How to stay calm when everything feels out of control

In this episode, I’m breaking down what’s actually going on when you feel anxious, overwhelmed or constantly on edge and how to bring yourself back to calm.
We talk about how your nervous system works, why your body reacts to stress the way it does and simple, realistic ways to regulate yourself when life feels uncertain.
This isn’t about ignoring what’s going on around you… it’s about learning how to handle it. 

I hope you loved this episode please share it with a friend or someone you think will benefit from it! 

Where you can find me- 

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@samanthagreen.tgh

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I love it online and this is a podcast, but we speak honestly about a line and a business alignment. Help you reach the cat from what you are now to what you want to say. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to Aligned Unfiltered. I am so glad to have you here. Whether or not you are watching or listening, thank you so much for being here. It means more than you know. And today's episode is going to be a very important one and something that I believe that we all need, and especially if you are living in Dubai. We're going to talk all about how you can reset and look after your nervous system, look after yourself and protect your energy, protect how you're feeling, and really take control of your feelings right now. Because a lot of us are experiencing highs and lows, and maybe more lows than highs right now, and a very unsettling feeling. And you're absolutely not alone if that's how you're feeling. But this is really going to help you as to how to control your emotions a little bit better and generally just feel a bit more steady, a bit more calm and happier all in all. So before we even get into how to stay calm, you need to understand what your nervous system actually does. Your nervous system is basically your body's internal alarm system. It's constantly scanning your environment, asking for one question: Am I safe or am I under threat? And when your body feels safe, you are calm, clear, rational, and in control. And this is when you can make good decisions, communicate properly, and just feel like yourself. But when your body senses danger, whether that is real or just perceived, it will flip into survival mode. And that is your fight, fly or freeze response. And the key thing to understand is that your nervous system doesn't know the difference between an actual threat and a stressful situation. So things like constant bad news, pressure in business, uncertainty, overwhelm, your body will react to all of that as danger, which is why that you might feel anxious, on edge, exhausted, or reactive, even if nothing is physically wrong in that moment. So when people say just relax or just stay calm, it's not that simple. Because if your nervous system feels unsafe, your body is literally wired to stay alert. So the goal isn't to ignore what's going on, but it's to show your body that you are safe within it. So the first thing that we're going to talk about as to how you can control your nervous system is controlling what you consume. So this is so important and something that I am sure that you have heard many times before, but honestly, it doesn't matter how many times you hear it, sometimes you have to hear it again because we are all guilty of scrolling on our phones and not really realizing actually what we are consuming every day, or if it's even from just the people that we're speaking to, the noise that is around us. But what controlling what you consume is so important when it comes to your nervous system because it is directly affected by what you're watching, what you're reading, and what you're listening to. If you are constantly scrolling and reading the news and listening to bad things, then that is going to affect you so much and add so much stress to your life. I actually had it only the other evening where I was actually feeling good for one day. I'd had a good day, I felt okay, and I wasn't feeling particularly stressed about the situation that was going on. And then that evening, I was um my usual evening, I was running my bath at 9 p.m. as I do, and I got a voice note from one of the girls that works for me, and she was like, Look, I don't want to stress you out, but I think we need to be worried. We need to have a bag pack, like said all these things to me, and God bless her, she was just trying to look out for me. And I really appreciated the fact that she was trying to look out for me. But what that did in that moment was took me from a relaxed state, a calm state, a happy state, a steady state, and it started to heighten how I was feeling. It started to add a bit of anxiety that wasn't there before, that all of a sudden was there. And this anxiety started to show up for me in a way that I started to feel unsettled, I started to feel nervous, I started to panic a little bit internally and think, okay, well, if this is gonna happen, then maybe this is gonna happen. And what if this is gonna happen? And I'd started within five minutes playing out scenarios in my head, which were so unlikely to happen. But because I'd had this message and this person was kind of passing on their energy to me, it then internally made me feel a certain way. And then what I did was I took myself back out of that bubble and I realized hang on a minute now. Um, this is not factual, it's just what somebody is thinking and feeling, and that's okay for you, but I don't need to do that. I don't have to hop on that bandwagon and feel that way, you know. So I had my bath, I calmed down, I was relaxed again, I spoke to Andy, we had a conversation about it. He's really calm and everything, so that was great. So, you know, I felt good again, I felt okay. And then again, just as I'm about to go to bed, I get a text message from one of my friends, which was very much of the same thing as what my other friend had said. And again, it started to put me on edge. And I thought, hang on a minute, no, like this can't keep happening. And I think what I did personally in that moment was the next day I actually had a conversation with my friend, and I just said, you can't send me messages like that half 10 at night because I then slept really badly that night. And then if you have lack of sleep, then we all know what happens to people. You're not feeling good if you have lack of sleep. The main thing with this is just be really, really clear on who you're speaking to, what you're talking about, and what you're consuming online because who you're following on social media has a massive impact as to how you feel, whether you like it or not, and whether you realize it or not as well. The next step, which is what I did when this had happened to me, is focus on what you can control. Uncertainty feels overwhelming. And when you're focused on everything outside of what you control, that is when you feel stressed. That is when you feel nervous, that is when you feel anxious. If you bring it back to basics, your work, your routine, your attitude, and your environment, the control creates calm. So if you start to think about what it is that you can control in that situation, it really gives you a sense of calm because you're like, oh, hang on a minute, I can control this, I can control what I'm consuming on social media. Maybe I need to delete social media for a little bit of time. Focusing on what you can control is really taking control of your emotions. It's protecting your peace, and it is so important. Even things like focusing on your breath. It is as simple as that. If you in that moment, when you start to feel anxious or somebody has sent you a message that sets you off a little bit, focusing on your breath, taking some deep breaths in and some deep breaths out is honestly the quickest and best way to reset your nervous system. Doing breath work makes a massive difference on how you feel. It honestly can change your feeling in your heart within a few breaths. It's amazing how much it can really calm you down so quickly. And by doing that, the third point that I have is regulating your body and not just your thoughts. And that is what this breath work is going to do as well. You can't just mindset your way out of stress and if your body is dysregulated. Simple things can work for you. Walking, deep breaths, as I just said, getting outside, healthy, proper meals, those simple things that honestly all of us know, but are very quick to stop doing when we feel stressed and anxious and tired. Those are the things that are going to calm your body down. And by calming your body down, they will calm your mind down. The next thing is protecting your environment and your energy. Who you are around matters. If you are in a certain situation where you are surrounded by people that aren't making you feel good, can you take yourself out of that situation? Can you take yourself away from that? Because that will help you so much. Because having a negative environment around you every day is so damaging. And equally, you will know this because if you have been in a situation where you are around high vibe, happy, full of life people, you walk away from wherever that place is feeling amazing. And that's what I try and create in the salon every day. I try and make it so then everyone's smiling, everybody's happy and got this high vibe, so then whoever leaves leaves feeling that way. And it honestly is the same wherever you are, whether it's at home, whether it's at work, the gym, even if you go to a gym and you feel like this gym has a bad vibe, ditch that gym. Go to somewhere that has high vibe people, people that are on your level and are going to lift you up and make you feel good. With that, if you can't change your environment, say you can't change where you're working, but the vibe is low, then just protect your energy. If people are having negative, draining, gossipy, bitchy conversations, just stay out of it. Take yourself away from it, don't engage and just really protect how you're feeling and your vibe and don't lower yourself to that same energy. Lastly, I have put lead with yourself first. It is so important that you look after number one first. If you are a parent, if you are a leader in your work team, even if you are just you on your own, it doesn't matter. You are the leader of your own life, and it is so important that you control how you are feeling and putting yourself first in any situation because you cannot fill poor from an empty cup. We know that. Everyone knows that. You have to have some energy left to be able to give, and by doing that, you have to fill up yourself, you have to give yourself the grace, the time, the energy that you need to be able to survive in these tricky situations. And you can't expect to be able to be handling every day well if you're not looking after yourself. Staying calm does not mean ignoring the reality of what is going on either. It just means you are choosing how you want to show up within this time. And honestly, for me right now, living in Dubai, we're going through this whether we like it or not. So I know personally for me, I would rather go through it a little bit calmer, happier, more peaceful, as relaxed as I can through this process because so much is happening that's out of our control, and it's so important to regain control of the things that we can and look after and nurture our nervous system through this time. I really, really hope that this episode has helped you and given you some tools as to how best to calm your nervous system. We're all going through it, we're all here together. My DMs are always open if anybody needs any help or any words of wisdom. And I really hope that this has helped you. So if you if it has, please share, please send it on to a friend and recommend it, and I will be here next week. All the information is down below as to where you can find me. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.