John Assaraf explains how worry redirects blood flow away from your problem-solving brain toward fear centers, reinforcing anxiety. He teaches a breathing practice: slow inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth like a straw, six to eight times. Once calm, ask solution-focused questions instead of worrying.
Questions this video answers
About 6–8 deep breaths (slow inhale through the nose, slow exhale through the mouth).
Chapters
Have you ever heard of the saying, energy flows to where attention goes? Energy flows to where attention goes. So what does that really mean? We are all made up of energy, right? We have water in our bodies, we have blood flowing in our body. But are you aware that whatever it is that you are focusing on, you, your attention, especially in your brain, that's where the energy flows, the blood flows. So let me explain. Let's say you have a problem that you are worried about. It's causing anxiety, it's causing stress, it's causing uncertainty. The part of your brain that can actually help you solve that problem, which is your left prefrontal cortex, or what I call is the Einstein part of your brain, energy or blood flow will actually move away, you know, from that part of your brain, you know, to that fear center of your brain, the uncertainty center of your brain, the part of your brain that is the fight, flight, or freeze part of your brain, otherwise known as your sympathetic nervous system. And so when you're in a state of focusing on your doubts, your worries, your things that aren't working in your life, things that you're upset about, things that you're angry about, things that you can't figure out what to do, have you ever considered that the more you worry, the more you worry, the more you give energy to what it is that you really don't like or don't want to feel or don't want to do, you actually are reinforcing the very thing you don't want that you would wish would go away. So stuff doesn't just go away, but you can guide it away. And so the question is, how do you restore energy flow back to that genius left prefrontal cortex? Einstein, Paul. Part of your brain that I like to call it, and a simple inner size, is whenever you're feeling stress, anxiety, doubt, worry, or any of the disempowering feelings and emotions, have you ever just thought about stopping being aware, calming yourself down, down instead of exciting you into the worry? One of the easiest way to do that is something that you did from the second you were born. Your breath, right, your breath in through your nose, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, out through your mouth, slowly, slowly, slowly. And I like to breathe out through my mouth like I'm breathing out through a straw, so I can focus my attention here versus allowing my brain to run rampant with thoughts. So one more time, As soon as you or I take six, seven, eight deep breaths, slowly in through our nose, out through our mouth, we actually deactivate that doubt, stress, worry, anxiety, center in our brain, and we shift from the reactive stress mode into a calm, responsive mode. Sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system. Those are your two systems. And in this calm, responsive state, responsive, meaning I can respond now instead of automatically react, I can now ask, what's causing me to have so many doubts? What's causing my worry? Does it make sense to worry? Is worrying an emotion that I really want to engage in? Worry is a prayer for what you don't want. Let me repeat, worrying is a prayer for what you don't want. So in a state of doubt and worry, we perpetuate more doubt and worry. In a state of calmness, we can actually be more proactive and responsive to, say, what's causing my anxiety, my doubt, my. My worry, my fears, my uncertainty. And then if we asked another question, says, what can I do right now to relieve the doubt? Stress, worry, anxiety, what can I do? Who can I call? What help do I need? In those empowered questions lays the answer to releasing some of the debilitating, destructive emotions, fears that you may not want to have, that may not serve you. And so just remember, you have the most powerful tool in the known universe to work with your brain. That is like simple inner size number one that you can do anytime you're not feeling the totally the way you want to feel. All right, practice your breathing. It's yours. There's many different types of breathing intersects you can do. But why not get used to doing the first one, the easiest one first? Have a great day.
