Jennifer Agee: Hello, hello, and welcome to Sh*t You Wish You Learned in Grad School. I am your host, Jennifer Agee, licensed clinical professional counselor. And today, we are gonna be talking about understanding and managing your anxiety. Anxiety disorders are very common in the United States. It's one of the most common mental illnesses affecting 40 million adults, and that is roughly 18% of our population. And although it affects 18% of our population, we go over it briefly in grad school, and we're not really taught exactly what to do to help people manage it and treat it on their own or without medication. So, here's some things that I can teach you to do today to help share with your clients or use for yourself to better manage your anxiety symptoms from home. The first technique I wanna go over is belly breathing. When we are feeling anxious, there are often physiological changes that take place in the body. The first one many people notice is a change to their breathing. When we feel anxious, our breathing gets more shallow, and we start breathing from our chest, rather than from our belly, our diaphragm area. That shallow breathing is sending a powerful message to the brain. Shallow breathing is a warning system that tells the brain that we are in danger. That panting shallow breath, it's necessary when we need to flee. That's why we're doing it, and that's why it's paired with a warning sign of danger. This goes all the way back to our survival days of early man when we needed to know how to outrun a saber-toothed tiger. We needed to sprint. We didn't need low, slow belly breaths when we were trying to survive. We needed that shallow panty breath that would give us a quick burst of energy to flee. Think about this. When do we naturally have deep belly breath? It's when we're feeling safe, when we're asleep. Our belly breathing, without thinking about it, is a way to signal the brain that we are feeling safe. This is why belly breathing techniques are so effective. It's a quick signal to our brains that we're safe. It can stand down. There's no legitimate threat that we need to be prepared to battle. This kind of breathing also stimulates the vagus nerve, and it activates the relaxation response of the parasympathetic nervous system. Understanding this simple but effective technique is an amazing life hack. So, now I want us to try this technique, and I'm gonna lead you through exactly how to do it because you think, of course I know how to breathe from my belly, but you'd be surprised how often you aren't breathing from your belly once you become aware of this technique and how it feels in your body. So, the first thing I'd like for you to do, provided you're in a safe space and you're, you're not driving, is to place one hand on your belly just above your beltline area and the other on your chest right above your breastbone. Open your mouth just slightly and release a gentle sigh. As you do this, let your shoulders and the muscles of your upper body relax down with the exhale. And the point of this sigh is not to completely empty your lungs. It's just to relax the muscles of your upper, upper body. Go ahead and close your mouth and pause for a few seconds, keeping your mouth closed. And inhale slowly through your nose by pushing your stomach out. Notice that you need your hand to go out when you are inhaling. Push that stomach out, that belly out. Push your hand out. Inhale slowly through your nose by pushing your stomach out. Pause. And when you feel ready, open your mouth and exhale through your mouth by pulling your belly in. Feel your hand come back in. Again, inhale, letting your hand come out. Exhale, feeling your hand come back in. Continue this again and again, as much as you need to feel your system start to relax and calm down. Practice this, this technique regularly when you begin to feel, um, anxious. I'm telling you, this really helps. Sends powerful life-hack messages to your brain. All right. Tip number two. It's exercise. According to some studies, regular exercise works as well as medication for some people to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. The effect can be long-lasting, and one vigorous exercise session can help alleviate symptoms for hours. And regular, and a regular schedule of exercise may significantly reduce your symptoms over time. Research found that even a 10-minute walk a day can decrease anxiety symptoms by 20%, which is pretty phenomenal. So, the last thing we wanna do when we're not feeling great is to exercise, but the reality is it's a good bio life hack to be able to help give your symptom, yourself some relief from symptoms. It gives all of that excess energy a space to go, all that anxious energy, a space to go. And a decrease sy-, symptom, a decrease in symptoms by 20% is pretty significant. That is not to be taken lightly. I wanna, I wanna make a connection here for you. There is a link between many with anxiety and depression together. Nearly half of those diagnosed with d-, with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Anxious thoughts are not happy thoughts. Anxious thoughts run all over the place. They run into the future and try and predict what's going to happen. Unfortunately, anxiety never tells a "they lived happily ever after" kind of story. So, when you think about it, it makes sense that anxiety and depression often go together like peanut butter and jelly. Sitting in the negative, fear-based thinking fuels that hopeless feeling. It gives, it gives you that hopeless outcome kind of doom and gloom scenario that just kind of might feel like a dark cloud all over you. I have found that if the root cause is anxiety, you will often see depression for the reasons I just mentioned. But if the root cause of the symptoms is depression, you do not always or often see anxiety. I wanna repeat that again because I think especially as you're new in the field, a lot of times people see anxiety and depression together, and they're not really quite sure what the root is. So let me say this one more time, if the root cause of symptoms is anxiety, you will very often see depression or some depressive symptoms, especially depressed thinking. If the root cause of the symptoms is depression, you often do not see signs of anxiety. So, use that also as a way to start to discern what might be the root cause for yourself or for a client. Tip number three, meditation and mindfulness. Did you know eight weeks of regular meditation can significantly reduce the stress response in people with generalized anxiety disorder? Research found that it has effects on the levels of stress hormones, inflammatory markers, and so many other things in the body. After eight weeks of regular, a regular meditation practice, it was found that the brain's fight or flight center, the amygdala, it actually appears to shrink. The amygdala is that primal part of our brain, that primal region that's associated with fear and emotion. And it's often involved in the initiation of the body's response to stress. There are many great apps that exist for guided mindfulness with a focus on anxiety. I've actually found that silent meditation is super difficult for people new to this practice, so I recommend starting with a guided meditation app or a video to get started. One mindfulness activity is the visualization of a stream. And if you feel comfortable, I'd like to lead you through this guided visualization. So, if you're in a safe space, I want you to close your eyes. If you're not in a comfortable space, look down right now and notice what time is on this podcast so you can come back to this one. I want you to practice it later. All right, closing your eyes, I want you to take a few cleansing breaths, and begin to visualize that there is a beautiful stream before you. The stream flows peacefully in a circle with one small offshoot that leads to the ocean. Bring your focus back to the stream, and as you look at the stream, you notice the peaceful way that it moves, just rippling in front of you. And as you're watching that water, you notice that there are beautiful, colorful leaves that are floating in the water. And on these leaves are the different thoughts that you are having right now. You observe these thoughts with curiosity and non-judgment, recognizing that you have the power of which leaves to pick up, which to hold, and some of these leaves with the thoughts you allow to flow through to come back again for another time. And even other leaves, you allow to be released into the beautiful ocean knowing that they are no longer your thoughts to hold. You have the power to observe these thoughts and to pick up, release, or recycle them another time. Take a moment and observe the thoughts that are on these leaves right now and notice which ones you are feeling led to pick up, which ones need to be released into the beautiful ocean, and which ones are just not for now and you wanna let them cycle through another time. Notice how good it feels to know that you don't have to pick up each and every thought, each and every leaf that flows by. You can trust yourself to decide what you need. Sit in that space for a moment, and when you're ready, take a deep breath and open your eyes. Wonderful. Tip number four is called flying markers. If you get task-related anxiety, this one is for you. Imagine for a moment that I ask you to catch as many markers as you possibly can when I throw them into the air. Chances are you won't catch a single one. I'm throwing a bunch of markers up. Now I want you to imagine that I ask you to catch just one marker. When I throw them into the air. There's an excellent chance you are gonna be able to catch one marker because you've given it your focused energy. You zoned in on one, and you can grab it. Anxious thoughts are a lot like flying markers. There are too many to catch all at once. So, what I want you to do is think of what's the magic marker I can catch? Get a pen and paper and brain dump all of the things that are on your to-do list that you're worrying about. Order them from the most to the least important and start working on the tasks in this strategic way, noticing the one at the top is the marker that you are holding and focusing on now, knowing the rest have to fall for a moment because you're giving all of your focused attention to one task at a time. You can't work on all of your to-do list at the same time effectively. It's just not realistic. You just can't catch all of the markers at once. But what you can do is give one task your all, check it off the list, grab a different marker and focus on that one. All right. The fifth tip that I wanna give you to help manage your anxiety is the five senses grounding technique. Often when you are feeling anxious, there's a dissociated feeling that happens in your body. It's hard to feel connected to yourself when your thoughts are running so fast. Here's a simple technique that you can use anywhere. Here we go. Look around and notice and name five things that you can see. For me, it would be I notice the camera in front of me. I notice the microphone that's in front of me. I can notice the laptop in front of me. I notice the lamp on the sideboard over here. I noticed the colors in my curtain that's over to my left. Now look around and notice four things that you can feel. What can you actually touch and feel? I want you to name them. Notice three things that you can hear. Name them. Notice two things that you can smell and discern the smell of in the space that you're in right now. And notice one thing that you can taste. This simple grounding technique is excellent at getting you back into your body when that dissociated feeling starts to happen. The good thing about this is you can do it for anywhere. Nobody has to know that you're doing it, but it's always available to you because you have your five senses wherever you go. I hope these techniques are helpful for you and your clients. And if you wanna connect more with me, you can connect on counselingcommunity.com, all the social medias under counselingcommunity.com. And if you'd like to come to a training with me, I have openings in Portugal and Asheville, North Carolina this, this year still. Um, just reach out to me, and I'd be happy to connect with you. All right, everyone, get out there and live your best dang life.