, they can also motivate you just to look forward, right and to keep the needle moving in your life. Right. So an example of this is like for the longest time I had a fear of public speaking, right? And when I was in college, I joined Toastmasters and I've been in touch mantras on and off, on and off. But it helped me so much to practice speaking in front of others, even though I felt anxious and excited each and every time, but it was because I actually felt excited about improving, right was like I was anxious. But I was also excited that it really motivated me to take the next steps to take action to improve my public speaking. Right. So it was me being excited about trying to do something and tackle a challenge that actually helped me become less anxious and public speaking, because the more I practice, the less anxious I became, right. 

But if I was just stuck in anxiety, without that excitement, I don't think I would have joined Toastmasters, I would have just probably beat myself up shamed myself, or tried to crawl in a hole or maybe let's never speak in public again, right. But but because I was excited, I was able to take action towards my goal. When you reframe anxiety, as excitement, you invoke an opportunity and growth mindset, it makes you curious to learn and open to new possibilities, rather than seeing the situation's black or white. Like you either win or fail, right, you get to learn, and your life may change for the better. Now, I promise you, when I try this, the more I told myself, I'm actually excited about this, I could feel it getting easier. So here's the here's that part about reframing into excitement when you feel anxious, like literally just say, I feel excited about this. Or you can also reflect and also write down what about this excites me, because I can tell you, even the things that we dread, like, you know, performance reviews, or other things that we might dread actually has a component of citement in it, right? Because it signals hope and change. Right? So even that performance review might be a chance for you to voice your concerns. And you might be like, Oh, I would love to write a little speech or, you know, I'd love to figure out what my goals are for 2022. Or, I'd love to figure out what I need to get promoted next year. Right? So, or it could be as simple as, you know, maybe there are things I'm going to find out, and that this job really isn't for me and I need to make a change. Right. And so I am curious and excited to find out more. Okay, so

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that is just there's always something that you can be excited about, even with the events that are anxiety, anxiety inducing, right? And you can also trick yourself into just playing some games be like, if you dread let's say you dread going to this Christmas party or, you know, holiday party, but you know, you can you can be like, well, what can excite me and so you just say nothing that excites me about going, I don't want to go it's causing anxiety, I'm stressed out about it? Well, one of the things that you can do is just play like a game. You know, what if I just like did a little experiment, I went to the party, what gets me excited, ooh, I would love to understand the psychology of certain people that I work with, or I would love to interview a couple people or just get inside their heads, you know, or, like me really interest in psychology, but you know, something else, maybe even something that's like, Oh, I love to, you know, talk to people about recipes, or what can possibly excite you or could be about your life, like I love to know, you know, this challenge? Can I meet the challenge of, you know, staying calm and neutral and being observed my own thoughts throughout this party with people whose statements trigger me, right. So you can just like you can play a game, right? Because if you are deciding to go and you can also just decide not to go or not to do any of the things. 

You know, I mean, separate performance reviews are things that you have to do. But if it's a choice, you can just decide not to do it. But if you are going to make the decision to do it. You might as well make it exciting and fun for yourself exciting for yourself. And you can find that kernel of excitement for you. Okay, and even all the while even as you're feeling anxious, that's okay, let the excitement matter more. Okay. Alright, so I do want to just say that it's not silver lining it, you're not trying to be positive or trying to only see the bright side, because you're accepting that there's good and bad 50/50 or 60/40 or 70/30. Right. With with everything that we're doing in our lives, right, but what you are saying is that yeah, I can find something or I can make it really interesting and challenging for myself and make it a like a mental game or a mental challenge. You know, to find that kernel excitement for me and I'm going to prioritize myself and in the future process, I'm going to actually find a way to enjoy myself and prioritize myself, right. So I just want to say that it's not the same as silver lining. It's definitely not toxic positivity. It's really finding a kernel in there, or some thread that you can latch on to, and you can improve that experience for yourself. Okay? Alright, so that's all I have for this episode anxiety, I do want to just recap, that it's totally normal, to have anxiety, and to have worrying thoughts. We're only human, we're actually hardwired, you know, to have fear that helps us survive. But anxiety and worrying can be maladaptive. And so, but there are ways that we can, you know, diminish the impact has on our everyday lives, and also turn it in a way that will be advantageous to us, right. 

And so the three hacks that I've recommended is one, being more mindful and aware of our thoughts, and not judging it. Number two is being more mindful and aware of our emotions and also not judging it. And then the third thing is to reframe anxiety, as excitement, even with the things that we think we dread. There's always something that you can find that will excite you, even if it's something that's like, I will never do that again. But maybe I'm going to find out. Maybe me use my curiosity. I'm going to find out is this something I would ever do again, like going to that holiday party, right? So all right, my friends. I have one more podcast episode I want to release to all of you a love letter before the new year. But otherwise, I want to wish you a really good rest of the year and I hope you were able to take some time out and find that excitement for yourself in these everyday moments. Alright, take care my friends. Bye