Latest / Float: The Anxiety Podcast with Dr John Eaton PhD / 3 Things that Dissolve Anxiety

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3 Things that Dissolve Anxiety · Float: The Anxiety Podcast with Dr John Eaton PhD

• 0:00
  Today I want to talk about three things that can dissolve anxiety And the first
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  thing I should say is that none of them involve trying to make anxiety go away,
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  This might sound strange if you're anxious surely the whole point is to get
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  rid of the anxiety and replace it with calm,
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  Now although that can temporarily work for many people it does come with a problem,
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  which is that when you turn away from the anxious state it doesn't actually
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  make the brain switch it off,
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  In fact for some of you it might intensify the anxious state as the brain concludes
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  that there must be a threat if you are turning away from it.
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  So it brings it back in force eventually Maybe a few moments later when you're
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  not looking Or maybe the day after tomorrow But it's much more likely to be
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  sooner when we try to fight the anxiety,
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  You might feel your heart racing and think I need to calm down,
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  And then you check whether you've calmed down And you haven't So you try harder,
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  You check again Still anxious And now you're anxious about the fact that you're still anxious,
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  The attempt to get rid of anxiety has become another problem and so the loop continues.
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  So today we're going to talk about three counterintuitive ways to reverse out of that trap.
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  Name it, notice it, float by it.
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  These three responses all work best in an aware mindful state.
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  If you aren't sure what I mean by that then please have a listen to one of my
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  other podcasts to carry that label.
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  Welcome back to Float I am Dr John Eaton and the first step is to name it.
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  Which may be the most significant Well this step goes all the way back to what
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  I have talked about in my other podcasts,
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  and in my book Float Based on the recognition that anxiety is a sign that your brain is misfiring,
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  turning our past the event into a malignant threat pressing the alarm button,
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  which in turn triggers your anxious thoughts and alarming feelings,
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  you didn't create the alarm and you don't have to react to it either you can
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  let the wave come and you can let it go you don't have to like it you don't have to approve of it,
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  you simply stop adding another layer of resistance to what is already going on,
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  And often when you stop feeding the loop something interesting happens.
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  The anxiety begins to loosen or even fade.
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  When or if it comes up you just observe it neutrally. And what helps you do
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  that? Give it a neutral name.
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  An accurate name for it would be the loop because that's just what's happening.
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  Your brain has stopped checking information and has gone into a prediction loop instead.
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  A prediction of disaster based on an over-sensitive alarm system.
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  Some of my clients prefer slang names like the jitters or the wobble,
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  or you could give it a technical name like the false alarm or the loop.
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  Giving a label like one of these undermines the alarming associations that often
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  come with a word like anxiety.
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  Because when we call it anxiety, or panic, or meltdown, we are stigmatizing
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  it and reacting to it as if there was something badly wrong with us, personally.
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  Whereas when we say to ourselves, the wobbles are here, we are ready to observe
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  impulsively what our brain minds are actually doing.
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  Which brings us to the second step in which we perform a kind of witnessing
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  grounded in awareness or mindfulness and we enter a space in which we are simply
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  watching and allowing what is going on,
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  rather like looking at an aquarium in the zoo with all those strange fish in
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  bright colours swimming about in a giant tank,
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  in the same way thoughts and feelings of various kinds and be seen to be floating
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  around inside awareness.
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  So we notice the thoughts, the prediction, the question and the worry that surfaced.
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  We notice any images that might be floating by.
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  We notice feelings and sensations as energy packets moving around the body.
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  Now you are no longer caught up or inside the experience previously labelled as anxiety.
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  Instead the experiences broke up into little pieces of thought or feelings sitting
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  in that space of consciousness and you can go deeper place your awareness on
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  one of those feelings in your body maybe,
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  something in there in your chest notice the space it occupies, its shape,
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  its size and its depth imagine that it has a color, a neutral one like blue
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  or green Notice also the energy inside the shape,
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  with the energy that surrounds it in awareness.
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  Just let it be whatever it wants to be, without struggle, without resistance.
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  Yet you might notice by now that something is shifting or even dissolving,
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  which brings me to the third thing, floating through.
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  So far we have resisted the urge to do anything. We let the anxious thoughts
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  come and go without getting caught up in them.
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  We let the sensations rise and fall without wishing they'd go away.
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  We forgot about working out why they're there at all.
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  We didn't get impatient or frustrated. We just let the experience unfold.
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  And when we stop continually interfering with it, the loop has a chance to loosen.
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  That's what we mean by floating, letting it come, letting it pass.
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  Near this end point, one or more things may have happened.
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  The experience continues to sit with you, or the experience changes in some
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  way, or the experience fades and dissolves.
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  Here you have a choice. You can continue to sit there Mindfully being aware
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  of whatever is there You can watch as whatever is here changes into something
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  else Or you can continue about your business,
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  In other words, you can float with it,
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  You can watch the experience float by Rather like a cloud breaking up in the
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  sky Or you can float towards something else What you might float towards depends
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  on what you were doing before Or if you're in bed,
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  you could get out and start the day with a rewarding activity.
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  If you're at work, you could work on something productive. That especially applies
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  if your anxious thoughts had anything to do with the job you were doing.
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  If you're out with people, you can engage in conversation that takes your mind in a fresh direction.
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  But whatever you choose to do, it won't be to escape from anything.
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  But there was never anything you needed to avoid.
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  What you are actually doing is staying in the present moment and fully engaging with what is on offer.
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  You can leave the brain at this point to draw its own conclusions because when
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  it notices that you aren't biting anymore it will think twice about baiting
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  the hook next time around,
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  and that's really the heart of float right there.