The Anxiety Equation (Part 1)

Ever wonder why anxiety shows up and feels so overwhelming? In this episode, Amanda kicks off a mini-series by re-introducing a game-changing formula that makes sense of it all, what she calls, “The Anxiety Equation”. Once you see anxiety as a math problem, you realize you have the power to change the variables.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• The simple but powerful Anxiety Equation: Anxiety = Overestimation of Threat + Underestimation of Capacity
• How this equation plays out in real-life scenarios, from a stressful email at work to a toddler’s meltdown at the store
• Why understanding this formula gives you two clear starting points for reducing anxiety
• A preview of what we'll cover in the rest of this mini-series

This Week's Practice:

When you feel anxious, get curious. Ask yourself:

1. What is the specific threat my brain is perceiving right now?
2. What is my brain telling me about my capacity to handle it?

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Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast

Email: amanda@riseaswe.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaontherise/

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Transcript

Amanda Armstrong  0:00  
Amanda, welcome to regulate and rewire an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now, let's dive in. 

Amanda Armstrong  0:28  
Hey friend, welcome back today. We are kicking off a short mini series on something I refer to as the anxiety equation. This is something we've had a lot of conversations about lately in the membership and with a variety of our clients, and I want to revisit it here on the podcast and pull it apart over the next few episodes, because it is a really simple formula that I think explains so much around why anxiety shows up, why it makes perfect sense that we feel the way that we do, and can help us contextualize our experience in a way that can give us some tangible things to do in that moment, give us some tangible ways to think about our anxiety reflectively, and just start to get some things to shift in the way that we experience those moments. 

Amanda Armstrong  1:14  
So the equation goes like this, anxiety equals an overestimation of threat paired with an underestimation of your ability to manage that threat. And I'll repeat that one more time. Anxiety. We experience anxiety because of a combination of an overestimation of the threat the stress or the situation, paired with an underestimation of our ability to manage that threat, that stressor, an underestimation of our own capacity. 

Amanda Armstrong  1:50  
So when anxiety shows up, it is usually because our nervous system is doing these two things at once. It is making the threat, the stressor, feel bigger than it actually is, and it is making our ability to handle that feel smaller than it really is. So let me give you a quick example. Maybe you are at work and you get an email from your boss that says, Can you meet for a few minutes this afternoon? Immediately, your brain spins out, I'm in trouble. I must have done something wrong. What if I lose my job? That is the overestimation of threat. Maybe, maybe some of those things are true, but we don't actually know that from this email. And then at the same time, your nervous system is whispering, I can't handle this. This is overwhelming. I wouldn't know what to say. I would fall apart. I'm gonna cry in the office. This is the underestimation of your ability to handle what happens. This is your underestimation of your current capacity. 

Amanda Armstrong  2:50  
A lot of what we're going to talk about in this series of kind of micro episodes is going to be what it looks like to turn the what if, to an, even if, that first part of the equation, that overestimation of threat, what if? What if? What if, catastrophizing worst case scenario, to be able to shift that and match it with a story around self and capacity and ability to even if, yes, we want to get to a place where we stop overestimating that threat, where we stop exaggerating the danger of things in our life. 

Amanda Armstrong  3:27  
But like we're going to talk about in the next episode, there are really good reasons why our brain does that, and when we understand that, when we can make sense of that, we can meet that overestimation with a lot more awareness, context, self compassion. What we really, really want to do is get to this point where we can match that what if, with a story of even if, even if hard things happen, even if this worst case scenario, I know I would be able to take care of myself, handle it, figure it out. I know where my resources are, and that's something that we're going to elaborate a little bit more on in part three of this mini series. 

Amanda Armstrong  4:07  
Another example to bring this equation to life, maybe you're a parent. Maybe your toddler has a full blown meltdown in the grocery store aisle, and your nervous system tells you this is a catastrophe everybody is watching. I'm failing as a parent, that threat feels enormous, and your sense of capacity to handle it shrinks, in part, because as we spiral out, that logical thinking brain of ours that we need to handle this problem, it goes offline. 

Amanda Armstrong  4:37  
And so you can see with these two simple examples how this equation plays out. Your system interprets every email or every meltdown through the lens of your current state, especially if you're somebody who's walking around the world already feeling like you are stuck in survival mode. You are feeling like you're always in that activated yellow zone state. Everyday situations are going to feel like threats. Those threats. Are going to feel too big. Your Capacity is going to feel too small, and anxiety is going to constantly fill the space in between. Little moments will feel like big moments. Big moments will feel like life altering catastrophes, and we are stuck living in this chronic state of overwhelm that continues to feed this cycle of anxiety, overestimation of threat, underestimation of your ability to manage the threat. 

Amanda Armstrong  5:25  
So over the next two episodes, we are going to break down this equation even further. In part two, like I mentioned, we're going to talk about why our brains and our bodies tend to overestimate the threat, and then in part three, we're going to explore why we so often underestimate our ability to cope, our ability to manage, our ability to handle what is in front of us. And then with each episode, I'm going to talk about tangible tools, tangible reframes, answering the question of like, what can I do about it? What can I do about the overestimation of threat and an underestimation of my ability to handle that? Like I said, this series is full of mini episodes, starting with this one to just a handful of minutes to introduce you to this concept. And I'm going to end each episode with an invitation to take this micro concept and put it into practice throughout the week. 

Amanda Armstrong  6:15  
And so for this week, when you're feeling anxious, I am going to invite you to get curious. Can you filter your anxiety? Can you filter this moment, your thoughts, your sensations, the situation, through this equation, asking yourself, number one, what is the specific threat that my brain is perceiving right now? And you might not be able to do this in the moment. You might have to do this retroactively. So you might get to the end of your day and you might be thinking back on something that was really overwhelming. Can you ask yourself this question, what was the story that I was telling myself? What was the threat that my brain was perceiving in that moment? Or maybe you're getting to the end of your day and you have some anticipatory anxiety about something that's happening tomorrow or later this week, or a big decision coming in your life. Can you filter it through this question of, what is the specific threat that my brain is perceiving about this thing, right? And just see what comes up. And then the second question to ask, the second way to bring curiosity to this experience, is, what is my brain telling me about my ability to handle it? What story do I have around that presentation at work that I have to give. What story do I have around anything, anything coming up for you uniquely in your life right now? So that is my invitation for you to take this anxiety equation, that a moment of anxiety why you experience this activation in your system is because you are, to some degree, overestimating the threat and or underestimating your ability to manage that threat. 

Amanda Armstrong  7:52  
And so in moments of high activation or anxiety this week, can you pause and say, what is the specific threat that I'm perceiving right now. What is my story around that? Can I hear the what ifs and then what is my brain telling me about my ability to handle that? It's too much. I'm not enough. I can't I can. What does that narrative sound like? And as you do this, as you bring some of this awareness, I think that you're going to see that some of these moments of anxiety make more sense. It's math that your nervous system is doing automatically, and once you understand that equation, once we pull it apart, in the next couple episodes, you are going to have so much more ability to start to shift the different variable. 

Amanda Armstrong  8:38  
All right, that's it for today. I think we are wrapping up what might be the shortest episode on this podcast to date, but I really wanted to have a couple quick bite sized episodes that give you the extra space and the capacity, that give you just one, one small concept to play with, to really put into practice and to personalize in your everyday life over the next week. So that is it for today, and until next time, I am sending so much hope and healing. 

Amanda Armstrong  9:08  
Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes, again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai