Caroline Cavanagh explains how your brain treats imagined threats the same as real ones, so negative self-talk triggers stress just like external criticism. Notice unhelpful thoughts as they happen and replace them with constructive ones. She shares how believing she's bad at remembering names became a self-fulfilling prophecy she had to reframe.
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Hi there, my name's Caroline Cavanagh. I am an anxiety specialist. I'm here today to share my 3rd of the 24 tips of stress— I can't even say it anymore. It must be, yeah, nearly 6 o'clock on a Friday. I don't even know what day it is. Thursday! And, uh, should we start again? I'm here to share the 3rd of 24 tips that I'm sharing across Advent on how to reduce or manage stress. Now, Christmas can be a really stressful time for a lot of people anyway, and add on that all of the other things that we're going through, the other C-word that's a little bit banned, certainly in this house at the moment. And this one, so far, I did my first, my favourite one on the 1st, which was Tuesday, was it? I don't know, what day of the week is it? Who am I? And yesterday I did one that was great. In terms of starting to get more aware of things that are going on outside of you. And today, this is one of the ones when I first teach it to people, they kind of go, hmm. So stick with it because actually it is incredibly powerful because it's all about listening to your own thoughts. Now, the way your brain works is it can't tell the difference between reality or imagination. There isn't a filter there going, well, that's really silly, I'm not going to take that on board. It's like there's a database that's got its doors wide open and anything comes on in. And also, it can't tell the difference between— Hi, Leanne, lovely to see you. You can't tell the difference between reality and imagination. So even if you're thinking, oh, I've got this to do and I've got that to do and I'm gonna be late and I've still got to pick the kids up, your brain is filing that all away and going, oh my goodness, we better get really, really stressed because I've got all that to do. So the technique is to be— firstly, step 1, become aware of what you are saying to yourself, because those words are just as important, if perhaps even more so, than the words someone else is saying to you, because that's outside of you. The words you're saying to yourself are inside of you. But remember that thoughts are just like quiet words. Your brain is still hearing them. It doesn't just have to be the outer spoken word. Once you become aware of what you're thinking, or perhaps even saying out loud, then it gives you the opportunity to change it. As soon as something's on your radar, it gives you the opportunity to then do something different. You can't do anything with things that you don't know. So I was aware, for example, that I often used to say, oh, I'm really rubbish at remembering people's names. So what's that doing? It's telling my brain, be rubbish at remembering people's names. So as soon as I got into a social environment— Hello, Carlton, nice to see you too. As soon as I got into that social environment, my brain would be going, ah, remember, we're rubbish at remembering people's names, so forget them as soon as they're said. Self-fulfilling prophecy, and that's the pinnacle of it. It's the self-fulfilling prophecy. prophecy. If you're stressing in your thoughts, the rest of your body and your mind is going to stress out too. So become aware of the thoughts that you're having, and then you can change them, because none of these are real. Yeah, I'm not rubbish at remembering people's names, I'm just not concentrating enough. So if I start to tell myself, I'm gonna remember everyone's names today, what's that gonna do? It's gonna open the door to that being a A possibility. Similarly, as long— whilst you're still saying, oh, I've still got to do all that shopping, I've still got to wrap all the presents, maybe that's true. But if you start having that thought, I'm gonna get all those presents wrapped, I'm gonna be there in time, and I'm still gonna have enough days before Christmas to sit up and watch crap TV for at least 3 days so I can enter Christmas relaxed. What thought is gonna be more stressful, less stressful? Neither of them are the real, but what's it going to make you feel in that moment? And that's the important bit. You can only feel in this moment. What's coming? What's already gone? Not here yet, already gone. You can only experience the moment, so make it a good moment. So the tip, it's just about be aware of your thoughts, notice what you're thinking, and if those thoughts are rubbish, Just change them. Sounds simple, and actually it really is. Give it a go. And so one of the things I'm doing over this Advent calendar of stress-busting tips is I would love to also offer some people some opportunities to work with me more directly. So for anyone that shares this post, or any of the posts actually, I'm gonna put your names in a hat and pick some names out just after Christmas, and there'll be A few, haven't quite decided quite how many yet, people that I'm gonna offer to work with me directly. Hello, Paul! And if you like this page as well, that would be absolutely amazing, and that would definitely warrant getting your name put in a hat. Just be aware that if you share it but your privacy settings are on that I don't know you've shared it, then I can't put your name in. So if you share it, please again put something in the comments and let me know. Yep, shared it, Caroline, it's off to all of my friends. That would be amazing too, because one of the reasons I'm doing this is we live in such a stressful world, but if everyone has a toolkit of 24 tools that they can use to reduce their anxiety, reduce their stress, then the whole world's going to be a less stressful place. So this is my doing my bit. If you can do your bit and share this on and everyone becomes more resourced, then we're all going to live in a less stressful world, and that would be amazing. Thank you so much, Caroline. The most amazing Christmas present. So I'll leave that with you now. So if you haven't watched videos 1 and 2 that are already gone, they're on the page. Take a look at those, and I will be back goodness knows what time tomorrow, because clearly I don't even know what day it is at the moment. The aim is to do them in the morning, but to be honest, probably it's going to be around this time tomorrow too. But you'll just catch up on them as and when you're ready. But for now, It's five to six, time to sign off, and I wish you an absolutely wonderful evening. To all those you're watching live, to all of those that you're watching on the replay, just have a fantastic whatever time of the day, whatever day it is. Over and out for now.
