Understanding Your Anxiety, How To Stop It, & Breathing Techniques To Calm Your Body | Mel Robbins

When a patient comes to you, and I— how do you describe what anxiety is?

Well, usually they come to me with anxiety already. So, you know, I'll go into, you know, what are you feeling? What's going on? What happens to you? And usually, almost universally, they'll describe a thinking process. My husband's driving me nuts. I can't drive. I can't go past this. I can't go into grocery stores. I can't go on the bus. And usually what I'll say is, you know, that's all in your head. Like, that's all the story that your left hemisphere, your analytical left hemisphere, is making up. Now, what do you feel in your body, in your physiology, when you say you feel anxiety? And when I— the first, almost the first thing I can get people to do is say, I'm going to change the word anxiety to alarm, because words have consciousness to them. Anxiety doesn't have a lot of consciousness to it. A lot of people don't even understand what anxiety is.

Well, I agree, and I feel like it's thrown around all the time. And we think that anxiety is like a nervous stomach and a lot of worry in your head about what's gonna happen. And I love that you're saying that we wanna start talking about the alarm that goes off in your body. And before we even talk about what that means, one other thing that I would love for you to address is, What are ways in which anxiety expresses itself? And I'm going to give you an example. Sure. So I'm your classic textbook type A hypervigilant, always worried anxiety type. Panic attacks, shortness of breath. You know, you can literally feel the alarm vibrating through my skin. But our daughter, who is 23, when she's feeling anxious or the alarm is going off in her body, she doesn't emit worry or tension. She emits frustration and anger.

Sure.

So what are the various ways in which anxiety gets expressed in people? Because I think there's a lot of people that, quote, struggle with anxiety that don't realize that it's anxiety that they're struggling with.

Yeah, well, I think what happens, what you're describing with Sawyer, is that her autonomic nervous system kind of goes into a sympathetic, you know, fight or flight response. And for her, the only acceptable response inside of her is frustration or anger, because that's how it gets expressed. Now, other people will shut down. They'll go into freeze. Sympathetic nervous system is fight, flight, and freeze, and fawn too, but freeze mostly in that particular situation. So some people will go into this withdrawal, they'll stop moving, their eye contact disappears, their body stops kind of moving in a fluid kind of way. And it's really, people display anxiety, or alarm as I should say, using my own little terminology, in very different ways. And I think it's really becoming aware of it because I have many people that send me messages saying, I didn't even know I had anxiety until I read your book. It's like, well, I don't know if I'm doing you any favors there, but you know, it, it really is. It really does manifest because when I was 20, I didn't know what anxiety was. I just knew that I had this impending doom, the sense of impending doom, and I didn't even know what it was. And I don't think a lot of people do.

I agree with you. So let's go back to the basics. Anxiety 101. When you say we're going to now talk about anxiety is an alarm system in your body, and what— describe the alarm system to me.

Okay, so there's a structure in our brains called the amygdala, and the amygdala is often called the fear center of the brain. It's, it's an okay, you know, description, but it's not the best. But basically, the amygdala is involved in just about every fear reaction that we have. So the amygdala will recognize something in your external environment or your internal environment, aka worries, that alarms it. So the amygdala has a superhighway down to the brainstem, which controls your body. So your blood pressure increases, your heart rate increases, your respiration increases. Everything seems to go along with that. So we get this physiological change motivated mostly by the amygdala, but other factors in the brain as well. And that brings us into this state of alarm. And then what the left hemisphere does is it goes, we're alarmed. What do we have to be alarmed about? And then you start stacking. And I've heard you say this, I think it was in the 5 Second Rule about, I gotta get up. This looks, this is bad, that's bad. One of your boobs is bigger. All this kind of stuff. That's what I call stacking. So as soon as your body feels this sense of alarm, Your left hemisphere has to do something with it. So it has to make up worries and thoughts that are completely consistent with that painful sense of alarm in your system. So we start stacking up these worries, and of course that just creates more alarm, which creates more worries, which creates more alarm. And we get caught in this alarm anxiety cycle.

So let me see if I can unpack this. Okay. Because I think this is a huge wake-up call for people to learn this. That anxiety does not start typically with your thoughts.

Totally.

Anxiety starts with a physical response to some kind of situation that then triggers a physiological reaction in your body designed to agitate you and designed as an alarm to get you to suddenly pay attention because your body is physically trying to get you to basically wake up from whatever you're doing and pay attention to some sort of threat or some sort of change or some sort of something. And the second thing that happens when that physical thing happens is then your mind goes, holy cow, what is around me right now? That I need to pay attention to or be worried about. Is that— am I getting this right? So it begins in the body as an alarm system, and then the thoughts climb on.

I think that that's an explanation that's very simple and it's very accurate, I think, is that we have this thing that I describe in my book called background alarm, which is basically kind of old unresolved emotional issues that are stuck in your body. You know, my colleague Gabor Maté talks about this too, emotions being stuck in the body, which is a construct. You can't separate the mind from the body, of course, but it's a construct and it helps people. It really helps them understand that, hey, this is actually starting from my body. And because we're so versed at speaking in words and communicating to ourselves and to each other with words, we don't get into the feeling. So if I ask you, hey Mel, what does it feel like when you bite into an apple? It's like, "Well, I don't know." So I say, "What does it taste like?" "Well, it's sweet," or, "It's sour," "It's crunchy." We're so good at describing things in words, but if I ask, "How do you feel when you bite into that apple?" That's a brand new landscape. We're not used to feeling. We're in a society that values, that worships the mind, and very rarely actually says, "Hey, Get into your body, feel your body. And a lot of us don't want to feel our body because that's where the freaking pain is, right? So we retreat into our heads because it's an escape from this old alarm that's been trapped in your body probably since childhood.

So you say that all anxiety has the exact same beginning. I was really— this really surprised me that anxiety is all triggered by the same thing. Yeah, all anxiety comes from the singular source. What is that?

Separation. All anxiety is separation anxiety.

It's—

what does that mean?

Well, if you drill it down, it's, it's separation typically from yourself, but it starts with separation from your parents on some level. If you feel separate from your parents, the people that are supposed to love you, care, see you, hear you, and love you— if you feel separate from them, it creates this alarm in our system. And then when we get this alarm in our system, our brain has to do something about that. So what we tend to do as children is first of all blame ourselves. We can't blame our parents for what's going on in our childhood environment. So we blame ourselves and then we start taking jabs at ourselves, what I call jabs, which is basically judgment, abandonment, blame, and shame. This is what we do to ourselves. This is the birth of the inner critic.

So you give me an example. So I find, and one of the things I want to do with this show is to take like a lot of the stuff that sounds intellectual and make it really digestible and understandable. So when you say separate, you're separate from your parents. Can you give us a few scenarios that, you know, aren't all horrific abuse situations that, that anybody can identify with when you say separate from your parents?

Yeah, there's something as simple as a parental mismatch.

What does that mean?

Well, it's kind of a term. I don't know if I heard it or I made it up, but it's basically, I see a lot of, most of my patients, clients, whatever you want to call them, are female. And a lot of them have issues with their mom. So it's, they felt separate. They felt this mismatch from their mother. They felt like, you know, we're not connected. I love my mother. She loves me. But, you know, I like Bach and she likes punk rock, and just in different parts of our lives, they're very different. And that parental mismatch, I think it might be a Nicole LaPera term actually, this parental mismatch causes a tremendous amount of alarm in a child's system because you want to belong to a parent. You really want to feel like you're connected to your parent. And if you don't have that internal sense of attachment, it's very alarming to our system. And that alarm gets lodged in our body. And then that's what usually mediates the worries as we get older. It also mediates that thing I call JABS, which is judgment, abandonment, blame, and shame. We do that to ourselves. So when we're listening to our own thing, it's like, okay, how am I judging myself here? You wake up in the morning, as you say in High Five Habit, you wake up in the morning with anxiety or alarm, as I like to call it, and then you start thinking, you start stacking all these negative scenarios on top of yourself to make sense of it. When really what you should do, and this is out of your book, is, I'm feeling anxious, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, into my body, into my body. Find a place in my body, find a place in my breath, find a place that feels safe in my body. And some people don't feel safe in their body and we do something with that first, but really breath, everybody's pretty much safe in their breath. Go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, into my body, out of my head. 'Cause what that does is it gives a sense of control. It takes energy away from those ruminating thoughts and it puts it where it belongs because maybe that alarm is your younger self that's asking for your attention. And as a medical doctor and neuroscientist, I kind of want to have a seizure sometimes when I talk about the ethereal nature of this. But really, from a practical sense, when you're anxious, find the alarm in your body.

Okay, so how do you do that? So let's, so let's just take a scenario right now. Let's just say, um, and you know, it could be anything.

Sure.

It could be that you are sitting in the pickup line at and you see somebody that you have beef with and you start to feel like this wave hit you.

Sure.

Because you don't want to talk to that person or that person makes you nervous.

Right.

Situation we can all relate to.

Totally.

In that moment, sitting in the front seat of your car and you feel the alarm go off, How do you locate the damn thing? Because it's everywhere at this point.

Well, sometimes it's everywhere. I mean, it feels like it's everywhere, I think. And as I was saying earlier, we're so used to communicating with ourselves in words, we don't really think to look at the alarm in our body, right? So what I would say is, as you look at this person that kind of triggers you a little bit, you know, feel your butt in the car seat, you know, relax your shoulders, relax your jaw. You know, if you're not driving, like, close your eyes for a second, just take a breath in and in, like a nice slow breath out, and go, where in my physiology do I sense this? You know, imagine this person, it's like, okay, well, I feel this sort of, you know, kind of ache in my upper chest, and it's, you know, maybe it's the size of an apple or whatever, and it feels like it's a pressure, it feels like it's radiating up to my neck. That's your alarm. So put your hand over your alarm, like in the High Five Habit, high five your heart, high five that part of your alarm because, or jumping right into it, I believe that that is your younger self asking for your attention. And typically what we do is we push it away. We go into our heads, right? So go into your body, feel it, see if you can put your hand over that area.

But what if I don't want to? What if I'm literally like, I don't like this feeling? So, you know, I'm sitting here listening to you and I really, love your work because you are trying to get us all to go to the source of what's triggering mental health issues, which is stored experiences and the alarm in your body and your inability to tolerate or understand what's happening when it goes off. And so I have recently had this experience. Where I'm waking up and I get these waves of anxiety. And what's interesting is that this is not new for me. I mean, I've struggled with anxiety for 30 years, but we have just recently had a number of huge changes in our life. And I now live in a different state in a very small town. And when I wake up in the morning in the middle of all this change, My alarm is not on the nightstand next to me. It begins in my ankles and it's like a hot lava wave that goes from my ankles up my legs, all the way up my stomach. And then it solidifies in my chest. And as soon as I feel this wave, my immediate thought is not, Oh, I wanna feel the alarm. It's fuck, why am I feeling this? I don't wanna feel dread. And then I feel like I just wanna hide from it or like try to fall asleep. And I know that it's just my body reacting to all this change. Like it's some sort of stored experience that is coming up. I've been working so hard on not freaking out when I feel it, but turning toward it. And as a medical doctor and a neuroscientist and somebody who has struggled with anxiety for 30 years, why is turning toward this alarm the answer in that moment? Like, what would happen? Like, tell me what happens when you turn toward it and you put your hands on your chest or you go, oh, thank you. You're just trying to protect me 'cause you're scared to death that you know You now live in Vermont and you have no friends and you're very far away from your kids and you're gonna live alone here on this mountain and be even more lonely. Like I get through this whole like catastrophizing, which only make it worse. Versus, ah, welcome this bullshit in. Like I don't want to, like I just don't want it to be there, Russ.

Yeah, I get it.

I get it.

What if it's not bullshit though, Mel? What if it's little Mel? Did you have a nickname when you were a little girl?

This really is becoming therapy, isn't it?

Well, I give it a try.

Yeah.

When you started talking about the mismatch with the mom, I'm like, I hope my mother doesn't listen to this episode. 'Cause I even feel guilty for admitting that we are kind of a mismatch or are a mismatch. Yeah. Well, my, my, sometimes my mom calls me Melly and friends of mine call me Melly and yeah, friends of mine called me Melly.

Is there a name that you relate to as a child? A nickname that you relate to?

You know, in many ways I think Mel, because I still feel very much like a child at times, and I still feel like that vulnerable kid, and I still feel like the, um, person that's on the outside looking at. I feel separate. Like, that word separate makes a lot of sense for me. Um, like, there's a feeling that I have in life that I'm observing what's happening, but I'm not a part of it.

Yeah. And just because you've kind of given me permission here, I mean, you've spent a lot of your life outrunning your anxiety, right? And it's worked for you, Mel. You're very successful. It's worked for you. I see this with a lot of very intelligent people. They can intellectually kind of outrun their anxiety.

What does that even mean?

It means that you keep yourself so busy that you don't get a chance to sit with that alarm in your body.

I don't want to sit with it. That's why.

Exactly.

Why do you think moving to Vermont where there's nothing to do is so fucking terrifying? Like, I can't run to Target to make my anxiety go away, right? Like, I feel like I'm addicted to negative stress. And this addiction to negative stress is what I've done to numb my anxiety.

Well, it's sublimating it.

What is sublimating? That is a big word. What is sublimating?

Sure, sure. So you've taken this energy And you found a way to make it work for you.

So I've taken the negative alarm or the alarm in my body and I have channeled it in a direction so I don't have to feel it.

Yes.

And when you said, what if the alarm is trying to help you? What the hell did you mean by that?

What if it's little Mel? You know, what if it's the younger version of you saying, hey, I need some attention. And then when you say, you know, fuck off, I don't want to feel you. Literally, what if you had a child come up to you in a grocery store and they were crying and they had their hands up in the air to pick them up? Would you push them away? Would you go, see ya, fuck off? You know, no, you wouldn't. You'd pick that damn child up. But we won't do it for ourselves.

God, that's so true.

Yeah, we won't do it for ourselves. We'll do it for our pets.

Yeah, you're right.

You're absolutely right.

Like, if I—

if somebody—

if you— if somebody else had an alarm going off in their body, yep, and they were like freaking out or worried or sad or upset or needing attention or reassurance, you would give that to them.

But without hesitation. I'm sure with Sawyer and Oakley you do that all the time.

All the time.

Yeah. But you don't do it for yourself.

No, and I think that this is the singular biggest mistake that society has made around understanding anxiety. I just had a huge breakthrough here. Holy shit, Russ. Okay, so let me just see if I can give this back to everybody listening.

Sure.

So it's the fact that you're scared of the alarm or you can't tolerate it and you don't understand what it's trying to ask of you. That makes it worse.

Yes.

And if you were to realize that any tension or fear or kind of scary feeling in your body is an alarm system from your inner child asking you for reassurance or love or or attention and you just gave yourself that reassurance or love or attention, the alarm would turn off. Is that what you're saying?

Slowly, yeah. Because it's been an adaptation for you too. You gotta remember that the ego thinks it's protecting you by firing.

I don't understand what the ego is. That's too intellectual for me. So I will have you back to talk about the ego.

But the second anybody says ego, I'm like, oh, this is somebody who's way smarter than me.

I don't wanna try to figure out what the hell an ego is. So, and we will have you back because we all need to know what the ego is. However, I just wanna stay on this 'cause I think this is a groundbreaking idea that I want everybody who either has some level of situational or generalized anxiety or loves somebody who has situational or generalized anxiety. And at this moment in time, That would be every human being on the planet. And I want you to understand that we have been taught that we're supposed to attack it from the neck up with the thinking first. And that's one of the things you need to do to cope. But the real heart of healing your anxiety, which you claim you've done, and I want to hear about that, that the— and I don't mean to use the word claim like I don't believe you.

I claim that I have gotten so much better, but yeah.

Well, you're a medical doctor, so you can say that. I feel like I understand anxiety. I still hate it and I need to have a different relationship with it. And I need to, and everybody needs, for the sake of your kids, the people that you love, for yourself, you need to understand this alarm system in your body and the fact that it desperately needs you and you need to take a neck down approach to listening to the alarm and diffusing it in a way that— wow. So over time, if you do this, the alarm doesn't go off as much?

Uh, no. Yeah, that's true. Uh, it's not as intense, and you're not compulsively running up into your head when you feel the alarm. So if I had a motorcycle in my front yard, I used to work emerge as a doc and it's like, I don't, you know, I don't—

It used to, does emerge mean emergency?

Oh, emergency. Yeah. Okay.

So you used to work in the emergency room as a doctor.

I delivered babies. I did kind of the whole kind of general thing.

Okay.

Now, if I had a motorcycle in my front yard, that's why I bring up motorcycles is 'cause I used to see bad accidents with motorcycles. I don't condone motorcycles. I think they're fun, but they're dangerous. Anyway, sidetrack. So if I had a motorcycle in my front, I've never ridden one before. So if I had a motorcycle in my front driveway and I had 50 books on how to drive a motorcycle, ride a motorcycle, and then I go out to the motorcycle, I sit on it and I go, no, you know what? I gotta go back and I gotta read a little more about how the brakes work. And then I'm gonna, until you get on that fricking motorcycle and ride it around and maybe fall off a few times, which is the same thing with the emotion. As soon as you get on the alarm, you start actually feeling better. Like when you said about that thing about the person in the school school drop-off, as soon as you put your hand over that place of alarm, you will feel instantly better. I'm not saying it's going to take it from a 9 to a 2, but it's going to take it from a 9 to a 4, because you're actually, from a consciousness perspective, you are actually going at the root source of the problem, which is this little child in you that says, "I don't like this person." And it's not this person, it's basically, "I don't like someone from my past that this person reminds me of." Or I don't like the feeling that I have in my body when I see this person, and this is a familiar feeling from my past. Yeah.

So for example, if you had like a chaotic parent or an unpredictable parent or a mentally ill parent or an absent parent, that is— this goes back to your original point. When you have a parent that you can't either connect with or that is unpredictable, or that makes you feel invisible or not safe, that alarm system in your body develops as a child. And that is what you are saying when you say all anxiety has resulted because of separation anxiety as a child, when you feel separate or unsafe or unseen, or not heard or not loved or invisible in your home, that original experience that you probably don't remember.

Yeah.

That encoded your body when you were tiny.

Yeah.

And anytime then from that point forward, anytime you again felt invisible or you felt attacked or you felt unloved, that alarm got even stronger. And so now it's like this automatic response in your body to those situations where you feel separate. Am I getting this?

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

And what happens is when we feel the alarm, we go up into our heads to escape it 'cause we feel this alarm in our body. It's like, I don't wanna feel this. So we go up into our heads and we try and think, well, you know, what could this be? You know, we analyze, we go into this, we have this like just fixation, this left hemisphere fixation on figuring stuff out, which basically just creates more of a problem. You know, I talk about in my book about, you know, Ulysses and the Siren Island, you know, so Ulysses—

Again, you're way smarter than me, so you got to tell me the story. Okay, so it's basically like a Greek myth class that I skipped in college. Okay.

Yeah, it's that English stuff. I'd much rather write a physics exam than an English exam. But anyway, so it's basically Siren Island. So there's these beautiful women on this island, and what the sailors will do when they hear these beautiful women singing is they'll run their ships aground and then they'll try and swim to these sirens, and the sirens turn into monsters and kill them, hack them apart, whatever they want to do. So basically, that's your thoughts. Your thoughts are like Siren Island. Your thoughts are trying to suck you in and going, "Hey, we have the answer. We have the answer," when all they have is more problem. You're not going to solve anxiety, which is basically a problem of overthinking, with more freaking thinking. It's not going to work.

Well, okay. So, can I ask you a question? Why the hell, if there is an alarm system wired in our body, why is our brain not able to go, "It's just an alarm system. Just give yourself a hug and take a deep breath. Thank it for trying to protect you. Next." Why do we not just automatically say that? Why do we kill ourselves in our own minds with our thoughts?

Because we don't understand it's there in the first place. We don't understand—

The alarm?

Yep. We don't understand that it's our younger self asking for our attention. So we feel pain and like any organism, we withdraw from pain. And when we, it's like that, the motorcycle that is on the front. If I don't get on that motorcycle and ride it around, maybe fall off a couple of times, I'm never really gonna learn how to acclimatize to that emotion, that alarm. Bessel van der Kolk talks about that in "The Body Keeps the Score." We're not teaching people how to get rid of their anxiety. We're teaching them how to acclimatize to it. And then I add onto that and stop adding thoughts to it. Because as soon as you add thoughts to the alarm, A, you're getting out of the problem, and B, you're just making it worse.

So it's— You know, go ahead, please.

So basically we get in this thing, what I call the alarm anxiety cycle. So something triggers us, say we're in that lineup, We see this person that we don't like, and then we go, oh, why don't I like this person? I should really, I should really try and make an effort, you know. I should really— and it's like, well, no, no, she did this, or he did that.

Don't make eye contact.

Get on the phone.

Make a fake phone call. Avoid, avoid. Turn shoulder, turn shoulder. Holy shit, are they closer? Like, I'm like, what?

Run away. Yeah, run away, you know, to quote a Monty Python thing. So, so basically what we're doing is we're trying to intellectualize the alarm that we're feeling in our body. And it's not— the solution isn't in our minds. The solution's in our body, which is why so many people have a hard time healing from anxiety, because we're trying to use more thoughts to combat overthinking.

My big takeaway right now so far is that all the thinking that we reflexively do about the feelings in our body makes the alarm louder. And that we have to learn to stop going above the neck and thinking about what's going on. And we need to train ourselves to go below the neck into our bodies and turn toward the alarm and give ourselves the reassurance and the soothing or whatever it is that the alarm is asking for in that moment.

Yeah.

And then if you do that, You are now taking step 1 on the path of truly—

what do you—

what would you call it?

Dealing, calming, uh, curing your anxiety.

Getting at the root cause.

Getting at the root cause.

That's exactly what it is. You're getting at the root cause, which is the alarm. The thoughts are not the cause. The thoughts are a symptom. So the thoughts are just a byproduct of this alarm that's stuck in your body. Now, thoughts do cause you know, anxiety. There's no two ways about that. But I think we— where we— where the mismanage is, where the— where the mistake is, is that we believe the thoughts originate before the feeling. And I'm saying the feeling starts before the thought.

The feeling starts before the thought. Because every one of us knows a kid that can work themselves up into a panic attack because they think they're going to throw up.

Sure.

And what I now realize after years of having kids with anxiety and reading so many books about this subject that I should have a PhD and being in years of therapy myself is that if a child, like let's take my son. So our son Oakley, when he was little, he was constantly picked on at school. So of course he felt nervous in the morning before he had to head into school.

Sure.

Plus the kid had dyslexia and ADHD, all of which was not diagnosed. So he's heading into a full day in a classroom where he physiologically, neurologically is incapable of doing what is going to be asked of him. And so his body before entering that situation sounds an alarm.

Totally.

And when the alarm sounds and the physiological changes happen, Guess what physiological feeling he has? His stomach starts to rumble because as the physiology of the alarm changes and the chemistry in his digestive tract changes, he starts getting butterflies that feel like pterodactyls. And then all of a sudden, instead of just giving himself a hug and going, it's going to be okay, today's going to be an okay day, I can face this. Instead of reassuring himself, he goes into his head and says, oh my God, my stomach. I think I'm gonna puke. I can't go to school. Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. And he ramps himself. We were dealing with panic attacks with this kid where he would literally bang his head on the kitchen island. I don't wanna go to school crying. He would force himself to throw. He would get so worked up, he would actually throw up. I mean, it was horrible. And I now, can see that all of the interventions that were being done with this kid with therapists, which were all about just change the channel upstairs. And then he would turn to them and say, "But sometimes when I change the channel, it takes me to a channel I don't wanna watch. So what if I change the channel of my thoughts and I get another bad thought?" Like even he was reacting against it, but nobody taught us that what the kid needed was a hug, validation, reassurance in that moment physically to get the alarm to quiet.

All right.

So Cameron, I'm really excited. I'm going to teach you how to create and use what I call a confidence anchor. Not only when you're about to fly and you're nervous, but for any single situation where you're nervous to do something. Okay. Are you ready?

Yep.

Awesome.

It's super cool.

And for you listening, I want you to just hold that situation that you're nervous about. So maybe you're nervous to give a presentation at work, or maybe you have a son or a daughter who is getting recruited for a sport, and now there's all these big team matches coming up and they're starting to get nervous. This confidence anchor is exactly what you need. So step number 1 is you're going to think about this situation that makes you nervous. Okay. And we've already talked about that, Cameron, it's this flight to Portugal. Step number 2 is come up with something about this situation that actually makes you excited. So describe for me, Cameron, what are you excited to do when you get to Portugal?

I think the thing that I'm most excited for is to see my sister. I haven't seen her in a couple months. She's been in London, so I don't know. I, when it, when I think about Portugal, there's a lot of things I'm excited for, but probably the biggest thing is just to spend time with her. And I love it.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Okay, great. So you now have something related to the situation that makes you nervous that you're actually excited about. Okay. Now, number 3 is the most important part. Number 3 is now that you have something that you're excited about, I want you to close your eyes and we're going to bring it to life. I want you to imagine the moment that you lay eyes on your sister for the first time in several months. And I'm imagining— are you imagining the airport or a cobblestone street? Like, what is the scene? Describe with your eyes closed. What is she wearing?

What happens?

Describe it for us.

Well, first of all, she's probably I don't know, she's probably mad that we're late about something. But, uh, when I think about it, we're— yeah, we're in probably like Lisbon where we're gonna land, and probably right outside, you know, the first glance of a new city, something that is always really exciting when you leave an airport. I think that's The best part about flying is getting to somewhere you're anticipating seeing. So I picture that. I picture her standing there, probably in some black sweater because that's usually what she's wearing. And yeah, I think seeing her face reacting to my mom, me, and my brother that's gonna be like the best part. Cause I know she, even if she won't admit it, she does miss us a lot.

So awesome. And who is she gonna hug first?

100% my mom.

Okay, awesome. And how are you gonna—

I'll probably be last.

Okay.

And as you stand there and watch her in her black sweater with Lisbon in the background hugging your mom, what are you feeling?

Like a sense of comfort, a sense of wholeness. And yeah, just a really good feeling to have us all together during like a really hard time of the year. It's going to, it's going to be really special.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's your confidence anchor. That moment that you just described in detail, the black sweater, Lisbon in the background. Her reaction as she sees you, her hugging your mother first, the wholeness, the comfort, all of that that you just felt in your body, that is your confidence anchor. Now here's how you're going to use it. From now until that moment happens, the millisecond that you feel any nerves or any fear or any negative thought come up related to this thought, You're going to close your eyes. You can use my 5-second rule to interrupt the worries. Just count backwards with me.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Yep. That is a starting ritual that will signal to your brain that you're not going to think about a plane crash. You are starting to think about something else. And then you are going to bring to the forefront of your mind that image, that feeling that you just described. And that is how you drop a confidence anchor on these bullshit nerves and worries that have been hijacking your life. That's what a confidence anchor is. You're using your own excitement about something that normally makes you nervous to shatter the grip that fear and nerves has on your body and your mind. That's what you're gonna do. And when you head to the airport on the way to the plane, you are gonna use this same confidence anchor. And when you get on that plane and your thoughts go, uh-oh, you're gonna go, nope, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you're gonna drop that confidence anchor. And when you take off in the middle of the night and the pilot says, we might experience a little bit of turbulence, 'cause pilots often say that, you're gonna drop that confidence anchor and you're gonna come back over and over and over again to this image of your sister and the black sweater and Lisbon behind her. And her hugging your mother. That's exactly what you're going to do. And you're going to be shocked because this is a technique that they studied at Harvard Business School called reframing performance anxiety, was the name of the study, reframing performance anxiety. And it's a way to flip moments that make you nervous into moments that make you excited and to keep control of your mind, body, and spirit so that your fears don't hijack and torture you. Wow.

What do you think?

I mean, it makes sense because I think in the moments of panic, the last thing I'm doing is thinking about anything that brings me happiness. It's always the darkest feelings, the heaviest emotions. Versus, you know, even just closing my eyes just now. I feel so different, like, sitting here. I feel like even thinking about that moment makes me happy, and I'm excited to use it because I know I'm gonna be anxious all next week, week after.

So you want to know why this works?

I do. Seems too good to be true, honestly. Seems too good to be true.

Well, the reason why it works is because it taps into your body's automatic systems. If you look into the neuroscience on this, scientists call this an autonomic response, that basically your nervous system has an autonomic response to stressful situations. Okay, that like, if you're a normal person like me, you just say, oh yeah, we, if we're in a stressful situation, we automatically feel all kinds of things, right? And so what I want you to understand is that, you know, when we're in situations that make us nervous, everybody, whether you're giving a speech or you're going into an interview or you're on a first date or you're running a track meet or you're getting on a plane or you're breaking up with somebody or you're going in for a job interview, it is going to be automatic that your nerves take over because you're about to do something that makes you stressed out a little bit. It's requiring you to feel— it makes you feel a little bit vulnerable. But here's the cool thing. Even though you have this automatic response, because you're right, there's no way over the next 5 weeks you're not gonna feel anxious because that's the autonomic response that your body has to this stressful thing. But here's the cool thing. Cameron, you can control this.

So here's, here's the secret.

The secret is understanding that your body's reactions to fear, so your automatic reaction to a fearful situation, is the exact same as your body's automatic response to an exciting situation. And we're going to use this truth that your body's automatic reaction to fear is the same as your body's automatic reaction to excitement to your advantage. So tell me about a situation that makes you excited, like just something like in your day-to-day life.

Okay.

Give me a situation that makes you excited.

In my day-to-day life that makes me excited?

Oh, well, how about this?

Who's your favorite musician?

Uh, I really like the Lumineers.

Okay, great.

Guess what?

Mm-hmm. The Lumineers are playing a private concert at the new private venue at the Fenway Park. You, my friend, not only have front row seats, you're gonna meet them before the show.

Okay.

It's 5 weeks out.

How do you feel?

Jittery a little bit. Like kind of the same feeling I would have if I, you know, was playing a big soccer game or running an important race. Uh-huh. When I was younger, like the clammy hands, the pit in your stomach. Yep.

The dude, we're walking into this venue. You're walking up to the front row. How you feeling?

My heart's beating fast. I'm like going a million miles an hour. I don't know, probably feeling like really on edge.

Yeah, the usher is coming up to be like, okay, they're ready to meet you.

How you feeling?

I'd be like, okay, okay, like let me collect myself. Yeah, probably really flustered and I don't know, like a little bit anxious, probably.

So it kind of sounds like a situation like that where you're about to meet your favorite band, which I would say, is that a positive or a negative experience?

Yeah, that'd be amazing. I mean, a positive one, obviously.

Well, it sounds very similar to the way that you experience the thought of flying to Portugal.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

Yeah, you want to know the only difference? When you're in the situation that's positive, that makes you excited, and you're about to meet the Lumineers, your brain is telling you you're excited. Your brain is telling you the jitters in your stomach are butterflies, and that's a good thing. Your brain is telling you your hands are clammy and your heart is racing because something good's about to happen. The only difference between that and what you experience as you think about flying to Portugal is what your brain is saying about the flight. When you start to experience butterflies in your stomach as you are about to board the flight, your brain's going, uh-oh, there's something wrong. This is negative. I'm going to— the plane's going to crash. You're experiencing in your body, Cameron, the exact same physical and physiological symptoms when you meet the Lumineers as when you board a plane. And the only difference is what your brain is saying about it. And so the reason why a confidence anchor works is we are going to shut your negative brain down and drop this confidence anchor right on it like a sledgehammer. And we're going to replace your narrative that something's wrong with, holy shit, I'm about to see my sister.

This is so exciting.

It's as exciting as meeting the Lumineers. And when your brain starts to say the butterflies are positive, you won't escalate into a panic attack. You will have taken control.

How cool is that?

That's pretty cool.

So do you have any questions about the confidence anchor and how you're going to use it?

It just honestly seems still a little bit too good to be true. Like, I don't know, I can just conquer all my fears just by flipping the way I'm thinking.

There's a scientific reason why this works. So they researched this at Harvard Business School, and what they did is they put people in control groups and put them in situations that made them nervous. So they put one group into a control group where they had to run a track meet, another one had to sing karaoke, another one was in like a debating competition. And they taught one group of people to use this reframing tool where you think about something related to the track meet or the debating competition or karaoke that you're excited about. And so this group was taught to say, "I'm excited. I'm excited to run this meet. I'm excited to get up there on the stage and conquer my fears. I'm excited to go and debate because I've prepared." The people who use this simple reframing tool outperformed the people who didn't. They felt less nervous, and there's a scientific reason why. Earlier, we talked about the fact that there are these automatic responses that our body has to situations that are exciting or stressful. And in our case, Cameron, we talked about the Lumineers and how that's exciting, meeting the Lumineers, and getting on a plane to Portugal, which used to make you nervous. Just talking about those two situations created an automatic response in your body, didn't it?

Yep.

That automatic response is nothing more than a series of chemicals firing and messages firing between your brain and your nervous system. The reason why you and I get butterflies is because when the brain sends a message down to your nervous system that, holy cow, we gotta get on a plane, or holy cow, the Lumineers are about to walk in, Your nervous system goes, oh, got it. And immediately starts changing up the chemicals in your body. Adrenaline fires, the blood races to your head and to your heart. That's why your heart starts pounding. That's why your thoughts start to race. Now you get butterflies because the signal in your brain going to your gut just changed the chemicals in your digestive tract. That's why we all get butterflies.

That's it.

And so in the situation with the Lumineers, you flipped your thoughts. I'm excited to meet them. And so that explains all the reasons why you have all these changes going on in your body, why your heart is racing, why your butterflies are in your stomach. This automatic response doesn't scare you because you're thinking positive thoughts when it comes to the Lumineers. Now, when you get on the plane and your brain signals to your stomach that something's up and your heart starts to race because the blood goes to your heart and the butterflies start to flutter in your stomach because the chemical structure just changed in your digestive tract.

If you have negative thoughts about the plane, a couple things happen.

You start to get scared of the automatic response in your body. And more cortisol starts to flood your brain, which is the stress hormone. And once that happens, what they found at the Harvard Business School study is that the cortisol interferes with your brain's ability to do whatever you had prepared to do. This is why most of us, when we stand on a stage, go blank. It's because we have an automatic response. Our brain goes, oh shit. We get scared of our racing heart because we think it means that the plane's about to crash or about to screw something up. The cortisol floods our brain and we forget what we prepared. When the cortisol floods your brain, you forget about seeing your sister. You forget about all the exciting things. You forget about all the research that you did that shows that Traveling by commercial airplane is the safest way to travel, period. That's why this matters. And it's more than just thinking positive thoughts. It's critical that you come up with the thing you're excited about before you get into the situation. Because once your thoughts start to race and you're like, oh my God, I'm going to screw up this test, or oh my God, I'm going to screw up this interview, or Oh no, the plane. You've already lost control. You have to come up with this exciting anchor and this confidence anchor before you start to get nervous.

Got it?

Yeah.

Any other questions?

It just makes so much sense. You know, I always have taken the approach of calm down, Cam, like kind of making myself to be the bad guy and not really reframing it in any way, just letting myself kind of soak in all the stress and anxiety and just kind of reprimand myself being like, what the heck? Why are you not just calming down? Like there's a 6-year-old that's bouncing around and it's like, ooh, I love when the plane goes up and down. And it's like, why can't I be like that 6-year-old?

Let me tell you why. This is excellent, Cameron. Let me tell you why you can't buy that 6-year-old, because I love this analogy. The 6-year-old's brain is not attaching negative thoughts to the plane bouncing up and down. As far as the 6-year-old is concerned, this is exciting. That's why they're not panicking. And so the reason why in the history of telling yourself to calm down, you have never been able to calm down is because you are dealing with an automatic response in your body. So let's go back to the science. When you get into a situation that makes you nervous or that makes you stressed out or makes you afraid or that makes you excited, those are states in your body of high agitation. Those are states of alertness. Those are states when your blood starts pumping and your brain starts paying attention and You know, everything kind of aligns because you're about to do something that makes you excited or fun or nervous or afraid. And so you go into a state of being hyper alert. That state of high agitation is one that you can't calm down like that. So what we're doing when we teach you to create a confidence anchor and to use excitement to reframe what you're feeling, is we're taking a state of high agitation from the negative to a state of high agitation in the positive. We're actually using the automatic response in our body to our advantage. And we're just tricking our brain to believe that we're actually excited because our brain doesn't know the difference. Your brain is like the 6-year-old. Your brain actually doesn't know the difference between excitement and fear. That baby that's bouncing is feeling the heart racing and then the bubbles in her stomach. It's just that your brain is framing it in the negative because your brain knows that excitement and that fear feels the same. That Lumineers, that meeting the Lumineers and being on an airplane feels the same, you can use that to your advantage and trick your brain in a moment where you would normally be nervous to actually think you're excited. And the reason why this matters, Cameron, is because when you're on that plane, if you can come back over and over and over to your confidence anchor, and if you can close your eyes in a moment of turbulence and you can imagine your sister and you can start to say out loud, and this is important, you've gotta say to yourself, I'm so excited to see, what's your sister's name?

Sienna.

I am so excited to see Sienna. I'm so excited to see Sienna.

I cannot wait for Sienna to hug my mom. I cannot wait for this. If you come back to that confidence anchor, you are going to flip your brain into believing that you're excited about that moment and you will no longer be afraid. And it's a way to gain control.

And you know what?

You wanna know something really cool? Because your confidence anchor is related to what you're doing, it's really believable. Because when you are there hugging your sister, it means the plane made it and there's nothing to be worried about.

That's why this works.

When you imagine before a test yourself walking out of there going, yes, it actually makes you excited to take it. When you imagine yourself nailing the interview, it makes you excited to walk into it because your brain doesn't know the difference between a state of fear or a state of excitement. And now you know a simple trick backed by research from Harvard to take control of your mind and take control in situations where nerves normally derail you.

Yeah, that's amazing. I think That was always like in the back of my head during our conversation was if I'm still— I feel fear in a lot of different areas of my life, not when I'm just in the air. So when I'm on the ground, how can I use this tool to ground myself even if I'm not sure the outcome of it?

I love this.

Okay, great question.

I want you to take out a notebook and you're going to write down any single thing that makes you nervous.

Could be anything.

I mean, what? Give me a couple.

There's a long list, probably, but off the top of my head, like something that I don't know, I really wish that I could beat the fear on is I recently moved, um, not that far, but there's a really nice yoga studio on my street that I like pass every day. And I just always think like, I need to be a part of a community of 20-somethings that are like-minded, that, you know, I just, I've always loved yoga. I've loved the community it brings. Um, but I cannot bring myself to sign up. And I can't bring myself up. Like, I just constantly think about the day I have to show up for my first class and it makes me way too anxious to even like go.

This is an excellent example. And by the way, incredibly common and very relatable.

Yeah.

So I'm really glad you shared it. So you're gonna do the exact same thing. We're gonna create a confidence anchor. Because what I hear is I hear you want to do it. I hear it pulling you and the nerves are keeping you back. So name something you're excited about. So like, can you pick like a coffee shop in your neighborhood that you love to go to and it's gonna be your treat to get a nice latte when you're done?

Yeah.

Do you want to name it?

Yeah, I do.

It's called Thinking Cup.

I love Thinking Cup. Now you're going to close your eyes.

What color yoga tights are you wearing?

Oh, God. Maybe like I have this really nice light blue ones that I always like to wear.

I love it.

And as a treat, because you went to this relaxing yoga class in your light blue tights, sweatshirt tied around your waist, yoga bag over your shoulder, standing at Thinking Cup.

What did you order?

Probably like an iced oat milk latte.

Love it. Love it. How do you feel?

Yeah.

As you're walking out of the Thinking Cup, having just completed that class and treating yourself to that, how do you feel right now?

Like proud of myself for doing it.

Awesome. There's your confidence anchor. Anytime you feel nervous, you're going to count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to interrupt the nerves and create that starting ritual. And you're going to drop that confidence anchor. And what's going to happen is it's going to slowly retrain your mind that you're not nervous about joining that yoga studio.

You're actually excited.

And when you start to practice this confidence anchor, at some point you're going to find yourself walking down the street and there's the studio. And as that wave— because remember, it's automatic— that automatic response comes up because you're about to do something new.

You get to choose.

Whether your brain says no or yes. And using the confidence anchor and this research from Harvard and the 5 Second Rule, you can flip that moment from one of stress to one that's something awesome.

Now what I want to do is leave people in action with one simple new practice or habit that I want everyone to try every day for the next 7 days? And what is the exercise that you want each one of us to practice for the next 7 days so that we can start to use the tools that you, um, been researching and changing lives with? What's the one thing you want us to do?

Can I do two?

Yes, as long as it doesn't involve the ego.

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, well, that's it. That's the end of that. All right, so the first thing that I would say is what I said earlier: am I safe in this moment? Or I am safe in this moment, because this moment is all we ever have. Right. Thing about anxiety is it always projects you into the future. So if you bring yourself back to the moment— and this works, this has worked for me, it saved my ass a number of times in the middle of the night when all my defenses are down and I think the world is horrible.

Okay.

I am safe in this moment. I am safe. And really feel it too, like, I am safe in this moment.

Is there anything we should do with our hands or with our— do you want us to close our eyes?

Do you want us to You can do the high five your heart if you want.

Okay.

Which is putting your heart right in the center of your chest. Take a deep breath.

I'm safe. If you find—

Yeah.

Okay.

What else could you do?

If you find your alarm, if you know where your alarm is, track the alarm. When you feel anxious, go into your body and say, where am I feeling this? Is this in my belly? Is this in my chest? Is it in my throat? Put your hand over the place where you feel your alarm.

Okay.

And breathe into that.

Okay.

There is a little thing too that I've kind of taken from Andrew Huberman about the physiological sigh. Physiological sigh is something that humans do, and animals do it too, to calm themselves. And it's usually two or one quick sniff through your nose and then another one and then a long, slow breath out through your mouth. Now, with my anxiety people, I modify that. So basically, this is the process that I do when I get into alarm. Is I take 3 breaths through my nose really quickly. At the top, I hold it for about 3 to 5 seconds, which shows me that I'm actually controlling my breath. My breath isn't controlling me. Then I close my teeth and I breathe out through my teeth and make a hissing sound like, "Sss." All right, I'm gonna try this.

Ready?

And as I do that, I imagine a tire that's overinflated, just deflating in front of me. That's my mental image.

All right, let me try this. Hold on a second.

We're gonna all do the— I think we should do this one. We're gonna do two. So everybody, number one is one time a day, if you notice an alarm in your body, and that could be tension, it could be frustration, it could be anger, it could be anxiety, it could be that worry's starting to grip you. I want you to find where that alarm is. I want you to put your hand where the alarm is and I want you to breathe into it.

Okay?

And then you can add, I'm safe in this moment. So that's number 1 that you're gonna practice. Anytime you feel the gripping, the tension, the frustration, the overwhelm, the alarm is signaling. Remember, that's an alarm asking for love.

Yep.

And you are the one that is going to provide the love and reassurance that you need.

So that's number one.

The second one is let's try this breathing thing. Okay, and if you wanna see it, go to our YouTube channel because we have video episodes uncut of these podcast interviews that are amazing because they're a lot longer and they're behind the scenes. But you should see Russ's face when he does it. He looks like he's about to rage on somebody and he's actually deflating like a tire and taking control of things. And now I'm gonna look completely ridiculous, is I breathe in 3 times and then I clench my teeth and hiss out like a tire.

Ready?

Let me do it first again because there's a few parts to it. So the first thing is 3 breaths in through your nose, so quickly. And then at the top of that, you hold your breath for about 3 to 5 seconds, and then you close your teeth. And as you exhale, slowly exhale, you make a hissing sound.

Sss.

And as you make that hissing sound, you imagine a tire deflating.

Okay, I'm going to do this.

You ready?

Ready.

Okay.

And I want you to elongate that. So the whole thing about the physiological sigh is that you're creating a long exhale. Exhale. That's what really relaxes us is the long exhale. So when people say take a deep breath, really what you need to do is just take a long exhale. So again, it's like 3 breaths in, hold, and then—

I'm going to try it again.

See if I can go longer.

So fill your lungs up, Mel. Like really fill them up.

Okay, here we go.

Wow.

What's interesting about that is it requires so much focus that you can't really think about anything else.

Totally. That's one of the other things that it takes you off your worries. Exactly.

And you do feel this sort of relaxing and collapsing feeling inside you.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

And you relax your shoulders, relax your jaw. Like, there's stuff to it. I mean, I'll make, like, a YouTube video about this or whatever, or I'll put it on my Instagram.

Awesome.

Basically, it's really about expanding your lungs, because when you expand your lungs, you send a message up to your brain that you're okay. Because when you get stressed, the stress starts breathing you. You aren't breathing for yourself. The stress will start breathing you. So it's really important that you do the 3 breaths in, hold, and then breathe out with it and really elongate that exhale. So the higher— the more breath you take in with the sniffs, the easier it is to have that nice long exhale.

Wow.

I know you have a specific breathing pattern that is associated with a calmer mind. Can you teach it to us?

I love it so much. It's the 15-second breath. So if you're having a panic attack, This is going to fix it in 2 minutes or less. And what researchers discovered is you take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in. It produces an automatic relaxation response in your body. So the pattern is this, and it's 4 seconds in, Okay, hold it for a second and a half. 8 seconds out. Hold it for a second and a half.

Will you walk us through it?

So 4 seconds in, hold it. 8 seconds out. Hold it out and then repeat. And I have an app called HAPI Brain, H-A-P-I Brain, and actually has a pacer that does that for you. And all you have to do is when you see the circle get bigger, breathe in. When you see it get smaller, breathe out. And it's so simple. And try to breathe more diaphragmatically or more with your belly. So let the energy of breathing go lower in your body. And if you just practice this on a regular basis, cortisol will go down and you're just gonna get flooded with a feeling of calmness and relaxation. Now you got to practice. You have to create a pathway in your brain of relaxation.

Why does this 15-second breath work?

Because it stimulates, encourages your brain to go into a parasympathetic state. So there's a difference between stress what scientists call sympathetic state has nothing to do with sympathy. It's a bad word. But a sympathetic state is where I was on the beach at Corona Del Mar walking my dog and I saw two pit bulls running toward me.

Oh my God.

Oh my God. Right. So my heart went fast. I mean, it was panic and ended up turning out okay.

But well, what happened?

Now I'm on the edge of my seat. Did you pick up your dog?

Did they just jump up?

No, he's a big white shepherd. I got bit. He ended up in the ocean. Yeah, it was sort of a disaster. I still get triggered sometimes, which we should talk about a little bit, because in my Elite Brain Training program, Yeah, critical to eliminate trauma, or at least to learn how to dissipate trauma, because I love walking on that beach so much. So I actually did a session of EMDR. I don't know if you've talked about EMDR. It's specific psychological treatment for trauma. It's actually really cool. It is. I have my patients write down 10 of their worst traumas. And then through a specific protocol, I'll have their eyes go back and forth while they bring it up, and it tends to help dissipate it. It's very powerful. Or when I go on that beach now, I'll often find myself doing this.

And what you're doing is rubbing your hands back and forth.

Right. And it's bilateral hemisphere stimulation in my brain. Right. I feel it on one side, then the other side. And that just takes the anxiety that I might associate to that beach and washes it away, which can be so helpful. So many people, they drink to manage their anxiety from past trauma. They're using marijuana, now more magic mushrooms. And I'm like, no, no, no, there are way better ways to do that that are not potentially toxic for your brain.

Wow.

Well, we're going to have to come back and do a whole nother episode on that for sure.

How do you calm a very busy brain?

So the first simple thing to do is the diaphragmatic breathing, the breathing pattern. That we just talked about. The second thing that we haven't talked about, but so important, is to direct your thoughts. I was 28 years old before I learned I didn't have to believe every stupid thing I thought. And I'm in class when I was a psychiatric resident at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and I heard my professor say that. And I'm like, no way, because my mind would fairly torture me. You know, I'm one of 7 children. I was pretty much irrelevant. I have, you know, 5 sisters. There's a lot of chaos in my family. And my mind would torture me. And if you start writing down your negative thoughts, and just ask yourself whether or not they're true. And there's a whole process I teach my patients. It's just so helpful that I need to be the director of my mind rather than my ancestors direct it, or the voices of my parents direct it, or the news, or the gossip at work. I need to be the director. And since I want to be happy, connected, purposeful, I often go, well, does this thought fit me being happy, connected, and purposeful? And so, and you know, Mel, just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true. Or whether or not it's helpful. Everybody has crazy thoughts. Jerry Seinfeld once said, "The brain is a sneaky organ." All of us have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear. And just because you have a thought, it doesn't say one thing about you. It's just sort of like the weather. It's not the thoughts you have that make you suffer. It's the thoughts you attach to that make you suffer. And when you really understand this— so we talked about the physical functioning of your brain. Well, now we're talking about programming.

Yeah, let's stop real quick because I want to ask you a question, because I want to— I want you to talk to the person that has never considered that they could direct their thoughts or that the things that they think aren't necessarily true.

If there's a person hearing this, just like you were 28 years old sitting in a class when it first entered your mind, other than taking out a notebook and just start to write down the things that are popping in your mind, Is there some other way to help someone kick the door open? Because this is a revolutionary and life-changing concept when somebody first entertains the notion, Dr. Amen, that you can direct what you're thinking about and you can dismiss some of the crap that you torture yourself with. As untrue. How do you begin this mental training and reprogramming?

So I don't have any tattoos, but if I got one, one of the first questions— one of the first tattoos I would get is, "Is it true?" It's just start carrying that question around in your head. And so when you get a thought, my wife never listens to me, I've had that thought. If you have that question, then you don't automatically have to attach to it. You can talk back to it. I don't know if you were good at talking back to your parents when you were a teenager, but I was excellent. And no one had ever taught me to talk back to myself. And so it's, we don't have to believe the nonsense that's going on in our head. Just sort of begin to think about it like the weather and then go, does this thought serve me? Does it help me? Is it even true? And it's so often the lies we tell ourselves that keep us overweight, depressed, and feeble-minded. And it's a revolution I think all second graders— I actually have a children's book called Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions, where I teach kids not to believe every stupid thing they think. I call them ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. So you need a little anteater patrolling the streets of your mind.

So I just wanted to check in on you because there's a lot going on right now. I was sitting at my desk yesterday and I got the news that Stephen Twitch Boss had died from suicide. And if you have not seen this news or you don't know who he is, let me just kind of share a little bit about him and why it impacted me. So he was best known, and this is how I knew him, for being one of the executive producers of Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. And he was not only an executive producer, he was on that show every single day, 5 days a week. He was the DJ. He would do all the dance parties with Ellen. He has this huge, amazing megawatt smile. And his energy, he's just one of those people that you didn't need to know him to know that literally positivity, dancing, spreading like kindness, that's what this guy was all about. And you didn't need to know him to know that he was also all about his wife, Allison, and his 3 kids. 3 gorgeous kids. And during the pandemic, not only was he there with Ellen, but he and his wife, who are both dancers, started doing all of these choreographed awesome videos that went viral online. And they spread so much joy for people doing these dances and teaching people with their kids all these dance moves. And they just were this positive, amazing force. And so when I heard the news that he died from suicide yesterday at the age of 40, it just rocked me to my core. And I'm still processing it, like, 18 hours later. And when I woke up this morning, I also saw that I had missed the fact that yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Sandy Hook. And so I just felt this need to grab my coffee and to run up here. I haven't even washed my face yet this morning and talk to you. And I just wanted to share what I'm thinking and feeling, because I think it's really important that in moments like this where the news feels overwhelming or the world feels overwhelming, and I know the holidays can just bring up a lot of stuff for a lot of us too. I want to check in on you and I want to check in on myself. And so that's why I decided I'm just going to get on this mic and I'm going to just talk to you and that's it. That's what we're doing today. So first things first, let's unpack, or I want to share with you what I'm thinking in the wake of learning that somebody that was so light and positive and amazing on the outside. How do you process that kind of news that they died from suicide? And notice the word I'm using. I'm saying died from suicide. And that's because I think about a death from mental health struggles the same way I think about a death from cancer. Like if you have a friend that dies of brain cancer, you say they died from cancer. If you have a friend or a loved one, as every single one of us does, who has died from a struggle with addiction or depression or trauma or toxic stress or any other mental health issue, that mental health challenge deteriorated the physical structure of that person's brain. That's what happened. The same way that brain cancer physically deteriorates the brain until it kills somebody. And so the word choice is really deliberate because it's a recognition of what actually happened. There's a couple other bigger things that I just have to say, and that is that you don't, you don't need to know somebody. Like, you don't need to know Twitch personally to be affected personally by the news of his death. You don't have to have lived in the Sandy Hook community to be impacted by the news that it was the 10th anniversary yesterday, because these things that are happening out in the world trigger you to remember experiences that of loss in your own life. And so for me personally, I think one of the reasons why I have been so rocked by this news is because, you know, if you look at somebody like tWitch on the outside, this man exuded positivity. You never saw him without a smile on his face. You couldn't watch those dance videos without feeling the ripple of joy And for me personally, it reminds me of a really dear friend of mine that died from suicide over 10 years ago. And the second that I heard this news about somebody who on the outside looked like they were just doing great, it reminded me of losing somebody that was the same way. And that may be happening to you. And the other thing that this is bringing up for me is that you just have no clue what's going on in somebody else's life. You focus on the beautiful smile that somebody has or the great job or the bank account or the awesome spouse or the wonderful kids or the big house. But people don't live at their house. You know where everybody lives? They live inside their heads. And you and I don't have a clue what it's like for somebody else to live with the pain inside their heads. And so, you know, one of the major takeaways here for me is one of Twitch's biggest messages, which is being kind. And the fact that being kind and being positive around other people, you have no clue. In fact, we underestimate the impact that it can have on somebody else's life to just be kind to them. And so that's one takeaway, that you just don't have a clue. So please just don't assume that you know what's going on and assume that everybody is silently battling something. So it's on all of us to be kind to one another. Second thing that I want to say is I need you to be kind to yourself today because there's a lot swirling around right now. And so if you notice that you're thinking about people that you lost, which I am, I mean, yesterday what was happening for me as I heard the news, and I of course immediately thought about his family, is I was transported back to the day that I learned that our dear friend Fred had died from suicide. And it's like I started reliving that day again as I thought about the pain that Twitch's wife Allison and his 3 kids were feeling. I thought about this particular moment on the day that Fred died where I was with his daughter and we were walking up the front steps to his house, and I knew that when we opened that door, I was going to be present when she learned that her father had died. It is a moment that changed me forever. And so that's also what was happening for me yesterday. And I was thinking about, you know, how much I miss Fred. And I was thinking about how sad and heartbroken I am about all the other people in my life that had struggled with mental health issues and addiction or hopelessness or depression. And how they all died from suicide and just how much pain there is out there. It can be really overwhelming. If that's happening for you, just be kind to yourself. Like, you may need to sleep in. You may need to go for a walk today.

You should probably reach out to a friend and talk to somebody about it.

It would be good for you to remember the person and, and the things that you miss about them. Like remembering somebody that is gone and thinking about the things that you really loved about them. That's a really healthy thing to do on a day like today. But simply being aware that news like this brings up stuff for you that's personal, that's step 1. Step 2 is being kind to yourself. Step 3 is being proactive about taking care of yourself today and reaching out. And step 4 is understanding this issue in a larger context. And so now I want to kind of switch gears and address something that's pissing me off. As I see people processing Twitch's death in particular, because this hit me as hard as Robin Williams, as hard as Anthony Bourdain, and I think the reason why it hits people so hard is because you're trying to make sense of somebody who seems like they've got it all together on the outside. And it, in your rational mind, it just makes no sense. And that is where the learning is. See, your mind is rational right now.

You're objective.

You're not living with the pain the person was living with. So when you look at the situation from your lens, you remove the pain that the person was feeling. And so it makes no sense to your brain because your brain wasn't compromised from the mental health struggle that that person was really battling day in and day out. And so let me go back to the example of brain cancer. If you have a friend that's dying from brain cancer, you see them deteriorate on the outside. You see what's happening. You would never in a million years when somebody dies from brain cancer go, Oh, that's so selfish. Why did they choose to do that? What about their family? But they had so many resources. But I see so many people writing this horseshit online and it's pissing me off because it shows that you don't have a fricking clue what it means to struggle with a mental health issue. You don't have a fricking clue. And it really pisses me off when I see people that write really arrogant, pretentious things like, well, I struggled, I was in a dark thing, and I asked for help.

Well, that's great.

I'm happy that you didn't get so bad, that your brain wasn't so deteriorated that you could ask for help. When somebody gets to the point that their brain functioning is so eroded that they cannot cognitively, rationally process the fact that there is a huge difference between ending the pain that you're dealing with and ending your life. When somebody gets to the point where they can't think clearly, it means the physical structure of their brain has deteriorated from the mental health battle. That's what that means. And that smile that people put on their faces the whole way through, that is so hard. Can you imagine to get to the point where you love your family so much that you think the only way to save them is to get rid of yourself?

Like, this is just—

that's how compromised your brain is. And so when I think about this like brain cancer, that the physical brain functioning is deteriorating to the point where nobody can think rationally, that removes all judgment. And all I have is compassion and sadness. That's it. That is it. And that is all there is to have for the people that you've lost, for the folks that we continue to lose. And for anybody that's listening to this, if this is you and you're in a really dark place right now, I wanna speak directly to you right now because you're meant to hear this right now. You can address the pain that you're feeling in your mind and your body. You can. And there are people standing by right now that are trained, that wanna help you. And with support and with small, tiny moves forward every single day, you can make this pain lessen. You can loosen the grip it has on you, and you can feel better. You can also improve the physical structure of your brain. You can improve the way that you think so that your brain starts to support you. You can face this with a little bit of support. You can. And you can do that, and I want you to do that because we want you here. You have a big, beautiful life. And I know that if you believe that you could somehow lessen the pain you're feeling, You would want to live that life. And so please, please, please get support for the pain that you're feeling and hold on to the life that you have, because your life is worth fighting for. And there are people that want to help you. We have resources in the show notes. Not only for here in the United States, but also for multiple languages, international resources. And so I just felt the need to talk to you, to check in with you. Be kind to yourself today. Stop assuming that you know what other people are thinking. Remember the people that you've lost and the things that you loved about them. And together we'll get through this. We will, I promise.

Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out, and if you like this one, I have a feeling you're gonna like this one too.

I'll see you there.