What to Do When Anxiety Starts to Take Over: How to Rewire Your Brain for Lasting Change

Have you ever felt like your mind is stuck on repeat? Same worries, same what if thoughts, same anxious patterns that seem to take over before you've even had a chance to think differently

That is because your brain is just firing from learned habitual anxious behaviour, and in this episode, we're exploring why anxiety can just become a learned pattern and how you can begin to change it

we go through the science of neural pathways in a simple, practical way, before sharing five powerful tools to help you interrupt anxious thought loops, rewire your brain, and respond to anxiety with greater awareness instead of autopilot

If you've been struggling with overthinking, catastrophising, or feeling like your anxiety is running the show, this episode is for you

Make sure to come and follow me over on socials @iamizabellemartucci for all things that align us in mind, body and soul 🧚🏼‍♀️🌀✨🌙

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we are going to rewire our brain so we can stop playing the same internal loop over and over and over again and keeping ourselves in this anxious pattern that we know we can break. Have you ever noticed how your anxiety constantly tells you the same story? Something bad is gonna happen. What if this goes wrong? What if this falls apart? What if my body reacts that way? What if, what if, what if? And this is just learned behavior. This what if is a constant neurological pattern. It is something that you have learned through habitual behavior, something that you have done over and over and over again to the point where your brain has created this neurological pathway. So that's just your automatic reaction. That is just how your brain is going to respond because you've done it so many times, you've walked this path so many times that your brain doesn't even think about it now, it does it automatically. And today we're going to talk about how you can stop that, how you can break this neurological pathway, and how you can choose differently to break your anxiety and finally be anxiety free. For example, you get in your car, you switch on the engine, you put it in first or reverse, and your brain just does it automatically. It knows how to drive, it knows where it's gonna go, it just fires and wires automatically. It's exactly the same when you have an anxious thought. You get into a triggering situation, something triggers your anxiety, and your brain instantly goes to this learnt behavior. It instantly goes to what if it all goes wrong? What if something falls apart? What if this happens? What if that happens? Whatever it is that you internalize, for me personally, it was always about my bladder. What if I wet myself? What if this happens? What if I really embarrass myself in front of all these people? It's never happened to me before, but my brain goes there because that was my learned behavior. And until I could understand that it was just learnt behavior, it's not logical thought. You can't change it. And when you understand that you can have this neurological pathway play out, and in the start, it probably was a way of your brain, your ego, your psyche keeping you safe. It was a way of keeping you protected, it was a way of keeping you small and comfortable because we know that the ego hates growth, the ego hates evolution, it likes the familiar, it likes to stay where it is. So when you understand that this neurological pathway, at one point it was trying to keep you safe, but now it doesn't serve you. It is just habitual learned behavior. And until you decide to choose differently, until you can catch yourself in the moment and think, no, I'm going unconscious. I'm just about to go down this same habitual what if catastrophizing spiral, I'm gonna choose differently. Your brain is always gonna go there. Your brain is always going to repeat the habitual behavior that you've learned because you are always going to play out your habitual unconscious behavior unless you can bring yourself into the conscious awareness, into the present moment, and choose differently. Because familiar feels safe to the nervous system. And your anxiety right now, even though it isn't giving the nervous system any benefit in the long run, it is the habitual learned path. It is safety. So going down this neurological pathway is your learned behavior. It is your habitual behavior, it is your default. So until you can break that default, it's always going to happen. So when you understand it like that, when you know that it is just an automatic firing and wiring, you know that you can stop that firing and wiring in the moment and you can choose differently and you can rewrite your story. You can become the version of yourself that doesn't have anxiety. You can truly change your life. So I'm gonna give you five tips on how to catch yourself in this moment when you feel yourself being triggered, you're about to go down this anxious spiral, whatever it is, however it unfolds for you, this is what you're gonna do. So, number one, I want you to catch yourself earlier. I want you to be able to understand what it is that triggers you and also where it is your brain defaults to. For example, for me, I always used to think that when I got anxious, I might wet myself. And I would instantly default to, oh my gosh, I'm trapped, I'm trapped, like maybe I'm in a long car journey, I'm in a taxi, I'm trapped, I can't get out. This is gonna happen. Worst case scenario, I'm gonna wet myself, I'm gonna have an accident. I've never had an accident because of my anxiety, actually wet myself, but my brain for some reason went there. And I would just spiral with that over and over and over again. So I understood that my trigger, for example, was a long car journey. So can I put things in place to avoid myself being triggered so that I can, if I get to that triggered state, I can say, no, that's not actually happening. For example, I maybe would stop drinking like an hour or two before I'm gonna go on this long car journey. So when I get in the car and my brain goes, You're trapped. You need to go to the toilet. You can say, No, I don't. I've just been. I don't need to go to the toilet. There's nothing left in my system. I'm okay. I can just breathe. It's about understanding where your brain is gonna take you, and then can you put things in place to stop it in the moment? Can you ask yourself, what am I thinking right now? Why am I thinking that? How can I reroute that when I that thought does eventually come up? Is this a familiar story? Is this a place we've been before? Am I spiraling about something that I had the exact same spiral about last week? Is this outcome actually going to happen? Yes or no? And have I thought this before? Have I got myself through this situation before? Because most of the time our anxiety is about a future event. If that event happened, if I was in that taxi and I really needed a Wii, really, really needed a Wii and I was gonna wet myself, I would just say to the driver, I really need a Wii. You either need to find a toilet or I need to go in a bush or behind a tree or whatever it is, like, or you go in a restaurant and ask if you can use their toilet. When that situation comes up that you are so anxious about, nine times out of ten, you will find a resolution. So it's about understanding that you actually have everything within you to overcome that obstacle, but you are so caught up in the habitual learned behavior in this neurological pathway of what if spiral, everything's gonna go wrong, it's all gonna fall apart, I'm gonna embarrass myself, this is gonna be the end of the world. When if it actually happens, you can figure it out, but you are so caught up in this habitual behavior that you don't understand how to break the loop. So, this is what we're gonna do. As I said, you catch yourself earlier, you understand what it is that triggers you and where your brain goes. Number two is you're going to interrupt the pattern. Your brain expects you to do exactly the same thing. Your brain expects you to spiral in the same way, your brain expects you to play out the behavior as you always have. So you're gonna stop it. What it is you do when you default, for example, for me, I used to start kind of like my breathing would go funny. Slow your breathing, breathe differently. Do you maybe Google your symptoms? Do you check your phone? Do you seek reassurance? Do you start spiraling and imagining worst case scenarios? Can you stop yourself in that moment? Can you do something different? Can you pause? Can you take a breath? Can you look around you? Can you move your eyes slowly around you? Can you orient yourself with your surroundings? Maybe if you're in a taxi, can you notice what the inside of the taxi looks like? If you're outside, can you notice what your surroundings look like? Can you notice things that you can see, things that you can smell, things that you can touch? Can you notice anything you can taste? Can you notice anything you can feel? So these are great ways to get yourself out of your kind of fight or flight response, get yourself back into the body, get yourself back into the senses, kind of ground yourself in the present moment. Can you maybe stand up and take a walk? Like if you're really stressed at work and you're at your desk and you can feel a panic attack coming along or an anxiety attack, can you get up? Can you change your surroundings? Can you go and get yourself in a different situation? Step outside, take a breath, go look at the sky, look at the trees, drink some water, just take a minute to break that loop to allow yourself to not do that same spiral that you've done over and over and over again. Don't overthink it, just get up and change the behavior, do something different. Because you don't have to eliminate the thought, and the thought is going to take a while before it gets eliminated. You just have to simply stop feeling it. You have to stop playing into it, you have to stop it from allowing to consume you. You have to stop it allowing to become everything you can see. Like when you have anxiety, you turn into tunnel vision, and that worst case scenario, that anxious thought you're having is all that you can see. You need to widen your horizon, you need to broaden your awareness, you need to take yourself out of this tunnel vision and see what it is else that's around you and what else that can help you stop this spiral in the moment. And then number three, ask yourself who would I be without this thought? If I was in this taxi right now and I didn't think that I was gonna wet myself just because I'm trapped in a car, trapped in a car, that's what my brain was telling me. Who would I be right now? Say I'm on the way from the airport to a hotel in a new country that I've never been to before. Instead of being so wrapped up in my mind in this spiral, in this worst-case scenario, I might actually be talking to my partner. I might actually be looking out the window and engaging with the new country that I've landed in. I might be talking to the taxi driver and seeing what it is he recommends that I do whilst I'm here. Who would you be without that anxious thought? Because when you can understand that you aren't your anxiety, your anxiety is a story that's playing out that's stopping you from living your reality. Your anxiety is stopping you from living your current reality. And when you understand that, it's so painful to know that you've spent so long in this anxious loop, allowing it to be your reality. When your anxiety is not your reality, it's like a film masking what it is you can actually see and how it is you could actually be living. So ask yourself how would you walk? How would you speak? What kind of decisions would you make? How would you respond to the world? Then become that version, not just pretending to be them. Stop yourself in the moment, understand where it is you're triggered, talk yourself off of that ledge, interrupt the pattern, and then embody that version of yourself that you know you can be. Maybe start a conversation with your partner or your friend or whoever you're with. Take a look outside the window, take a walk, do the things that you know you would be doing if your anxiety wasn't masking your vision. And then number four, you're gonna collect the evidence against your anxiety. When you are in an anxious-triggered state of mind, your brain only notices things that back up that anxiety, things that reaffirm all the worst-case scenarios that are gonna happen. So you're going to start deliberately collecting evidence against it. You are going to ask yourself how many times that anxious thought has actually gone wrong? How many times you've actually had that worst case scenario play out? For example, for me, how many times have I been in a taxi and not wet myself? How many times have I been in a situation where I was so overwhelmed and anxious and I thought that I was going to have an accident and I haven't? How many times has my anxiety stopped me from doing something when actually nothing went wrong? For example, I was really nervous about climbing Mount Rinjani in Indonesia because you are out in the jungle and climbing the mountain, there's no toilets, you are going to the toilet in a hole in the floor, it's not glamorous, and that really triggered my anxiety. That triggered the fuck out of me. And I had to really sit with myself, and it was something that it took me a long time to book it, to pluck up the courage to be like, no, do you know what? This isn't my story. My anxiety is not going to rule my life. I'm going to go and do that thing because I really fucking want to do it, and this version of me is not going to stop me from living my life. So I had to create evidence for myself. I had to remind myself, okay, I've done this. I've climbed mountains in the Lake District and I haven't had accidents. I've done that. I've done all of these things where I've put myself out of my comfort zone and it's been okay. Yes, it was a mental challenge and it was a battle, but I did it. I did it. I look back and I did it. I managed it all. I had no accidents, nothing went wrong. And that's another piece of evidence that goes in my evidence book so that next time I have a thought where I can't do that because my anxiety is gonna get in the way. I go back to my evidence book and I'm like, no, I've done that, I've done X, Y, and Z, and I did it, and nothing bad happened, and it's gonna be okay, so I'm gonna do this next thing. Can you look back in your life and understand where it didn't all fall apart? So you don't have to live through this anxious thought. You know that you can actually do what you want to do because you have proof that you've done it before. And then number five is repeat, repeat, repeat. Repeat before you believe because your brain is not going to allow you to do this thing once or twice or three times, and you'd be healed. You are going to have to live it over and over and over again. And this is the hardest part. This is by far the hardest part. It's often something people call exposure therapy, which is basically you feel the fear and you do it anyway. You feel the anxious thought, you feel it bubbling up inside you, and you go and do it anyway. You are overwhelmed and nervous and shit scared about having a seven-hour bus ride in the north of Vietnam where you have no control over the toilet stops, but you go and do it anyway because you want to live your life and you want to experience the world. You are so unbelievably anxious about holding a meeting at work and standing up in front of everybody and putting yourself out there, but you do it because you have to, because that's who you want to be. You are so unbelievably anxious about quitting your job, about starting a new relationship, about asking someone out, whatever it is, you just have to do it. You have to do it over and over and over again. And the more you do it, the more confidence you build, and the more times you choose differently, you are weakening this neurological pathway. And every single time you weaken this neurological pathway, you get one step closer to living that new reality as your normal. Now, I don't have anxious thoughts like I used to. I used to be anxious about going to sleep, I used to be anxious about leaving the house, I used to be anxious about getting in a car that I wasn't in control of. I used to be anxious about going to work. I used to be anxious all the time if I didn't have constant access to a toilet where I was in complete control of the circumstances. Now I have just moved to Australia solo. I've traveled a majority of the world. I have done so many things that four years ago my anxious rock bottom self would not believe. But it's because I made myself do it over and over and over again. And the more you do it, the more you break that pathway. And now anxiety isn't my learn habitual behavior. Anxiety is something that maybe creeps up when I do something that's out of my comfort zone, like hiking Rinjani. But to do something as simple as go for a walk or get in the car and go on a car journey and do all these small things that used to send me into a spiral, it doesn't cross my mind anymore. And I am proof that if you stick to it, if you break the cycle, if you learn to manage your symptoms and manage yourself through practices, that you can break this cycle and you can live differently. I have been anxiety free now for four years, and I would never have thought I'd be here. Never, ever, ever. But doing these things one to five, breaking it down, understanding how you can actually change the way your brain thinks, you can become a new version of yourself will completely change your life. Because you don't become calmer by waiting for the perfect moment. You become calmer by choosing differently and acting with intention over and over and over again. And here is what I want you to remember from this episode is that you are not trying to become fearless. You are not trying to never feel your anxiety ever again. You are simply teaching your brain that there is another path available. You are simply teaching your brain that that neurological learned behavior doesn't have to be your norm. It doesn't have to be what you choose every single time, and it doesn't have to be your story for the rest of your life. You can choose differently. And every time you choose a different response, you remind yourself that you're safe. You remind yourself that you can do it and you collect another piece of evidence for your evidence book. Because weakening that old neurological pathway is going to feel difficult. It's going to feel really hard. And at first it feels very unnatural, very unsafe, very triggering. But the more you do it, the more you come back to it, the more you choose to live as the version of yourself you know you can be, the easier it will come time after time. Until one day, like me, you look back and realize that actually it's been a week, a month, a year, four years since you had that anxious thought, since you had that anxiety attack, since anxiety was a part of your everyday life. And I want you to get there. I want us all to live anxious, free lives and be living as our best selves. So make sure if this episode resonated with you, to share with the guys and girls who need to hear this message and follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. You can come and find me on Instagram at I am Isabel Martucci for everything that's aligning our mind, body, and soul together. As always, thank you so much for listening to this episode. I am so grateful that you are here and that we're going on this journey together. Thank you again, and I will see you again next week. All my love.