Dr. Don WoodResolving Your Trauma-Based Challenges So You Can Unlock Peak Performance

How to Stop Anxiety?

15 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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1:15

Dr. Don Wood (speaker) presents a brief, practical approach to stopping anxiety by returning to the present moment and deliberately refusing to give anxious sensations attention or "power." He explains anxiety as fear of the future, demonstrates the technique with a child-at-the-mall metaphor, and recommends using calm indifference (not engaging the anxious feeling) to let it subside.

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If your anxiety is stopping you from leading a normal life, here's what you need to do. Anxiety basically is a fear of the future, of something going wrong. What is actually happening when you're dealing with anxiety is you're not present anymore. So what's a practical way to stop that? The key is to come back into the present. So we want to stop your mind. Take charge of this feeling by using this. Right now, I am aware of the sensation in my chest right now. So what? I'm not going to acknowledge it. I'm not going to pay attention to it. I'm not going to give it power. I'm going to shut it off. I'll use this as an example. You take your child to the mall. The child wants to get ice cream, but you know you're going to go home and have dinner, so you tell the child no. So what is the child going to do? They're going to try to get your attention by lying on the ground, kicking and screaming. Because as long as it can get your attention, they're going to try to get what they want. What's the best way to deal with that child? The feeling of anxiety. You just say, whatever. I'm going to sit on the bench here until you're finished, and then we're going home to have dinner. When you take that attitude, it's just a quick, easy hack to sort of use and feel your system, settle down, kill it with indifference.