Josh Bailey: 0:00

Hey, Psych Bytes with CCS is a weekly podcast hosted by Student Life Counseling and Consultation Service. This show is dedicated to discussing a wide range of topics pertaining to mental health commonly experienced in the college setting. It is important to note that this podcast is not a substitute for therapy. All of the topics on the show, while discussed by professionals are strictly psycho educational, and meant to inform listeners on available resources, skills and support. Topics on this show can be sensitive in nature. And should you find yourself needing additional support or resources, please visit ccs.osu.edu or call us at 614-292-5766. With that in mind, enjoy the show. What is up everybody and welcome to Psych Bytes with CCS. My name is Josh and today we are joined by senior staff therapist Sarah Peters. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah Peters: 1:15

Hello, how you doing?

Josh Bailey: 1:16

I am great. It is bright and early on a Tuesday morning. So I'm thriving right now.

Sarah Peters: 1:22

Oh, I love to hear that.

Josh Bailey: 1:23

Yeah. You are here today to talk about anxiety.

Sarah Peters: 1:29

I am.

Josh Bailey: 1:30

This is exciting, because I know you and I both talk about anxiety on a daily basis with the clients that we work with. So I thought it would be good for us to get together and dedicate an entire episode to anxiety: What it is, where it comes from, how it presents. All the fun things. Just to get that out there for everyone.

Sarah Peters: 1:50

Sounds great. You do know that I love to talk about anxiety.

Josh Bailey: 1:53

Well, let's just jump right into it and start off with what is anxiety.

Sarah Peters: 1:58

Anxiety is a universal experience. Every human being on this planet has experienced anxiety at some point in their life. Maybe they call it stress or you know, just, "Oh, I'm under a lot of pressure." But in kind of the psychology world or the therapy world, we call this anxiety. It's typically not very pleasant, can in fact be pretty unpleasant at times. Because anxiety is an experience that kind of hits multiple domains. So starting with like physical symptoms, people will think about anxiety might feel like tightness in their chest or butterflies in their stomach. You might feel kind of shaky or have a lot of muscle tension. Kind of cognitively, people get really kind of stuck in thoughts like people will talk about like overthinking, we might call it ruminating where you're just stuck over and over thinking about the same thing. But you're not actually like making a plan to deal with the thing or solve the problem. You're just feeling kind of upset about it and just thinking about it over and over again.

Josh Bailey: 3:14

Gotcha.

Sarah Peters: 3:15

And then we've got the kind of emotional aspect of anxiety, which is kind of different for different people. So some folks might get really irritable, kind of snappy. Some people feel just sort of generally on edge kind of tense. And for other folks, it's just this overwhelming sense of doom. So you know, not super pleasant. And it's also very unique. So like, there's no one size fits all kind of approach for anxiety.

Josh Bailey: 3:44

Okay.

Sarah Peters: 3:44

Because everybody's experience of anxiety is going to be a little bit different.

Josh Bailey: 3:48

Yeah. So what about for those of us who have that one friend who just never gets anxious, like, "Well, I don't get anxious, I'm fine. I'm calm, everything's cool. I can handle anything that's thrown my way." What about them? Because I hate that person.

Sarah Peters: 4:01

Well, I'm thinking two things. Number one, possibility number one is maybe they actually are anxious, but they don't have like the words to describe that, or they're just so used to like ignoring it and just kind of brushing it off. Or it is possible— I don't know that I've ever really met a human being that can do this— But you know, maybe it's possible that they are so good at managing their anxiety that it's stays at such low levels that they never actually, you know, kind of perceive like,"Oh, that's what that is," because by the time it really starts to kick in, they're already doing things to manage it.

Josh Bailey: 4:41

So they do in fact have anxiety.

Sarah Peters: 4:45

I mean, like it really is— The only other way that I can think of to avoid anxiety is to like, never go anywhere and never do anything. Like never do anything important that like matters to you.

Josh Bailey: 4:57

Okay, then, but then I wonder about because like, what about when I go to bed at night, and I lay down, and I'm comfy in my sheets, the light is off the TV is off, the screens off, I close my eyes. And my brain goes, "Hey, do you remember that time in third grade when you said that thing? And everybody looked at you and then kind of laughed? That was awful. Let's think about that." That's not fair.

Sarah Peters: 5:21

No, it is not. And it's also an incredibly common So in the example you just gave, we are social creatures. We need experience. I literally use that example— because I think everybody has had that experience, myself included— to belong. I mean, that has been established in social when I do my anxiety workshop. Like that is the thing that we talk about. This is— it's your brain trying to solve a problem. psychology, its like a fundamental human need to feel So anxiety exists, because it's your body's response to change like you belong. And so if you do something that perhaps or to a potential threat. It tells us, "Hey, you need to pay threatens that ability to belong, like doing something attention to something." that other people perceive as weird, and so they look at you funny, and you're feeling judged. That's a threat to your belonging. And so your brain then is going to say, "Hey, this is potentially dangerous." It's not actually dangerous, but your

Josh Bailey: 6:16

Yeah.

Sarah Peters: 6:18

This is potentially dangerous. And we brain perceives it as dangerous. need to figure this out and like solve this problem, so it never happens again. The problem though, is— I mean, this happened, what when you were in third grade? And I don't know about you, Josh, but third grade has been a minute. The problem has already been solved, but my brain is just so like, attentive to trying to fix things that it will bring stuff up just to be on the safe side.

Josh Bailey: 6:46

Yeah. That is awful.

Sarah Peters: 6:49

Yeah. I mean, it's trying really hard to be helpful. It's just not always doing it in a way that feels great.

Josh Bailey: 6:55

Okay, so it's trying hard to be helpful, but in fact, is making everything worse, creating a bit of a dumpster fire in my brain when I want to go to bed?

Sarah Peters: 7:03

Well, I mean, off it makes everything worse. Okay, I validate that it can feel like that, and let me challenge you a little bit. Think about the times in your life that you've been anxious. And how would your life be different if you just never felt anxious?

Josh Bailey: 7:23

Well, I'd have to imagine that I'd be super productive. I'd probably be a millionaire by now, because I would have figured so many things out, right?

Sarah Peters: 7:32

Mmm, I'm not saying that like, you suddenly have the ability to figure all the things out. You just don't feel anxious. So like before, a big test, or an important game or sport ball meet, I don't do sports. You know, before, like an important presentation, or like big family celebrations, like family weddings, or birth of children. Like, can you imagine doing any of those things of not being a little bit anxious?

Josh Bailey: 8:02

I would like to, but I guess I can't.

Sarah Peters: 8:05

Yeah. Well, I mean, like I think about, again, one of the examples that I use a lot in my workshop is we'll talk about like my dissertation, because anybody who's ever had to write a dissertation knows it's like the worst. And if I did not have some degree of anxiety

Josh Bailey: 8:17

Yeah. motivating me to do that, I never would have written the dang thing. But because I had this sense of like, I have to do this, I have to get this thing done in order to progress in my degree, in order to do the work that I want to do, in order to be a therapist, I have to do this. If I weren't anxious about that, I literally never would have had the motivation to do this really hard thing. So anxiety can actually be helpful.

Sarah Peters: 8:49

Yeah. I mean, think about the things that we tend to be anxious about. You know, for a lot of our listeners, it's school and getting decent grades. It's doing a good job at work, or, you know, getting that job that you've always really wanted. We get anxious about relationships with people that we care about, you know, we were anxious about things that are important. And so to some degree, anxiety is kind of the cost of caring about things and wanting to do well in them.

Josh Bailey: 9:22

Great, so the goal here is for me to simply not care anymore.

Sarah Peters: 9:29

I mean, that's a choice. I would argue that you know, with that you're gonna lose a lot of joy.

Josh Bailey: 9:36

So at the cost of any ambition, relationships, life direction or path, then I can be anxiety free.

Sarah Peters: 9:46

Perhaps, or might I offer a slightly different approach?

Josh Bailey: 9:52

Give it to me.

Sarah Peters: 9:52

It would be if we can't get rid of our anxiety entirely, we can at least kind of keep it in the sweet spot, so that it's present enough that it motivates us to do the things that we want to do and that we need to do, but we're not so anxious that we are just paralyzed frozen, deer in the headlights, can't do anything.

Josh Bailey: 10:12

Okay, so teach me how to be successful with anxiety. How can I live with it then?

Sarah Peters: 10:16

Okay, well, first thing is breathing. I always start with breathing where we can. Because, like I mentioned earlier, like one of those really common symptoms of anxiety is like, kind of tightness in your chest or feeling shaky. I'm not gonna get into all of the neuro psychology and physiology behind it, because I am not that kind of doctor. But there's, you know, the thing, the fight or flight system, which is like our sympathetic nervous system that takes over and says, "Ah! There's something like really, really wrong." Well when that system takes over, our heart rate speeds up, our breathing gets shallow, we feel kind of short of breath, and what oxygen we're getting is going to muscles so that we can like"fight or flight." It's not really going to the front smart part, prefrontal cortex of the brain, where we make good judgments and decisions. So as much as you can, engaging with your breath. Because like, I can't just think to myself,"Hey, heartbeat gets slower." I can't say to myself, "Hey, blood pressure go down." Like I can't control those things voluntarily. But I can control my breath. That is the one part of the system that you can control.

Josh Bailey: 11:33

And if I pause there, honestly, isn't it like when I'm telling myself not to do something? Don't I just do it more? So like, "Stop thinking about that, Stop thinking about that."

Sarah Peters: 11:42

Exactly. And that's why, you know, again, like some of the cognitive interventions of "just stop it" like, yeah, yeah, that doesn't really work. Because our brains are smarter than that.

Josh Bailey: 11:50

If only, therapy'd be great, "have you just like not been anxious?"

Sarah Peters: 11:54

Yeah, have you tried not being anxious?

Josh Bailey: 11:55

Just stop!

Sarah Peters: 11:58

Yeah, so I usually tell folks like, as much as we can start with breathing. Specifically, like deep breathing. So again, we want to activate that parasympathetic, that "rest and digest" portion of the brain, rather than the"fight or flight" system. So you can do that any number of ways. It can be something as simple as just like taking the deepest breath in that you can and then blowing it out slowly. You can get real fancy with like different breathing practices, like a 4-7-8, or color breathing, or box breathing. Or, if you come to my office, I've got bubbles in my office, because blowing bubbles is actually a really great way to like, practice slowing your breathing down. And also, it's a great distractor. Because you know, it's bubbles.

Josh Bailey: 12:41

And when you said 4-7-8, you're meaning: breathing in for four seconds, holding your breath for seven seconds, and then breathing out slowly for eight seconds.

Sarah Peters: 12:50

Correct. Although I will say that if you can't do like a full for seven, eight seconds, you can just do a count of four. So maybe that's 1-2-3-4. The other trick with that, because I tried that for years, and I was like, this doesn't work, I can't blow out for eight seconds if I've only breathed it in for four. And then I found out that somebody forgot to tell me like the trick, which is you take the tip of your tongue and stick it right behind your front teeth. So it kind of like slows down the air. And it makes it a lot easier to do that slow controlled breath out. It also kind of makes like a little bit of a noise, which gives you something to like attend to and focus on.

Josh Bailey: 13:27

Okay.

Sarah Peters: 13:29

Yeah.

Josh Bailey: 13:29

Fun hack.

Sarah Peters: 13:30

Yeah, I think it's pretty fun. But here's the thing, just like how every person's experience of anxiety is different, every person's approach to kind of engaging with it is also going to be different. So, you know, for some people, 4-7-8 works really well. And for other people, they're like, yeah, I just get so wrapped up in like, "Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right?" That it's not helpful. For them, maybe it's more helpful to have like, I know they used to be really popular, like the little gifs that you could pull up, that would just be like a ring expanding and contracting or like a shape. And you kind of breathe with the shape. For some people that's more helpful. But there's like a million different ways to do it. And there's no wrong way as long as it works for you.

Josh Bailey: 14:10

I like that, no wrong answers. Let's go.

Sarah Peters: 14:12

So then once we've taken kind of a deep breath, or a few deep breaths, and given our body a chance to kind of just relax a little bit, try to identify why you're anxious. Again, like we tend to worry about important things. And so just saying, hey, brain, don't think about this, stop thinking about this, ignore it, that's not really going to be super effective in my experience. Instead, if we can say, "You know what, I'm nervous about this test because I have a goal to get a certain GPA this semester. And so I really want to do well. And so of course I'm going to be anxious about this. I'm keeping a promise to myself." So just acknowledging it. This is why I'm anxious. Sometimes that can be enough for our brain to go, "Oh, yeah, okay." Because you know, it's telling you, with anxiety, "Hey, pay attention," and you're saying, "Yep, attention is paid. I'm working on it, I've got a plan."

Josh Bailey: 15:08

So harkening back to when you said, you know, anxiety is, you know, equivalent to the cost of caring, just acknowledging to myself, "Yeah, I'm worried about this because I give a crap." And that can kind of take it down.

Sarah Peters: 15:19

Absolutely.

Josh Bailey: 15:19

Okay.

Sarah Peters: 15:20

And then here's the next thing is, I said you know, like, telling your mind,"Hey, I've got a plan. I'm working on this." Making a plan and then taking even the tiniest step towards that thing that's making you anxious. So if it's studying for a big test, setting time aside in your schedule, to study for the test, or talking to a friend about getting together and like reviewing notes, or opening the textbook and just looking at the chapters it's going to cover. Doing just even the tiniest step toward the thing that makes you anxious, is going to help bring that anxiety down. Because again, you're not just telling your brain, you're now showing your brain, "I'm doing something about this." And the more you avoid it, the worse it's gonna get. Anxiety thrives on a lack of information and avoidance of action.

Josh Bailey: 16:11

Okay. All right. So then what else do we do? So we breathe, we acknowledge, we plan out and take some level of action? Should I be feeling fairly calm by this point?

Sarah Peters: 16:28

I mean, if you're lucky, yes. For some people, if you're just kind of occasionally uncomfortably anxious, but it's not real, super bad, and maybe it's something that you've not been anxious about for a long time, maybe just those things in the moment are going to help you feel better and calm.

Josh Bailey: 16:47

Okay.

Sarah Peters: 16:48

However, it may not. Sometimes it takes our minds a little bit of practice to kind of internalize things, to get good at things, to respond well to things. It's just like, you know, if you're learning a new sport, and again, I don't do sports, so like, don't make fun of me. If you are like learning a new sport, let's say tennis

Josh Bailey: 17:13

—Baseball.

Sarah Peters: 17:13

Baseball. Okay, sure. Baseball. The first time you step out onto the diamond, right?

Josh Bailey: 17:20

Sure

Sarah Peters: 17:20

Field, you, you may not know like exactly how to hold the bat. Or like, you may know in theory, what makes a good swing, but you don't actually have like the muscle memory to do it. Maybe it takes you a while to identify what different pitches look like as they come at you. I'm hoping these are all things.

Josh Bailey: 17:44

You're going great.

Sarah Peters: 17:45

Great.

Josh Bailey: 17:45

This is awesome.

Sarah Peters: 17:46

All right. So— but the point is like it takes practice, it takes repetition. So the first time or two, it may be like, "Eh, I'm doing all these things, but I'm still anxious." As much as possible, like using kind of small, ongoing strategies. And then also, again, really finding like what works for you. So maybe like you try 4-7-8 breathing, and you still don't feel great. Okay, well, maybe you try box breathing or color breathing instead. Or maybe you try, you know, something else. And like, especially with the breathing, as much as possible, make that a regular part of your practice. So like, the analogy I use with this a lot is try not to learn how to swim while you're actively drowning. So like if you only pull out the breathing practices when you're feeling really anxious, you might actually start to associate deep breaths with anxious.

Josh Bailey: 18:36

Yeah.

Sarah Peters: 18:37

But, if you practice, let's say every day when you first wake up, and you haven't gotten out of bed yet, and you're still feeling all cozy in your sheets, maybe you practice some deep breathing for like just a minute or two. To kind of, you know, let your body know, "Hey, when I breathe like this, I feel calm, I feel relaxed." And then that way, when it's time to, you know, do the thing, to use the deep breathing to not feel anxious, your brain's like, "Oh yeah, I associate this deep breathing with feeling calm and relaxed." Same thing with like, a mindfulness practice or a meditation practice that like, ideally, you're going to do that on a daily basis because it's going to strengthen that ability to notice your thoughts, or notice how you're feeling, without necessarily responding to it. But like if I just said,"Hey, Josh, be mindful right now."

Josh Bailey: 19:28

I can't.

Sarah Peters: 19:28

Yeah, like if you don't have like a regular practice, that's going to be really hard. Another big important thing with anxiety is physical activity. So like, whether that is going to the gym and picking up heavy things and putting them back down, if that's just going for a walk around campus, if that is having a dance party in your room and just moving your body in a way that feels joyful. It can be yoga, it can be stretching, it can be swimming. Regular physical activity and movement is really, really helpful at like getting some of those stress hormones out of your body, so that when that, you know, fight or flight response kicks in, and you get all this cortisol and other neurotransmitters that like hype you up and get you ready for action, you got to kind of drain those out of the body, and exercise or movement is a great way to do that.

Josh Bailey: 20:21

Regular practice of breathing, maybe some meditation or mindfulness exercises, literal, physical exercise. Are there other strategies? Are there other things?

Sarah Peters: 20:33

Yes. Because those strategies are going to be really good at targeting a lot of those physical symptoms of anxiety that we mentioned, you know, it's going to help kind of regulate the body. But then we also got to do stuff kind of, for the mind and for the emotions. So we call cognitive intervention. So things like helpful self talk. So if you notice that your mind tends to do a lot of like, "why am I doing this? Why am I like this? Why, why can't I do this right?" Instead, engaging in kind of more helpful self talk of like,"This is really hard. And I'm struggling, and I can still do it, I can be persistent and get this thing taken care of." A lot of people also like journaling. That can look like any number of things. That can be like, yes, every day, I sit down with my journal and do 10 minutes of reflection. That can be, when I start to feel really anxious, I just take a piece of paper and dump my brain out onto it. Thought dumps can be really helpful when we're feeling super overwhelmed with anxious thoughts, because just the act of getting it out of your brain. And onto ideally, like a physical piece of paper, because we'd find the act of writing because it's engaging the body and the brain is really helpful. But if you're like, "Yeah, I'm not going to do that." Do what works. If it's putting it in a Google Doc— even just seeing it outside of your brain where everything kind of stays still and can be observed and you can like maybe identify, "Oh, well, I'm anxious about this, because I'm missing some pretty important data that I maybe need to like, figure out," because otherwise, my brain is going to fill in the blanks with the worst possible scenario. Having it on paper or like visually where you can see it can be super helpful. And then maybe you find that like, you have just a general tendency to maybe always look for the worst thing, like all the time. Or we'll talk sometimes about like black and white thinking, like something's either awesome or it's terrible. There's no in between.

Josh Bailey: 22:29

Yeah.

Sarah Peters: 22:30

Or what's one of your favorite, like cognitive distortions or unhelpful thinking styles?

Josh Bailey: 22:35

Just catastrophizing.

Sarah Peters: 22:37

Oh, yeah, that's mine. Like this thing happened? Oh, my gosh, this means that like, the whole world is gonna end. Where it's like, actually, no, it's not. So if you notice that, like, you have one of these tendencies toward a particular unhelpful thinking style, even just being able to name it, "Oh, I'm catastrophizing, again," "Oh, I'm engaging in black and white thinking." Just being able to name that can give you a little bit of kind of space from it, and then say, "Okay, well, if I'm engaging in black and white thinking, we're just maybe the gray in here?" and it helps you kind of work through it more effectively.

Josh Bailey: 23:10

Okay, so incorporating some shades of grey, I like that.

Sarah Peters: 23:13

Yeah. And then for the kind of emotional piece, we

Josh Bailey: 23:14

And then hearing that back can be really helpful. all need some reassurance from time to time. So maybe like, you're having an anxious feeling in your body, and you do some deep breathing, and maybe some stretching to kind of like, get that out. And then you think through. You maybe do a thought dump. And you're pretty sure you got it, but you just still have that kind of sense of like, "Oh, but..." In times like that, it can be really helpful just to get some reassurance. Talk to a friend, talk to a trusted person that's close to you. Do a Let's Yeah, or even just hearing the person be like, "Yeah, yeah, Talk with CCS. If, certainly if that like continues, maybe talk to a therapist, but just doing something to kind of give yourself that emotional reassurance of like, "Yeah, this is okay." that does suck. I feel that way too."

Sarah Peters: 24:08

Yeah.

Josh Bailey: 24:08

A little bit of validation can maybe take us off that island that we put ourselves on?

Sarah Peters: 24:12

Yes. Because anxiety can feel so isolating. I have so many students that are like, you know, "Other people don't worry about this stuff." And I'm like, Y'all trust me. Yes, yes, we do. We all worry about this stuff. But because we live in, you know, a culture where like, yeah, we want to look like we know what we're doing. And we're doing everything right. And we want to forget about the fact that we're literally all making this up as we go along. It can be really hard to be vulnerable sometimes and say like, "I'm feeling anxious." And I think if we all did that a little bit more, and said, "Yeah, I feel anxious and it's okay." "I'm worried and I'm all right," like both things can be true. If we all kind of like operated like that on a daily basis, I think there would be a better place but you know, I'm not in charge. So good.

Josh Bailey: 24:59

Well, I'm going to go to that one friend that says they never feel anxious, and I'm going to tell them, "Hey, it's okay. You can be that way," and I'm gonna watch them fall apart. And it's gonna be great. And I'm going to be there for them in that moment. So let's talk about some resources that are potentially available to those who are interested.

Sarah Peters: 25:17

Absolutely. Well, during the academic year, so fall and spring semesters, we usually run a workshop for anxiety. The one that I did this past year is called Act for Anxiety. So we use principles of ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. And we basically just pull out all the educational stuff that I would teach my individual clients in therapy for anxiety. We just kind of pulled it out and made it a workshop, so that it's a three or four part, kind of depending on how we're feeling. So three or four one hour sessions, or 45 minute sessions, and you can learn all about anxiety and some different ways to engage with those.

Josh Bailey: 25:57

Nice.

Sarah Peters: 25:59

We also usually have a workshop, that is Food, Sleep and Exercise Strategies for Mental Health. And it's put on by one of our psychiatrists here, and he usually will talk about, like food strategies for anxiety or exercise strategies specific for anxiety. And those are kind of held at various times throughout the semester. So always check our website for stuff.

Josh Bailey: 26:21

Absolutely.

Sarah Peters: 26:22

Some other workshops that can be super helpful, we usually do one on perfectionism, because we know anxiety and perfectionism are kind of closely tied together.

Josh Bailey: 26:29

Most definitely.

Sarah Peters: 26:31

Depending on like space and availability, sometimes we'll have a workshop that's like a Mindful Movement, yoga kind of workshop. And then for folks that really prefer to engage with anxiety, like using their kind of creative skills, we have typically, again, you know, depends on the schedule in the year, but we'll usually have a workshop that is Creative Writing for Mental Health, and then one that's like Visual Art for Mental Health. And a lot of people have found that super, super helpful, especially like, for some of my folks that maybe just like feel anxiety a lot more like in their body or kind of have that emotional sense, but not as much overthinking. Some of those, like Art Space and Mindful Movement can be really, really helpful.

Josh Bailey: 27:21

Very good.

Sarah Peters: 27:23

We also have here on our website, the Emotional Fitness blog. So again, mental health research that's kind of reviewed by one of our psychiatrists and then repackaged into a much easier to read format. I personally love it. Because I don't know about you, but like, I could go read the latest research on college student mental health, or I could just let Dr. Patel read it for me and give me like a quick summary that I can read in five minutes while I'm heating my lunch up.

Josh Bailey: 27:49

Yeah, I'm very much at TLDR person.

Sarah Peters: 27:52

Yeah. 100%. I mentioned earlier, we also have Let's Talk. So let's say you've been like struggling with something and you feel anxious about it. And you've done all the strategies, but you're still feeling anxious. And maybe you need like an objective, neutral kind of third party to talk through stuff with, but you don't necessarily need like therapy-therapy, you just need like a quick, quick chat. We have Let's Talks available for those. And I think we did an episode, a podcast episode on Let's Talk.

Josh Bailey: 28:21

We did, we did.

Sarah Peters: 28:22

Yeah, okay.

Josh Bailey: 28:23

So go listen to that.

Sarah Peters: 28:25

And then we also have, you know, if you feel like you're still struggling with this, just, you know, give our office a call, and we'll help you brainstorm, like, do you want to do group therapy? Or do you want to do individual therapy, we got lots of options. And then there's also some things that I recommend, that are resources at OSU that aren't necessarily like, specifically targeted for anxiety, but they can really help for folks that are anxious. So one is the Smart Lab. So that is like biofeedback stuff. That can be really helpful in just kind of overall stress management and like

putting together like: 29:02

what's your heart rate doing? What's your breathing pace, like? And if you do different things, how does that change? So like, Oh, if I adjust my body this way, and think this way, I noticed that like, I can actually make my heart rate go down, which is kind of cool. They've also got Wellness Coaching over there in the Student Wellness Center. They've got Financial Coaching, so especially for my folks that are stressed out about money. Again, we know that anxiety really kind of grows in the lack of knowledge or the lack of data. So go make a budget, go talk to a financial coach,

Josh Bailey: 29:41

I have yet to meet a college student who has financial concerns. That is preposterous that you would even suggest such a thing.

Sarah Peters: 29:49

Do you also not have anybody who's anxious about grades?

Josh Bailey: 29:52

Correct.

Sarah Peters: 29:52

Yes. Okay. Well, mine often are. In that case, I'll usually send him over to the Dennis Learning Center, because they've got some really great and resources on, like how to take tests more effectively, how to take notes more effectively, all kinds of stuff. And again, if we know that anxiety generally decreases when we have more information, getting more information is always going to be a good thing.

Josh Bailey: 30:14

Okay. A lot of good information today. What is your snapshot? Take away?

Sarah Peters: Okay, so TLDR: 30:21

anxiety is normal. It's totally normal. The task is to kind of figure out how does it show up for you? Why is it showing up and what helps you feel better, because there's not going to be like a single silver bullet managing anxiety is usually a kind of multicomponent whole lifestyle, lifelong approach. And the earlier you figure it out, the better your life's gonna be.

Josh Bailey: 30:53

Nicely done. Sarah, thank you very much for joining us once again, and to the listeners, thank you, as always, for tuning in and checking us out. And if you are interested in any of this stuff that Sarah has gone over today, please go to our website at ccs.osu.edu. You can find all of our workshops, you can find self help things, and you can find information regarding getting yourself an appointment, a Let's Talk appointments, or any other type of linkage to community or campus services. Until next time, keep your eyes peeled for future episodes. Take care of yourselves. And as always, I'm Josh and this is Psych Bytes with CCS.