A brief spoken-video by Dr. Betsy Guerra offering three practical, actionable steps to manage anxiety: (1) change your body's neurochemistry using deep breathing (inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth for twice as long as the inhale), (2) reframe stressful events by changing the meaning you assign to them to generate gratitude, and (3) plan ahead with prepared affirmations, prayers, calls, or calming activities for situations that trigger anxiety. The speaker references a longer blog post on her site for reframing and emphasizes preparation over on-the-spot effort.
Questions this video answers
Three
Exhale through the mouth for twice as long as you inhaled (inhale through the nose).
betterwithbetsy.com (reframing)
Chapters
Thank you for your questions on Instagram. Today we're going to answer how can we manage anxiety? I could go on and on talking about this because it's such an extensive topic, but I will only give you three steps and I will elaborate on these in future videos. Number one, you want to change your body neurochemically to balance it out by taking deep breaths. So every time you're in an anxious situation, just before you say anything, before you try to even think, take a deep breath or a couple of them. And the way you do that is inhale through your nose. And exhale through your mouth for twice as long as you inhaled. When you do this, you balance your body, you change it neurochemically, and it helps you be in a place where you can now think more properly and then make a plan of action. Number two, you're gonna remember that every event in life is neutral. What makes something positive or negative is the meaning that you attribute to it. So something that, that's why something that's positive for me is negative for somebody else and vice versa. Take money, for instance. Some people think money is the best thing ever, and other people feel that money is a curse because they don't like what they become when they have a lot of money with them. So events, things are neutral. Give it the meaning that's going to serve you. So step number two is reframe. Change the perspective or the meaning that you're giving to a stressful event. And once you do that, you will experience gratitude and almost relief if you look at it from the positive standpoint. For more on reframing, go to my website, betterwithbetsy.com reframing. It's a really good blog. At number three, you're going to plan ahead. If you know that you tend to be anxious in certain circumstances, like flying a plane, then you prepare ahead of time, not by taking a sand axe, guys, but rather by having a plan of action. So, for example, if I am afraid of flying, I am going to have a list of affirmations that I'm going to repeatedly tell myself on my way to the airport, in the airport, while waiting, on my way to the airplane, in the airplane, while flying all the time, while I'm feeling anxious, I'm going to repeat to myself, oh, I love flying. I am so happy I'm up here. I'm grateful for the Wright brothers that invented the airplane. And I can get from point A to point B. Oh, I get to be close to heaven for a few hours. I love, love, love love flying. What I get service people are coming to me to bring me something to drink, if at all, because nowadays they don't even do that in the airplanes. But anyhow, so you prepare with your affirmations so that you don't have to start thinking about like, okay, let me think positively. No, it's not that easy when you're in the middle of the anxiety attack. So prepare ahead. Have your list of affirmations and things that you want to tell your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind believes whatever you tell it. So lie to it while you're flying. And then. Or you can have a plan of action that involves calling someone or taking deep breaths, or just a list of things that you can do. Or maybe it's a prayer that you read and makes you feel better. Or a song, a song that moves you to the core. Just plan ahead. Have something that you're gonna do when the time comes that you know it's gonna be easy, easily available. So number one, take a deep breath and double the exhale. Number two, reframe, change the perspective. And number three, plan ahead. Have a great day.
