Turning FEAR into POWER | A Quickstart Guide for Managing Anxiety

Foreign. Everybody, and welcome to today's live presentation. Apparently my computer is also very sleepy this morning, so we are having a few technical difficulties. We are not going to have a PowerPoint with today's presentation. So I have put the notes for it in the video notes. So if you go back and you want to look at it on replay, you can see what was in the, in the PowerPoint. Anyway, today's topic is turning fear into power using rises and mishaps. I am your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Fear is a natural response. Anytime you're not in control or getting outside of your comfort zone, you're going to feel a little bit of stress, anxiety, fear, fear, whatever you want to call it, that's your body's way of saying, hey, this is new territory. We are a little unsure about what's going on. That's natural. Fear is a smoke alarm. It's a response to a perceived threat. It doesn't mean that there is a threat just because you feel anxious about something. Just because you are experiencing some anxiety doesn't mean that there's necessarily a threat to you at this time in this context. There may have been similar experiences in the past where there was a threat, but at this time in this context, is there a an actual threat to you? So the key word here is perceived. And one of the acronyms we use a lot in addiction recovery is fear equates to false evidence appearing real. Now. Yes, you could argue sometimes we're fearful for a reason, and that is true. But there is a I, I'll go out on a limb and I will say a majority of the time that we feel anxious or fearful because we just feel that way. We are using emotional reasoning. We're not using actual fact based evidence. So it's important to get those facts and apply them, as I said earlier, to this situation. In this context, am I safe or is there a threat to me in some way? Fear is nothing more than a feeling created in your body. When your HPA axis is activated, the amygdala says, hey, there might be a threat. So the HPA axis turns on, dumps excitatory chemicals in your body to give you energy. It dumps glutamate, norepinephrine, adrenaline, dopamine to help you focus as well as to give you energy to assess the situation and decide whether you need to fight or flee. Fear can be a weakness when it paralyzes you. If you start feeling fearful and you just freeze, that can be a weakness. Fear can be powerful and it can Be a source of power when you harness that energy and turn it into courage to recognize your personal power in the current context and let go of limiting beliefs. So, you know, that's a long one, but R stands for recognizing your personal power in the current context. Is there a threat to me? And if so, you know, what power do I have? Can I possibly control this situation? And what limiting beliefs do I have? What negative self talk is going on that is telling me that I am powerless or that this is going to be catastrophic when that might not necessarily be the case. So recognize your personal power in the current context and let go of limit limiting beliefs. I stands for inspire others by remaining positive. What is going right right now. And you know, I encourage you to. When something's going wrong, always remember that there's. There are other things in your life likely that are going right. And there may even be things in this current situation that are going right. For example, you go to a job interview and you're anxious about it. You're feeling, you know, really revved up about this job interview. You are going into a situation that you haven't encountered before. So you're stepping out of your comfort zone. You're making yourself a little bit of vulnerable. Makes sense that your amygdala might say, hey, this could be a problem. It's not saying. It is. It says it could be a problem. All right, well, we'll take that as it is and, and recognize, tell yourself, I'm a strong person, I've survived many things. And let's look at what's going on in this situation. This job interview may make you anxious, but why is it making you anxious? Well, it could be because you really want this job. Well, that's going right. You know, this could be an opportunity that is presenting itself and you are hopeful and excited about the opportunity. And you're, you may be anxious or afraid that you won't get it, but look at what's going right. You have the opportunity to interview. That's the good part. The fear is anticipating the worst possible outcome. But we don't know that that's going to happen. We don't know what's happened yet. S stands for seek peace through love and service to a higher cause. Even when things are going kind of crappy, even when we feel a level of anxiety, it is helpful to seek peace through love. Love yourself, love your family, focus, you know, use gratitude, love the things that are going well in your life and provide service to a higher cause. Get outside yourself and recognize that you Know what? It's not all about me. There are things that I can do to harness my energy to benefit others in this situation. You know, this thing over here that's making me anxious, well, it may kind of suck right now, and some of it may be out of my control. But how can I use that energy? Since I can't control some things, how can I use that energy that's being dumped anyway in a service to others? There are two benefits to that. Number one, it's a productive use of your energy. And number two, it distracts you from thinking about whatever that is that is causing you anxiety that you may not have control over at the moment. E stands for Embrace your newfound strength and change the things that you can. Recognize that it is possible to feel fearful and take steps to improve the next moment. Go back to that job interview, for example. I can feel anxious about this job interview and go to it and, you know, succeed. I can envision myself succeeding handling this job interview. I can do that and feel anxious at the same time. Recognizing that anxiety is energy, and how I harness that energy can be very powerful, and I do have some control over how I harness that. And S stands for seek social support with healthy attachments. When we're anxious, it is always, well, almost always helpful to reach out to those supportive people in your life and say, you know what? I'm feeling anxious about what's going on right now, and get a pep talk. We hopefully all have cheerleaders in our lives that we can call up and get a pep talk from, and that can be helpful when we are feeling anxious. So Rises is the acronym that identifies the things that you can do when you are feeling anxious. I'll go over it again. Since you don't have the PowerPoint, recognize your personal power in the current context and let go of limiting beliefs. Inspire others by remaining positive. Seek peace through love and service to a higher cause. Use that energy, embrace your newfound strength, and change the things that you can in the moment and seek social support with healthy attachments. Now, there's more to dealing with fear and turning it into power than just intervention. Prevention is so important with everything. We want to prevent illness, we want to prevent mood disorders. We want to prevent over or disregulation in response to fear. So what can we do? And the acronym for that is mishaps. You want to do these things to prevent mishaps. Mindfulness is the first one in mishaps. Every day. We. We need to practice throughout the day being mindful of what's going on how we feel, what if. If any fear or stress or anxiety triggers are around and what we can do to mitigate those. Mindfulness is important. I stands for interpersonal support. Nurture those relationships even when things are going well. So when you are having a moment, when you are feeling overwhelmed and anxious, you have relationships that have been nurtured that you can turn to. You know, it's a lot harder to call somebody up that you haven't talked to in six years and go, hey, I'm having a bad moment. Can you give me a pep talk? Relationships take energy, take time, take effort. S stands for stress management. When we are already stressed out about a myriad of other things, then we are already in certain sort of fight or flee mode. That means that when something happens that really triggers our fear, we tend to dysregulate. Think of it as kind of climbing a mountain. Every stressor climbs you up higher to the apex of that mountain, and eventually you get to the point where it just sends you over the edge, so to speak. You just, it's too much stress. So if you can mitigate stress or on a regular basis, then you have more energy, you have more resources to be able to deal with the fear when it happens. Along with that is health promotion. If you don't have adequate sleep, if you are not regulating your circadian rhythms, if you're not eating a relatively healthful diet, you are probably your body system is not going to be functioning optimally to manage that HPA axis. We really want to help keep the body and the HPA axis healthy and regulated most of the time. So when it does come time to respond to a threat or a perceived threat, we have the energy and the resources and everybody is rested and able to handle it. Authentic living comes next, and that is part of mindfulness and stress management. Knowing what you need, knowing what you want, and trying to live as authentically as possible. When we are not living in our, in our authentic selves, it causes stress. When we are trying to pretend to be something we're not, when we are ignoring our own needs, then it can cause distress within us and it can leave us feeling unsupported. Positive self. Talk every day, throughout the day, if possible, is important. Tell yourself what's going right. Identify things that are helpful, identify your strengths. You don't have to do it out loud necessarily, but take a moment periodically throughout the day to say, I did that or that was, you know, I am doing, I am doing well today. I am strong today. I am handling the day very well. And mull over or reflect on your successes and strengths. That goes along with positive self talk. But I find it's helpful if people keep a journal, if you will, of their successes and strengths. So when they're having a bad moment and everything seems bleak, it seems like it's very dark, they can go to those successes and strengths and remind themselves of other things that they have accomplished or over come and the strengths and resources that they actually do have available to them. Those are a few tips and tools that you can use in order to prevent or mitigate problems when you experience a major stressor that triggers fear. And also tools that you can use when you are feeling fear to to harness that energy to empower you instead of paralyze you. When we're talking about panic attacks, that is again a physiological reaction to a perceived threat. And a panic attack is an extreme response of that HPA axis for most people and you know, it really depends on all your symptoms. But for most people, the first thing that is important in a panic attack is to trigger that rest and digest reaction by slowing your breathing down, breathing in for four or eight if you can, holding for four or eight and exhaling for four or eight counts a couple of times in order to slow your breathing and slow your heart rate. One of the more common symptoms of a panic attack is a racing heart and hyperventilation and feeling dizzy as a result. So once you are able to slow that process down and slow your heart rate down, it triggers some of those relaxation chemicals that can help you get out of that adrenaline haze a little bit more. Now, panic attacks don't go away super easily. You know, I've had them, been there. So I do recognize that just breathing a couple of times ain't going to cut it completely. It's important to recognize too and remind yourself that most panic attacks last for a few minutes and subside generally within 10 to 15 minutes if they're left alone. If you actively try to trigger that rest and digest, you can off often cut that time down some. But it is important when you're having a panic attack to be compassionate with yourself and say, all right, first thing I need to do is get into my wise mind. First thing I need to do is re regulate my HPA axis so I can figure out the next logical step to stay safe. When I was pregnant with my son, I had something called super ventricular tachycardia, which, you know, is sort of irrelevant, but it would trigger panic attack symptoms and would if I was sitting for too long and it would freak me out, which would trigger the panic attack. So it was important for me along my route. For example, whenever I had to drive somewhere or wherever I was to be able to identify, okay, should this happen, should I start feeling a panic attack coming on, where can I go that I know I'm safe if I'm driving? I knew where all the fire departments were along my route to work and that helped me feel calmer along the way. When I was pregnant with my daughter, had the same issue, different obstetrician who said, explained to me what was going on and said that, you know, when you're sitting down for that particular issue, when you're pregnant, squeezing your leg and glute muscles while you're sitting helps keep that blood circulating more so it doesn't trigger an episode. And that gave me a huge amount of comfort and it actually significantly did reduce the frequency of those SVT episodes. So it is important to recognize what your panic triggers are and to have a plan for how to deal with them. And then from that point forward, you know, recognize, you know, what's going on in that particular situation and take steps. And Kim is very, you know, on, on target as usual. The more fearful people are. Our reaction to fear is to try to control the sit. If I'm in control, then I am safer, we think. And it's important to recognize what is within our control and what is not within our control so we can figure out how to adapt that. And many times fear is created by anticipation. Now, sometimes you know your initial fear reaction. Remember, it is a normal reaction to a perceived threat. So you've got to figure out, why am I feeling threatened here? Does it remind me of a prior situation in which I was unsafe? And if so, then how is this situation similar and different? Am I currently in danger? Is there currently a threat in at this time? In this context, and answering that question, other fears may be created by catastrophic thinking and anticipating. Well, if this happens and if that happens and if that other thing happens, then, oh my gosh, the sky is going to fall. So we want to examine what are the thoughts that are supporting this fear? What are the thoughts that I'm having that are triggering my threat reaction and how accurate and fact based and probable are those thoughts at this time in this context? I know there's a lot of qualifications there, but, you know, things change and it's important to recognize the situation in context. So very good point. Splashing water on your face, cold water, or any type of sensation and can help distract you from Distress, so you're not focusing on it, so you're not feeding that panic attack. Whether it is effective for dealing with panic attacks really depends on the person and exactly what their symptoms are and what's causing the panic attack in that situation. But it is an effective distress tolerance tool in order to kind of shift your focus away from your breathing or, or whatever's going on. A lot of people when they have panic attacks, feel their heart rate start to race and then they start to hyperventilate, which makes them dizzy, and then they start catastrophic thinking, and it spirals from there. So if you can break that line of catastrophic thinking in some way, it can be helpful. But. But it really depends on the person. What techniques are most helpful for abbreviating a panic attack. In terms of dealing with things like pandemics, and we'll just use that. In general, some people can feel very fearful about going out in public. They may fear getting sick. My daughter has bad lungs, you know, short story. So when she gets, or if she gets sick, she often gets bronchitis. And, you know, when she was little, she used to end up, you know, in, in the hospital, you know, having to have breathing treatments. And it was really bad, really bad mojo. So it freaks me out when we have really bad flu seasons like swine flu, because I know that that easily turns into pneumonia. So it's important for me to be aware of that, but also to be cognizant. And that's where we go to current context and the facts. And, you know, I'll just out Haley on this one. The current context, as she's gotten older, she has been more resilient in the face of illness, which has been really, really good. So that's positive for other people. You know, looking at, you know, for the pandemic and Covid, I'll just out it. We know that people who are under the age of like 45 or something and in relatively good health, without confounding conditions, comorbid conditions, they tend to deal with the virus quite well. The significantly poor outcomes are for people who are significantly older or, and, or have multiple comorbid conditions. So that's where the facts and the probability really come in. How likely is it that if you go out, you're going to get sick? Well, you know, if it's a really bad season, if the stuff is really, you know, circulating, there's a possibility you can take steps to do it. You know, you can reduce that probability by wearing a mask, by washing your hands and social distancing but if you do get it, what is the probability that it's going to be catastrophic for you? What is the probability? And I know that the next question coming, what is the probability that it's going to be catastrophic for someone in your household? And I would have that same thought too. During flu seasons, you, you know, how safe is it for me to go out and do these different things and then come home and be around my daughter when I would start to get the sniffles because I've always got allergies? You know, I would think, what do I need to do in this context at this point in time for my safety, but also for my daughter's safety. And, you know, obviously if I had a fever, I turned into like, you know, the wipe queen. And I would walk around with Lysol wipes in my hand, wiping down doorknobs every time I touched them, and I would isolate myself from the rest of the family. So it's a matter of taking practical steps, asking yourself, going back here, Recognizing what the, what you can do, embracing your newfound strength, and recognizing what you can do to change the things that you can to help yourself be safer in the moment. And I really encourage people that I'm dealing with, whether it's Covid stress or election stress or cancer stress or whatever their, their anxiety is up about. You know, we sit down and I have a whiteboard in my, in my office, and we write down all of the facts supporting their fears and all of the facts against their fears. And then we look at the probability of, you know, the worst case scenario that they are afraid of. What is the probability given all the facts, what is the probability of that coming true and what things are within your control in order to mitigate those problems? And, and when we're talking about viruses, you know, as I said, masks, hand washing, social distancing, those are huge. When we're talking about cancer, you know, obviously avoiding things that are known carcinogens and eating a good diet and trying to reduce stress, those are all helpful. Recognizing that, you know, there are things that are within your control, but then there are some things that just aren't. And what is the probability, if you do all the things right, that there will be a catastrophic consequence? And for some people, they even have to plan for that. And okay, you know, if we've got a plan for that, then let's go ahead. But most of the time, once people get through the facts and the probability section that, and recognize where their personal power is, they tend to feel a lot more Grounded. And, you know, that's important for them to be able to keep coming back to that and looking at the facts. The facts, the probability, and what is within their control to do to mitigate any negative outcomes. Fear of failure is a huge fear that happens when we. When I've done some of my. My other classes, the longer classes on fear, I talk about common types of fear that people have. And when you look at a lot of things that cause you fear and anxiety, you can boil them down to a couple of groups. Loss of control, big one, uncertainty and the unknown, isolation, failure and rejection and death. You know, you can look at those six things, and most things that we fear can be boiled down to some level of that, you know, that could have killed me or, you know, things that make us fearful, like Covid, for example, there is the threat of death. But then we need to look at again, how probable is that, given this current context, which is me being a healthy human being under the age of 50, even if I do happen to catch it, and what can I do to mitigate the chances, you know, lessen the chances that I'm going to catch it? So those are really important. But getting back to fear of failure, I encourage people to go online, there are lots of memes and sayings about failure and find themselves some failure mantras. Failure means you've learned one way not to do it. Failure means that I've gotten outside of my comfort zone. Failure means and find some ways to explore failure and embrace failure in terms of something positive, a growth, and exploring their beliefs about failure. What does it mean if you fail? You know, what are the consequences of failure? Some people have grown up believing, with facts, or maybe just not just believing it, that if they fail, they will be unlovable, or if they fail, they will be rejected. And that can spawn a lot of catastrophic thinking, because fair fear of failure spawns other fears. That rejection, the isolation, the unknown. So it's important to really examine what. What are your fears? What would happen in this situation, in this context, at this time, if you failed? And, you know, how likely is it that that's going to happen? I've shared the story before of my best friend who got out of the army, didn't have a whole lot of transferable skills, was looking for a job, and, you know, started getting really stressed and freaked out that he would never find a job, he lose his house, he'd be living under the bridge, get hooked on heroin and die addicted to opioids. And he could articulate that, and he could articulate that it was catastrophic thinking. And, you know, it was important for him in that situation to remind himself that, you know, he was afraid of failing, afraid that he wouldn't be able to get a job. And then we looked at, you know, what is the likelihood that given that you've got 100% retirement pension from the army, that you are going to be homeless, penniless, and die under a bridge. And, and, you know, once he started looking at the probability, it helped quell the anxiety. Now those thoughts would come back and he'd have to argue with those thoughts in his head again and go, you know what? That is not probable. But it, it is important to recognize the things we tell ourselves about failure. What does it mean to us and how accurate are those beliefs? Are our significant others going to quit loving us if we fail at something? As always, it is contextually dependent. There are some things that you may say yes to that too, but I think the vast majority of things you're going to say no, people are still going to love me even if I fail at xyz. And, and Edwin says the more faith, the less fear. The less fear, the more self confidence. And that is true. And that has to do. Not only that, when we say faith, we want to have faith in ourselves, we want to have faith in others, and we want to have faith in the universe or your higher power, whatever you want to call. But we do need to examine our faith in the belief that things like if you do the next right thing, good things will happen. Doesn't always happen, but sometimes it does. Exploring faith that I can handle this. I. I got this. It may not be what I wanted, it may be unpleasant, but I can survive this. And I've survived other things. Which goes back to recognizing your personal power and reminding yourself regularly of your personal power. Remember, the notes for this, since the PowerPoint wasn't working today, are in the notes to the video. So you can see the acronym rises and mishaps if you want to, you know, focus on those and remember those. And, you know, are there any other questions? Okay, go over the acronym that was used at the start. Rises is the acronym to remind you of what you can do when you're feeling anxious to help you rise above that anxiety. Recognize your personal power in the current context and let go of limiting beliefs. Inspire others by remaining positive, helping people see, you know, in a pandemic, for example. All right, some of these things are really unpleasant, but what's going right, well, we're learning that social distancing and masks can help. So woohoo. We have, we now have tools that we can use to mitigate this problem. So recognizing personal power, inspiring others by remaining positive, seeking peace through love and service to a higher cause, embracing your newfound strength and change the things that you can in the moment and seek social support with healthy attachments. So that's rises and then mishaps are the things that you do on a day to day basis to help stabilize your HPA axis, keep you as healthy as possible and conserve some of that energy. So when you do need to respond to a threat that it's not the straw that broke the camel's back, but it's just, you're saying, okay, you know, bring it on. Mindfulness, interpersonal support, stress management, health promotion, authentic living, positive selft talk and successes and strengths. Stopping overthinking is not easy. When we overthink, we tend to overanalyze and thought stopping is really important to doing that. But a lot of times we overthink because we want control. Overthinking is a sign of feeling out of control. So we're trying to anticipate everything or we're trying to find a reason for everything or we're trying to find an answer now because we want it. And there's a lot of people that are overthinking this morning. Let me tell you what, and at a certain point it's important to examine how much energy overthinking is taking. You know, how much energy am I spending doing this? And is it a good use of my energy? Is it a good use of my energy to be clicking on every single tab in my browser to see if I can find a different answer? Or are there certain things that I may just have to wait to find out or seek consultation on, you know, get somebody else's opinion and then choose, and this is the hard part, choose to turn my attention to something else I can overthink. You know, until doomsday about things when my, one of my best friends just was waiting on a biopsy to come back and it took two weeks for the biopsy to come back. And you know, she was very, very stressed that whole time thinking of all the possible catastrophic outcomes and what she would do about it. And, and that's was very stressful for her. And you know, I've done the same thing. So you know, I, I, I can, I can relate to where she was at and it was important for her during that period of time to tell herself, you know, what, okay, sitting here stressing about this overthinking it isn't going to change the situation. And all it's doing is draining my energy. So I am going to make the active choice to choose to do something else. And you know, sometimes it was something that made her happy, sometimes it was just something she had to do, like work. But it's important sometimes for people to be able to feel like they do have a certain element of control over their internal thoughts. And it takes practice. It is not easy. And when she would find herself overthinking, you know, she would say, all right, I'm doing it again. And she would turn her attention back to being mindful at about what, what was presently going on. Alrighty everybody. Thank you for being with me today. I apologize for not having the PowerPoint for you. If these presentations, these morning live talks are helpful, then please tune in again. I am here every weekday morning at 9:30 for a live discussion. Would love to have you, would love to have more people come. So please share with your friends and colleagues who you think might benefit and I will see you tomorrow when we talk about psychological flexibility.