Anxiety Management Basics

I just wanna explain quickly why lockdown is so hard for some of us and why it makes us feel a lot more anxious or uh brings out anxiety when we don't normally feel like we have anxiety .

Basically , the 101 of anxiety is we feel anxious when we have any kind of experience where we feel discomfort , uncertainty and a lack of control .

And if you think about what a lockdown is all about , it's basically a trifecta of all those things I feel uncertain about when it's gonna end .

I feel a lot of discomfort because my usual fun life isn't really able to happen .

And then I feel a huge lack of control because I don't have a say in any of this .

And it sucks .

What it can often do though is anxiety is it can trigger past experiences where we felt anxious or past experiences where we have felt helpless , brain doesn't like that .

So brain will do everything it can to keep us safe .

And what it does then is fight flight or freeze , freeze , meaning sort of shut down , disassociate , check out kind of , you know , you kind of zone out and go off just in your thoughts and you kind of go , wow .

I don't know where I was the last five minutes .

That sort of freeze response or just sort of shutting down fight response is anger picking fights with people feeling irritable and frustrated .

That's fight and flight response looks like , oh , forget it storming out .

Um , and just being kind of , um , whatever that kind of energy is , what flight response often looks like .

What is important to understand , I guess with what happens in a lockdown is because our brain and our nervous system and our body go into this fight flight response .

Everything kind of becomes fixated around safety .

So that's what you want to be mindful of is knowing that my brain and my body are feeling stressed .

A K A unsafe , psychologically , spiritually , mentally , physically , I'm feeling unsafe on a , you know , conscious or unconscious level .

And I need to then provide my , my body and my brain with as much safety as possible that I can what , you know , whatever I can control that creates or encourages safety for me what that look like .

So that can look like not minimizing , dismissing shaming or judging yourself and how you're feeling , not shaming , minimizing , dismissing others and how they feel that makes other people feel safe if they feel seen and feel heard , rest , nature exercise , eating , well , kind of all of those things that make us feel safe and comfortable are obviously good contributors to feeling safe .

Um But the biggest thing I would say when you're feeling anxious uh with lockdown or with anything is to externalize the anxiety .

Give it a name , call it Brian , call it Phil , call it Karen , call it whatever you want .

I like to think of Brian .

Um the dog from family guy .

That's what I think of him and his voice and how he sort of um is I sort of pretend in my head that that's what my anxiety looks like and sounds like .

So when Brian shows up , view it as that like a part of me is showing up another thing , person being , so it's external for me , it's not me , it's Brian .

So Brian shows up and Brian says his usual thing , which is what anxiety always says , which is something to the effect of blah , blah , blah and you can't handle it or blah , blah , blah and you're not gonna survive .

And what we respond to .

Brian is always the same .

It doesn't change whatever the circumstances , if it's going to a party or getting an assignment done or a project or whatever , whatever the anxious thing is , the response is always gonna be the same , which is , thank you , Brian .

Appreciate your concern , but I can handle it .

I can do hard things .

I've survived 100% of my days .

Uh This is the 10th time I've done this .

I've done this before .

Whatever , the comforting kind of reassuring comment is that you can say to yourself , that's what you say back to Brian .

You don't just let Brian sit there and waffling on at the mic in your head .

You speak back to him and you kind of confront him and go Brian .

I'm really glad you're here because I know your whole purpose is to keep me safe , but I got it or I know you're concerned , Brian and that's ok .

We will get through this lockdown , will end this uncomfortable , uncertain .

Um Lack of control experience is temporary .

It's not permanent , Brian , it's not , or it feels permanent but it's temporary .

So those are my top tips of how to kind of understand anxiety and then what to do with it when you're going through lockdown .