Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes explains anxiety as a smoke alarm for perceived threats, not facts. Your body floods with stress chemicals and preps for fight-or-flight. The fix: acknowledge the feeling, confirm you're safe now, check the actual facts, and assess how likely the threat really is.
Hey there everybody. Doc Snipes here. Today we are going to talk about anxiety. Now obviously I can't cover a lot about anxiety in three minutes, but first we want to define what anxiety is. Anxiety is a feeling. It's not a fact. It's a feeling that we get that our brain is telling us, hey, there might be a threat. It's kind of like the smoke alarm that you have in your apartment or in your house. It doesn't mean that there is a fire, it means there might be a fire. So anxiety is your body's way of saying, hey, in similar situations in the past there was a threat, so there might be a threat now. And when that happens, your body dumps a bunch of energy chemicals for to keep it short into your system so you feel your heart rate start to increase, your breathing starts to increase. All of those stress chemicals are giving you the energy to to assess the situation and if there is a problem, fight or flee. But anxiety in and of itself is not a fact. It is a feeling that is based on prior experiences. When you feel anxious, acknowledge the feeling. I feel anxious right now. Okie dokie. What's am I safe right now? You know, scan the situation, make sure that there's no obvious threats to your self or your or your well being at that exact point and then examine the facts in this context at this time. Looking at everything that's going on, what's causing me to feel anxious right now and is it actually a threat or am I assuming it's a threat or am I worried that it might become a threat? None of those are actually threats. Those are feelings, those are anticipations, but those are not facts. Based on the facts in this context at this time, am I safe and how probable is it that there is a threat?
