Episode 5 - Stuck in Fight Mode

Bobby recorded this one while actively stuck in a fight mode loop — three nights of broken sleep, no appetite, a twitching jaw, and a brain running at full speed going nowhere. Rather than wait it out, he and Ian sat down to record anyway, and the result is one of the most raw and honest episodes yet. They break down what chronic fight mode actually looks like from the inside — the slow burn version that doesn't look like panic but quietly erodes everything — and why the shame of still struggling after years of therapy hits just as hard as the loop itself. Ian draws direct parallels to addiction: the obsession that never fully goes away, the acceptance it takes to keep moving, and how physical exertion becomes the wrench that breaks the cycle. Together they dig into the science behind why the woods works — Attention Restoration Theory, cortisol reduction, somatic anchoring — and make the case that for men carrying this kind of weight, getting back into nature isn't an escape. It's a biological necessity.

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:01

Welcome to Out on the Limb with the Limb Junkies, recovery, resilience, and the outdoors. We believe in the natural world as a therapy like no other, and we're here to prove it. Whether you're tethered in a hunting saddle, pitching lures into deep cover or set up on a roosted gobbler, you're in the right place. This is a space for anyone who's found healing in the woods, forging fishing, hunting, and all of those wild things in between. We're building something here and we want you with us, so let's gear up and get into it.

0:33

So for, I don't know, probably the last two or three days, either I've been in the house, stuck in like an endless rumination loop or sitting on the porch listening to birds. And what's interesting is that my tongue won't stop twitching, which is really strange. I'm not panicked. And I haven't panicked in years. So for those listeners, and especially those of you that experienced panic disorder or anxiety or panic episodes, I haven't experienced that, in about 10 years, which I'm very thankful for. But I find myself experiencing something else now. it's something a little bit colder and quieter than panic. and I attribute it to kind of like being an engine that won't turn off. So it's not necessarily anxiety, but I'm currently stuck in a situation because of a recent trigger and what I can only describe as as fight mode. What do you think about that, Ian? I mean, my brain is a little different than yours. so, I, somewhat too reasonable, to a fault sometimes. so. It, it's hard for me to kind of get stuck into a mental loop because for me, reason and logic kick in the way my brain works I just move on. But I do understand the fight or flight mentality, and I've lived that way before. When you think about, the idea of like someone suffering from anxiety. Like, and you hear this all the time, especially right now, and a lot of people use it as, a day-to-day excuse for things it's a real thing with real consequences. But my primary driver. Through, 12 or 15 years of therapy was to tackle uncontrollable anxiety. Do you have any experience with anxiety? Do you feel anxiety? I don't. and it's something I've struggled with for a while, trying to find empathy or understanding for anxiety. for me it's, like I said, my brain is just wired differently. I, I. I think too logically about things and too rationally about things, and for me, the way my brain like processes stimuli or, processes, like, is it, it's not a sympathetic response as to like, your body does not recognize anxiety. You don't suffer from anxiety because your sensory modality is such that you don't actually ever trip dysfunctionally into a flight mode scenario. Yeah. Your logic grounds you Yeah. In something that's just disciplined. And I think that has a lot to do with holding back the tide of, of addiction. Yeah. I, I think, like for me, when I'm dealt with some sort of conflict or some sort of decision that needs to be made or some sort of chaos, the survival techniques that I've. Developed in my recovery have made things easier for me to just logically think about, like, this is not worth something getting stuck on, I need to move on. This decision needs to be made. It's A, or B, make the decision and move on. Like my brain doesn't function in a way. Get stuck in this kind of medium ground. And I, I do have experience with anxiety in trying to help loved ones through it. I've watched you go through it over the years, other family members and it's really hard for me to relate to it. I've tried so hard to understand it and learn how to, be supportive. But again, the way my brain is wired, my support is, here's the solution, do it. And it comes, it comes off as insensitive because I just can't wrap my brain around it. I don't understand it. I, I honestly think that's a, that's why you might be the perfect partner for this episode in particular. And the reason for that is, your subjective opinion and the way that you see anxiety is through a completely different lens of the world than perhaps an anxiety software would. So I think your perspective here is paramount, but I also think it's possible that you might walk away learning a little bit, something about yourself and what makes you tick, especially in regards to, recovery. So today we're not really talking about finding peace in the woods. we're talking about what you do when your brain won't let you get there, and what the woods does to do that. So take into consideration, I'm currently in this little terrible state of mind. Let's name that state what fight mode actually is. most people think of fight or flight as something that happens fast, and then it passes. An adrenaline spike. You're shaking a little bit. You're racing hard. You might be panicked. Well, that's the boil down acute version, but there's a slower version that doesn't look like fear. It looks a little bit more like this. Your mind is running at full speed, but getting nowhere. The same thoughts on a loop, every angle examined, every outcome, gamed out, no resolution, and you're not anxious. You're sharp, you're precise. Your thinking is fast and technical, and it feels almost like competence, but it's running on adrenaline, not clarity. Sleep doesn't come easy, and when it does, it doesn't go deep. You wake up already thinking again, food becomes an afterthought. my body has deprioritized, digestion, I feel a little closer to survival mode, and survival mode. Doesn't really care about lunch. these physical symptoms are subtle tension in unexpected places. a twitching jaw or a restless leg, your tongue moving against your teeth. In my case, for about the last three days, I've had what's called anxiety tongue, where my tongue is constantly vibrating inside my mouth against my teeth, and the only time that it stops is when I'm talking, which I'm sure is irritating. Everybody around me, but the point is that your body's doing something that your mind thinks it already resolved. And, and let me talk a little bit about this. it's important to understand the weight of chronic stress on your autonomic nervous system. And I might be saying that wrong because I'm a simple country boy. But the autonomic nervous system has two primary operating modes. It's got sympathetic, which is your flight or fight, and parasympathetic, which is your rest. In digest, that's chill mode. Acute stress triggers the sympathetic system quickly and visibly. Elevated heart rate, dilated pupils. You get muscle tension, but that sustained psychological stress. Particularly the kind involved with unresolved threat perception can keep the sympathetic system in a low grade activated state for days or weeks. This means that you're not sleeping, you're eating well, and you're not really resting, and your mind is on an unending loom relation loop for what could be weeks. in this state, cortisol remains chronically elevated. Cortisol is your primary steroid or your primary, stress hormone. The more stress you have, the higher your your cortisol rate is sleep quality degrades even when duration is maintained and appetite suppression is pretty common and cognitive function narrows to threat level processing. Here's what's kind of important. Imagine being stuck in a scenario that seems so simple to everybody around you that's gotten you triggered. That you perceive is a danger or a threat. It's gotten wrapped up in your brain and you really can't break out of it. It's really hard to explain to somebody what that feels like and how that looks, but that's what happens when your brain is stuck in fight mode. You continue to look for threat relevant processing. The brain isn't really malfunctioning at this point. It's working exactly as designed for an environment. It is not yet determined is safe. So what that looks like for me. As we discussed, sleep issues, appetite issues, the cognitive loop of, quote unquote battle planning, the tongue twitching the way this feels like a superpower. Like I could literally crash through a wall like a Kool-Aid guy. Oh yeah. But it's really not high functioning. I've done enough therapy to know what's happening. A decade ago, this would've been full panic. Chest breath, the whole thing. Feeling like I was dying. And it seems like now it all lives in my head. So the cognitive behavioral therapy worked, but the energy has gotta go somewhere. And right now it's going into a loop that feels like problem solving but isn't. It's rumination dressed up as over analysis. Hmm. So what happens is when this happens, and you may start to think about this episode, and you may listening to it now, and you might be a little uncomfortable at this point 'cause it's hard for men to talk about this kind of stuff, but I happen to know for a fact that many of us has felt this way, and let's talk about the toll that this contend to take on your body. So here's what it takes when nobody's watching. This is the part that most guys don't say out loud. Not the dramatic stuff, but the quiet erosion. So the last two days, the last three days is not really the by itself with, but it's the aftermath. so how many nights have I not slept Well, it's been three. What does it look like when I wake up? I'm already right back in the same thought loop that I was before and I can't stop. So I'm planning out scenarios, I'm gaming things. the last time I actually wanted to eat was probably about a week ago. so, it starts kind of gradually and eases its way up. Little creeps up on you a little bit. skipping meals. don't even really recognize that I've skipped them, or forgotten them entirely. I can't read a full page. I wanted to cancel this recording session with Ian because I couldn't concentrate. I didn't feel like it was the right time. Ian disagreed and felt that it was exactly the right time, given the circumstances. Does it feel like time is standing still? Like you have no recognition of time? I, it feels like I'm having every single thought I'm gonna have for the next six months in 15 minute timeframes. So time. But do you, do you lose like, hours of a day thinking that it was just 10 minutes? A lot oftentimes, and my wife Laura will point that out occasionally, that I seem to disappear for a while and then return, not realizing it's been a certain amount of time that's gone by. this isn't like a cognitive breakdown that's dangerous or anything like that. This is just basic years of, of not only anxiety and PTSD, but stress related panic. And even though I've gotten to the other side of the anxiety, I'm experiencing something entirely new. So concentration is impacted. I'm not able to really be there with the family as much as I'd like to be. And the one thing that really doesn't resonate and is, is probably the hardest talk about, is to talk about is the shame. And the shame has a couple of different angles to it. first of all, it's the scenario that I'm in right now. It was created in a work related situation and I, I stepped up and it didn't work out quite as, as well as I planned, and I ended up having to step down. And this is kind of rooted in the dysfunction that we're talking about in this episode, but along with that goes with a little bit of a shame along with an ego check. But at the very bottom is the shame coming to the fact that no matter how much therapy I've had, no matter how many years I've spent managing anxiety disorder and PTSD, and no matter how much time I've spent really trying to work on it and concentrate on it, I'm still always gonna be challenged by scenarios like this. And when I am challenged by scenarios like this, sometimes I get frustrated 'cause the techniques don't work. But when I step back and I give them a little bit of time, I find that they're more valuable than it ever thought that they would be. I mean, the way that hits me, and this is again, this is me trying to relate in any fashion that I can. The sympathy is there. And I, and I, I have a desire to understand and show support, but the way that it hits me is it's very similar to addiction, that although you find coping mechanisms and you find ways to deal with mental health it's always there. You know, as for my addiction, it's always there. It doesn't matter how much work I've done, it doesn't matter how long it's been since the last time I used, it's always there. So I can relate to you and the shame aspect of saying, why is it like this? I know better than this. I've done enough work in this area. How come this continues to happen? Or just, I've been stuck in this loop. Why did this happen? and for me, I relate because that's exactly how addiction is. It's still there, and it doesn't matter what I do, it's still there and it can pop up at any point. So, a little bit of information into the rumination and default mode network. When the brain is not actively engaged and a goal directed task, it defaults to a network of regions associated with a self referential thought. The default mode network and individuals experiencing psychological stress, this network tends to activate ruminative loops, repetitive passive focus on distress, and its possible causes and consequences. Research published and the psychological science found that that rumination, not the stressor itself was the strongest. A predicator of depression and anxiety symptom duration, the loop feels productive because it engages the same cognitive machinery as problem solving, but rumination lacks the closure that genuine problem solving produces. It is the mental equivalent of an engine running in neutral, consuming fuel, generating heat, going nowhere. That's very well put. And you know, we're bringing some of these facts straight from the research we've done specifically for this episode. And here's what I've noticed. I know I'm not actually solving anything, and the more days that go by, the more I realize how, skewed my vision is, some part of my brain knows that. But knowing it and stopping it are two completely different things. And that gap between knowing and stopping, that's kind of where the shame lives. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. I can understand that. I can understand the idea that you have a goal in mind in your head that you're tirelessly working toward, but you don't seem to be getting anywhere near a solution. And in my head, the way I kind of process stuff like this is So I think for me, you know, the idea that you're fixated on something in your brain that seems minuscule to everybody around you, but to you it's serious. It's diehard serious. You are literally waging battle against something in your head that you feel like is life of death. that's the obsession part of addiction right there. You are fixated on something that you believe is of grandiose importance. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. You know, when you're stuck in that obsession, nobody can pull you away from it regardless of the consequences. so in my world, in the recovery world, that's something that had to be worked through. That's something that had to find a healthy place. So for me. When I get stuck in that kind of situation, like the way my brain works, I have to pull myself out, usually with some sort of physical exertion is how I break that obsession in my head. So, the way this could look is, you know, we hunt, we fish, so that's a perfect thing. But even to take it out of that aspect, you know, any sort of physical exertion can disconnect. The brain from the obsession and force that obsession into something more physical. You're connecting more to your body instead of letting your brain run rampant and run the ship. Okay, so I love the whole engine, analogy that we just read because I'm a mechanic, number one. Number two, Bob asked me before we started recording, he's like, you know, it seems like your engine runs full bore, but you're able to turn it off. For me that that's the way it works. I run that engine till it's out of fuel. And a good way to run your engine outta fuel is with physical exertion. we've talked about this in other episodes about the toil from hunting and working hard for something. I have translated in my own recovery doing things and doing them to the point where I have given everything that I can to whatever it is, whether it's work, whether it's projects around the house, whether it's something hunting related, whether it's working out. I'm giving everything I have so that my engine is out of fuel. When I'm done. At the end of the day, I no longer have to think about. Anything in my brain that's obsessive, like it's gone. I go and I lay my head on my pillow and it's just, it's nothing but crooks up there. That must be pretty blissful. So there, there's so many ways that I can relate to this and, and draw it back to recovery from addiction because they're very similar in a sense that the biggest thing that, that you touched on. Was the fact that it's there in the shame aspect, the shame layer as it's worded, because that's constantly a thing, man. Like it took a while for me to get to a point where I had total acceptance over the fact that I was an addict. But even once I got to that point of acceptance and cut through the denial, it was a situation where I had to fully accept that this is the way I'm gonna be for the rest of my life. It is not something I can graduate from. It's not something that I can learn techniques and move on with my life. It's not something that if I do X amount of work and I've done some work, bud, let me, lemme be completely straightforward with that. Like during my recovery, I've done some deep soul searching, gut wrenching work. Looking all the way back to my childhood to find root causes of feelings and obsessive and compulsive nature and feelings of not fitting in. And like the whole gambit of why I am the way I am. I have not short circuited my recovery in any sense of the word, by not putting in the work. And I still on any given day can revert back to those old, obsessive and compulsive nature, behaviors. That leave me with the shame layer that you spoke of that has to take a tremendous amount of discipline and truthfully, it really puts into perspective the juxtaposition of, you know, different ways of dealing with recovery and ways that people deal with, you know, things like anxiety disorder. You know, honestly, at this point in my life, I've realized that I really will never. Be fully rid of this. I mean, once the, that two by four is sanded down so much, it's no longer a two by four. And so I know that I'll always have these problems. I think my challenge right now is figuring out what to do with this new fight mode sensation. So the really cool thing about this is that, you know, it's a perfect time to flip the script. And, you know, we've identified a lot of comparisons between the feeling of being in recovery and the lack of control and the feeling of being, like, in my position, rumination loop that won't stop and you keep kind of stuck in this fight mode. But, let's try to create a bridge instead of us, you know, letting you all down and just saying, go outside and you'll feel better. Let's talk about the bridge. Let's talk about why the woods reaches you. When your brain won't let go. Okay. The actual mechanism, why natural immersion erupts the loop. When nothing else can and what you can do to use it more deliberately. So this is like an involuntary attention interrupt when you enter the woods, and it's really pretty fascinating and I think that it has a lot to do with a humans' natural connection to nature. you know, so the rumination loop runs on directed attention, which means you have to be giving it all your cognitive attention, right? These are the same cognitive resources that you use for work, regular decision making and problem solving. And it competes directly with every attempt to consciously redirect your thoughts, right? So you can't think your way out of it. Because thinking is the whole thing that's running it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's the problem. And give me a quick scenario from an addiction perspective that, that touches that, because I think that's kind of a key in, in addiction discussion. You know, the, the thinking about getting high is what's running that, the whole mechanism, right? It is, yeah. And that, that ties into the obsession. You know, obsession comes from the brain. So you're constantly consumed by the thought of using, but the overthinking aspect or the, constant analyzation, constant thinking and constant, rationalization plays a huge part too, in recovery. So. The drugs are gone. I'm now trying to become a different person. I'm trying to get away from the using addict that I was and become more of a addict that's in recovery and getting better. You can overthink the hell out of recovery. it sounds like you really can. And I wonder and like to myself, like, do you find yourself even now today? Overthinking rarely. So like you. I can be triggered by some sort of situation or stimuli that causes me to. fixate on something a little bit more than usual, meaning really weigh the options. Pros and cons. That's a big thing in recovery. Pros and cons. again, that ties into my logical, rational brain of this is a situation. I'm gonna take a piece of paper. I'm gonna write pros and cons. These are the pros of ma of decision A. These are the cons of decision A. These are the pros of decision B. These are the cons of decision B. I'm able to sit back, look at them physically in front of me and make a decision based on what I can tangibly see. It eliminates the overthinking aspect. I'm able to directly see logically this one has more pros, this one has more cons and and move forward. But there is situations like heavy life altering situations that happen is when. I go into the fight or flight mode and you start to really kind of get stuck in the obsessive, victimization of the situation. If I feel like I was done wrong or, I feel like something's unjust, I feel like something is morally just absolutely putrid like. When there's that aspect to a situation, it's hard for me to kind of move forward on a simple, logical, rational, way of thinking. But you can definitely overthink things in recovery. And what I mean by that is, one of the reasons that anxiety doesn't really hit me is because in recovery you really adopt a faith. Driven belief system. And this is not a religious piece, guys. there's plenty of people in recovery that probably listen to this and understand what I mean, but it's a spirituality, it is not a religious thing. So basically you carry yourself in a way that is based on the belief that things are gonna work out, that things are gonna be okay. And by doing so, you eliminate the overthinking. You know, I'm trusting the process. I'm trusting that whatever I'm going through is for a reason. I need to play my part. I can't just curl up in a ball and say, God's got this. But I have a belief system that enables me to move forward with thinking of the best possible direction that I need to keep moving forward while the situation plays out fully. Instead of getting stuck in a loop where I'm thinking it over and over and over, and weighing the decision back and forth, or thinking about the situation a way that becomes destructive, I can have some sort of intangible belief. Everything's gonna be okay. And that really cuts the anxiety from my, from my life. So, you know, it's funny because as a mechanic, that is your ranch. If there's a gear that's, you know, outta whack, you can just ram that right in there, say it's gonna be okay, and that wrecks everything and slows everything down. That's pretty spectacular. I wish I could develop something like that. I know that, you know, if my therapist ever listens to this, which I hope that she will, that, you know, she's tried to teach me about wrenches, you know, in the same manner that you've tried to teach me about wrenches, and I still have yet to find a wrench. For my own situations. So, you know, understanding that you've encountered scenarios, different rumination loops, you know, you and I use the natural environment in the same sort of way, and I think that it's important to recognize that for both of us, that natural environment engages our involuntary attention. So we both maintain a state of discipline at all times. Me for anxiety disorder, you for recovery, we both have different mechanisms that drive it. Different consequences. We both have different needs, but in the middle is our utilization of the outdoors. And I think it's that softer, effortless noticing. like responding to a bird moving in a tree, or you know, watching the wind come through the branches. That kind of attention doesn't compete with the direction tension that we spend so much time spending on disciplining our every action. Right? It displaces it, you know, and when that direction, attention is displaced, the loop breaks. So I want you to give me this next little segment on Attention Restoration Theory and how breaking that loop and allowing your attention to rest is a critical part of utilizing the woods for recovery, or in this case, for just emotional support or carrying the load. Attention restoration theory and directed attention fatigue. Psychologist Rachel and Steven Kaplan's attention restoration Theory identifies directed attention fatigue as a core mechanism of stress related cognitive. Pyramid. Their research found that the natural environments restore directed attention, capacity by engaging, fascination, effortless, involuntary noticing that allows the directed attention system to rest. Studies building on this work have found that even 20 minutes in a natural environment produces measurable improvement in attention, reduced rumination and lower self-reported stress. For individuals experiencing sustained psychological activation, the effect is not simply pleasurable. It is neurologically restorative in a way that urban or task-oriented environments cannot replicate. If we had to distill this into simplified language, we would say that getting out into the natural environment allows that part of our minds, both Ian and myself, that in my case, that sits in in Ruminates about anxiety and in Ian's case, holds the floodgates of addiction back. It wears us out. And immediate connection to the natural world around you engages a different part of your brain that shuts that other part off and allows it to rest and to heal. So in that way, the body is kind of following the environment, you know? 'cause, because when you're in the woods, like really in it, you know what I mean? When you're walking and you're observing, you're not passing through it. You know, I don't know about you, but my body starts to sink with the environment. I get slower. I get quieter, I get lower. scientifically, the cortisol curve drops that I've carried into the woods. My breath slows even though I'm physically exerting. The muscle tension releases in a sequence that has really nothing to do with willpower. It's the parasympathetic nervous system doing what it was designed to do when your environment finally signals that the threat has passed. Now, let's think about this. It's 4:00 AM. I'm in the middle of the forest. I'm tracking a game animal that I intend to hunt and that is the moment that I'm the most at peace emotionally. So let that touch a little bit to your prehistoric mind. You know, it's primal. It is very primal. And hunting accelerates this, you know, because hunting requires you to be still and silent, sensorially present, or sensorially present in a way that ordinary nature walks don't, simply don't do. It's not enough to take a walk through the woods while you're ruminating. That's not the relief you're looking for. You need that change. That's just a place to walk and think. If you do that a hundred percent and, and if in some cases that could actually amplify and become an echo chamber for your rumination loop, the idea of hunting and dialing into something in such a very specific way is what gives us a break from that Direct attention connects our primal self. To that primal natural world and really dials us in, to that vibe. You can't ruminate effectively in a deer stand at first light. Because your attention is fully occupied on waiting for something to show up right there in front of the stand, right? Yeah. And this is really where, what's called cortisol reduction and the value of nature exposure comes into play. And the reason I know this is because I bumped into a 2019 study, it was published in Frontiers of Psychology. And in preparation for this episode, I read through it and, it says that 20 minutes of direct nature exposure produce significant reductions in salivary cortisol in the body's primary stress biomarker. Now, that sounds like a whole mouthful, but all it's really telling you is is that 20 minutes in the woods reduced my stress level. The effect scaled with duration, so the longer the exposure produced, the greater reduction. So it wasn't like you get in there and you get a little cut off of the edge. The longer you were in the woods, the longer you hunted, the longer you pursued ducks, the greater reduction in your cortisol. a separate study tracking psychological markers and individuals practicing, shinran yoku, which is a Japanese technique for what's called forest bathing. They wander in and unify with the forest, in a mindfulness sort of way. That sounds great. It does, doesn't it? It found measurable, decrease in cortisol, adrenaline, heart rate, and blood pressure within sessions of only 15 to 40 minutes. Which is really astounding because oftentimes, it takes most people a lot longer to relax than just that. The researchers noted that the effect appeared to be driven by sensory immersion rather than physical aversion. So when we think about the toil, the toil is, has its value and its has its value in grounding you into your body. But it's that sensory immersion. That the forest's effect on the nervous system and its environmental, not exercise based that carries the most weight. Hmm. You know, something that just was kind of hitting me when we're reading through all this, and, I'm a simple, I'm a simple blue collar redneck kind of guy, but something about being in the woods and connecting to your primal nature. You're surrounded by things, by living things that don't struggle like we do. They're living their life the way that they are intended to without addictions or anxieties or overthinking or any of the daily struggles that us as human beings deal with. And I think for me, as we're sitting here talking about it, it's kind of like. The simple things of watching squirrels go up and down, trees and birds fly around and gather things for their nest. Or you see some deer come through and they're feeding on this and that. Or you see turkeys out in the field doing their thing and you got a to that's strutting and trying to corral a bunch of hens, like these creatures are doing what they were intended to do without any sort of internal struggle. It's interesting the things that humans. Manufacture for themselves to keep themselves busy. And when you look at the wild and wonderful world that we live in when we hunt, it's the, you know, I, I would kind of argue that I think that in some parts of the season, you know, you know, white tail especially feel some anxiety, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the middle of the season in April, some gobblers are feeling some anxiety, but at the same time, that's the natural predator prey, situation. And that's probably the key point here. And we're participating directly in it. And we're finding inside of that relationship is a, a critical way for humans, especially to manage their varied emotional and mental states. You're reconnecting to the primal state that you are, that you were created for you. Absolutely. Like regardless whether you are a hunter or not, whether you're pro hunting or not long, long, long, long time ago. We had to hunt for our food. We had to gather our food. We had to grow our food, like from an absolute beginning, human being state, this is what we were meant to do. And I think that technology has really propelled us into a state that we're not familiar with. It's not our natural state. And because of that, we're suffering a lot more from things like addiction and anxiety because we're being pressed and pushed so far from our natural state, which is really an honest day-to-day connection with the natural world around us. And I think that when you and I participate and we hunt and we get back to the earth. I think it centers us in a way that resonates, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And you know, for me that's part of my anchoring practice. And that's kind of how I carry these experiences back from the woods with me. What I'm gonna talk about now is a little bit deep and we've thrown some, mental health facts at you. We wanna give you time to absorb them and listen to them because I think they have value. And you'll find something that you can use in there. But everything we've described, the cortisol drop, the attention restoration, and that parasympathetic shift from fight or flight to rest and digest, it all happens naturally in the woods. But let's talk about how it evaporates as soon as you leave and you drive home. Mm. Gone back, back to the real world unless you capture it. So that's where we enter some cognitive behavioral techniques that allow you to anchor some of these feelings that you have in the woods and keep them with you. I have a really straightforward anchoring process that I use. It involves a little bit of breathing. it involves some very specific paying attention to, specific senses. have a moment during my breathing exercises while I'm climbing the stand or sitting against the tree where I take an inventory of sights and sounds and smells without judgment. And then I try to get myself anchored in my body. By asking myself a few simple questions, how's my body feel? What does it feel like to feel the boots pressed against the edge of the tree stand? You know, what does it feel like when I sink down on my back into the tree stand? and doing so kind of anchors me into my body. And then once I'm in that state, I have a breathing exercise that I do that we can talk about in future episodes that allows me to record the senses and the pleasing atmosphere that I'm in and encode that and be able to bring it up later with a physical cue in my case that physical cue is breathing. and I wanna talk about the science behind this a little bit. So, the scientific technique is somatic anchoring. research in state dependent memory, that means your current state of mind.. Research that I read in a state dependent memory, that means how you feel at that particular moment. What is your state of mind? It demonstrates that experiences that are encoded during distinct psychological states are more easily retrieved when the body returns to a similar state. This is actually called somatic anchoring. And it's the technique that I'm describing that I use, and it's the technique that I need to employ right now to help me break outta this loop that I'm in. The deliberate pairing of this psychological cue for me, which is breathing, with a peak emotional or psychological state, is used in what's called performance psychology. its therapeutic modalities include something called EMDR, and I'll let you look that up and also athletic training incidentally, and it just basically says that when a specific breathing pattern or a physical pressure point or a sensory cue is consistently paired with a state of calm or regulation. The, the nervous system learns to associate that cue with that state over time. The simple way to put that is if you feel really good and you spend enough time memorizing how great you feel, that if you tie that to a physical cue, like tugging on your ear, tapping on your leg, then when you feel like. It and you hit that physical cue. Not only will your emotional state change, but it will drag that fine physical state you were in when you first remembered it back to you. Mm. And that will help you decrease in triage. So over time. That cue alone can initiate a measurable psychological shift in how you feel. So the woods is producing exactly. The states that, that are worth anchoring. Most people let them pass, but the practice is to pause, record, and carry. Wow. So essentially what you're talking about is that. What happens in the woods when you go into the woods in the sense of your anchoring and the sense of your relief from anxiety and your sense of getting out of this loop that you get stuck in. It's not so much an escape for you as it is almost, it's almost like a, well, you can go into the woods and you can. You can draw from the, well, what you need to then take out of the woods and use to help you in your day-to-day life, get through things. You can refer to what you've taken out of the woods, and bring it up with your anchoring technique as a reminder of a state of peace and balance and primal being. Yeah. And the more you practice it, the stronger it gets and the easier it gets to recreate. Now, we've talked about some heavy stuff. We've thrown a lot of deep, mental health related techniques at you. A lot of big words, a lot of big words. But at the end of the day, the science supports our direct relationship with nature. And if we used our minds, our bodies, our breathing exercises, we can take these positive experiences from nature and these positive experiences in hunting, and we can use them every day to help us cope with decreased stress. Be basically a wrench in that system that won't stop. And fundamentally, that's one of the things that limb junkies goes outta their way, both personally and professionally. And that is to maintain harmony. Yep. Well, it also ties into our direct mission and goal. You know, I remember in the beginning of the company, we would go set up at these shows and it wasn't so much about, we need to sell X amount of shirts. It was, let's really try to get our point across that as humans, we need to talk about what's really going on. And that was the most incredible part about the first couple years of this company being a thing, is we would be in the middle of these outdoorsman shows full of a bunch of macho hunters and, and big names in the industry and all these things, but we would have two, three, maybe four people come by and share how the woods saved them. You know, through traumatic things or loss or grief or like all these things that, that they use the woods for. Just like we're talking about tonight to break that loop of just. Absolute pain. We've met guys that are in recovery. We've met first responders that have mm-hmm. Suffered from PTSD. We've met, veterans. Yep. And in every example they're describing what we're describing the science behind. Yep. And the reason that's giving them relief. Is because it really does strip away the artificial noise that our society has created, you know, around all this other stuff. And you know, I have to say, I'm still in this loop a little bit. This episode, I think is weirdly helped me like work through some of the avenues of it. So the loop is quieter than it was three days ago, but it's not gone. You know what's actually helped isn't resolution. It's being able to sit on the porch and listen to the birds and watch the dogs moving around. I think too, what's really important about this is that we are talking about it. There's a big stigma that's starting to get a lot better in our society, but there has been a notorious stigma for generations that men don't have feelings, men don't have emotions, and they damn sure don't talk about 'em. Mm-hmm. And I think that this is an example of that where pride and ego has no place here. It really doesn't, it's okay to sit down and listen to this and be like, man, I connect to this. The weight of the world is just too much sometime as a man, there's so many pressures to provide and be tough and not display any sort of pain or emotion and just tough it out and get through it. This is a way to connect something that we view as very primal and manly. You know, hunting and fishing, getting out there and doing the things that the cavemen did, but also the aspect that this is how we can heal and get better, and how we can talk about this kind of stuff and find other people that may hear this, or we run into when we're at a show or something like that and be like, wow, me too. Maybe these guys that came up to our table and we explained to them what our mission was, they're like, wow, I've had this thought. For a long time, but my buddies at the Hunt Club, I would never talk to them about this. At this point. There's a just a handful of friends of mine that I would share these types of, scenarios with. And, just like you said, there is no ego here. We're both struggling in our own ways and we both rely on each other. And where we find that shared common interest is in how the woods sort of directs us and lets us continue living a good, healthy, harmonious life. You know what I mean? Yep. As heavy as this episode seems and as heavy of a topic as it is, especially for our listeners that are tuning in for hunting stories, you know, I, I feel like this is necessary and this is really our goal with this podcast. Is to talk about the things that most guys don't, but tie that into the hunting world. Tie that into the outdoors to where other guys who think and feel like we do can relate in a way that maybe they can't talk about it with other hunting buddies. You know, and this isn't a, Hey, call in and tell us what you feel like, that's not that, but it's a, you're not alone out there. You know, we all struggle. We all deal with anxieties, addictions, and all types of things that are destructive that, that are not productive for our life. and this is just a way that we. Chose to address it, and you have a choice to recognize and, get active about your own mental health. You know, you have to, be willing to accept that it's time to have these kinds of conversations openly specific with your boys and your hunting buddies and, anxiety and depression and, addiction. That's a slippery slope. That can ruin lives and end lives. And what we need to be thinking about right now is getting back to that natural state and saving our lives. Yeah Dematic wilderness immersion. So while Ian and I might go hardcore and hang from trees 25 feet up, if that's not for you, that's fine, because even modest exposure to a natural. Including some urban green spaces will still produce those measurable effects that we're trying to teach you about. The mechanism appears to be consistent across any population in any person, man, woman, or child. It does not depend on physical exertion, and it doesn't suggest that the environment itself is the active ingredient. It's all about you. Yep. And it's funny too, I can, I can speak on this little bit of. Including urban green spaces. So what's funny about this is my wife has this need to feel dirt between her fingers and toes. And so even if, like for instance, this weekend we spent the entire weekend visiting properties and taking tree stands down and putting them up and scouting and doing all kinds of things that we love in the hunting world. Stuck in the loop all your own this weekend, weren't you? Yeah. So, but for her, it's as simple as if the sun is shining, she wants to be outside doing something. Just in the backyard, getting her hands dirty, getting her toes dirty, walking around. Like it does not have to be an excursion. It can be simply sitting out back for a while. It could be walking around in the yard. It could be taking a walk in the woods. It could be something as simple as that. And when you're out there, take a few minutes to look around, take an inventory, ask yourself how you're feeling, and try to adapt some of the techniques that we're teaching you. So to kind of wrap this all up for the, for this episode, Bob does have a. Deeper dive into his anchoring technique. And I, for one, saw it for the first time just before we sat down to record. And it's deep and it makes sense even for someone like me who sees more of a black and white instead of the gray, it really, really hits home and is very logical and very easy to attain and understand. So we had talked about maybe doing a whole episode just on the anchoring technique that Bob's talked about a whole lot today and maybe putting it out there for you guys. if it's something that you feel deeply about and you're like, man, this episode was great. I would really like to know that anchoring technique. You can reach out to us on socials or something. I will send it to you so that you can read it top to bottom and give it a try. We want to do more of these types of episodes. Obviously in the spring and in the fall, we're right in the thick of things with hunting season. So we wanna talk about what's going on, what we're doing, what we're looking forward to, but the mental health aspect of this podcast is really what we're trying to. Amen. And, and your call to action is to read through some of the things and that we've talked about and explore some of the breathing techniques and think about some of the science that we've thrown at you and how that might help you. And we invite you as listeners, who use nature for mental health and recovery or regulation to reach out, if you have a story that you think you wanna share with us, we'd love to have you on. Yep. So hit us up. So I think for now that's about it. We have videos dropping on our YouTube. For those of you that are diehard hunters, go check 'em out as they come out. if you don't, if you're not a hunter and you just kind of wanna see what it is that we're talking about that we do, go check it out. You can reach out to us on any of our socials, limb junkies on Instagram, limb Junkies on Facebook, and check out the podcast anywhere that you listen to podcasts. Sending strength, everybody

Speaker 49:47

Thanks for going out on a limb with us. If this episode hit home, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Find us on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, and follow along for more. Until next time, keep your powder dry.