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Stress vs Anxiety: Why Stress Isn't What You Think · Float: The Anxiety Podcast with Dr John Eaton PhD

• 0:00
  Here's a cloud of one who I will call Helen. Helen has fourteen things to do
• 0:05
  on her list on Monday morning, and by half past nine she's been given three more.
• 0:12
  She runs operations for a firm of survivors, and she's good at it,
• 0:17
  which is how fourteen things to do became seventeen.
• 0:21
  By lunchtime she's finished the first five Her coffee has gone cold And she
• 0:26
  looks at the clock She thinks Half the day is gone and I still have twelve to do,
• 0:33
  That boat is followed by a few more I shouldn't be this far behind,
• 0:39
  I'll never get it done all the time This is terrible Then comes a set of unpleasant
• 0:45
  sensations Agitation An aching back Tight chest,
• 0:51
  eating the sandwich brings on nausea and by now her head is spinning with worries,
• 0:58
  If you were sitting next to her and asked her what was wrong she might say I'm stressed,
• 1:04
  This episode is about what we get so wrong about stress and why that answer
• 1:09
  which is the one most of us would give is only half right And why the truth
• 1:15
  is far more interesting as well as liberating.
• 1:29
  What stress really means in its basic physiological form stress is arousal,
• 1:37
  body and mind raising their capacity forever because something has come up that
• 1:42
  needs heightened vigilance and extra work,
• 1:45
  that could be a child who's fallen off her back a burst pipe or a flood of customer inquiries,
• 1:52
  In many ways it's unfortunate that we call it by that name because the words
• 1:58
  suggest that something has gone wrong when in fact nothing is dysfunctional,
• 2:03
  it's closer to an engine being revved up before going up the hill.
• 2:08
  The stress response has four stages, mobilize, act, resolve, and stand down.
• 2:14
  We mobilize for effort, we take decisive action, we resolve the difficulty, and stand down to rest.
• 2:22
  And the body supplies us with the energy we need to do all that.
• 2:26
  Sometimes the third stage isn't possible, the problem cannot be fixed today.
• 2:31
  In that case, we accept that it will not resolve for now, and we refocus our
• 2:36
  effort on whatever lies within reach.
• 2:39
  Rather like the kitchen of a busy restaurant on a Saturday night,
• 2:43
  orders arrive and the staff mobilize, quick hands and a volume of shouting that
• 2:47
  might be unacceptable in most offices, and they can sustain that for hours.
• 2:52
  But the orders all get filled, and at 11 the kitchen closes,
• 2:57
  The equipment is cleaned and the staff sit around with the drink before going home.
• 3:02
  Nobody in that kitchen would call the evening relaxer, but nobody would call
• 3:06
  it disorder either. The cycle has completed.
• 3:10
  Ellen's Monday has the same shape as the staffed. 17 items arrive and she mobilizes.
• 3:17
  She's quick, sharp and a little wired and she clears five items before lunch.
• 3:23
  That part of her moment is stress in the original sense, uncomfortable but useful.
• 3:30
  The rest of her day belongs to something else, anxiety.
• 3:34
  So how does that cycle get interrupted? Well, what happens if the anxious brain
• 3:39
  interrupts the cycle with anxious thoughts and feelings, worry,
• 3:43
  tension, nerves, rapid breathing, agitation, maybe even panic.
• 3:48
  Is this day the most of us mean when we say we are stressed?
• 3:53
  About what happened to Helen, one moment she's working through the cycle,
• 3:57
  and next her brain is producing a commentary on what's going on.
• 4:01
  She won't finish in time, and a disaster will follow.
• 4:05
  The brain may pick on anything it sees as a threat, trying running out,
• 4:09
  what other people might be thinking, what failure might mean.
• 4:13
  They may pick up on the rapid heartbeat that comes with extended arousal,
• 4:17
  and catastrophize about that.
• 4:19
  This is the hinge of the argument. The body does what bodies do when there is
• 4:24
  work to be done, and the threat detector reads the arousal as evidence of danger.
• 4:30
  Or the brain may start blaming other people for the problem which leads to frustration,
• 4:35
  which builds from there.
• 4:36
  And then we have two problems, anxiety and frustration, both of which get in
• 4:42
  the way of the second and third stages of the cycle, action and resolution.
• 4:47
  In reality, he interferes with the cycle at every stage, so let's look at those in turn.
• 4:53
  At the mobilized stage, the arousal
• 4:55
  is meant to be fuel, and the threat detector reads it as a warning.
• 4:59
  The tension is diverted away from the first arrow, which is the real-life problem,
• 5:04
  and towards the second arrow, which is to worry about the disasters ahead.
• 5:09
  The threat detector sounds the alarm, and the symptoms of anxiety follow.
• 5:14
  At the acting stage, the analyst, which does the problem solving,
• 5:18
  is diverted from the task and turns its attention to analyzing why the alarm has gone off.
• 5:24
  That produces a string of catastrophic judgments.
• 5:28
  By the resolution stage, the natural activity cycle is slowed to a halt and
• 5:33
  the storyteller steps in with the narrative.
• 5:36
  Everything is going wrong and the job is never going to get finished.
• 5:40
  All this means that the stand-down stage is never reached and the anxious brain will not switch off.
• 5:48
  Alan carried that anxiety through the evening and into the sleepless small hours,
• 5:53
  while the brain shows over everything it believes is going well.
• 5:56
  That is what I call in float, the book, the anxiety stress loop,
• 6:02
  anxiety creating a loop that will not close.
• 6:05
  The situation did not create that Luke, the brain's unhelpful prediction made
• 6:10
  that happen, so to complete the cycle.
• 6:16
  The interference from anxieties noticed and left alone we are in a better position
• 6:20
  to deal with the obstacles that have come up In Helen's case the obstacle is
• 6:25
  that time is running out for the full completion of those seventeen items,
• 6:30
  If you have listened to some of my other podcasts you may recall that acceptance is important here,
• 6:35
  Acceptance doesn't mean liking what happens it means accepting the fact that
• 6:39
  it is happening At that point Helen
• 6:42
  will notice that the cycle cannot be completed in the time available.
• 6:46
  Depending on how the organization is set up, free options may be open to her.
• 6:53
  She might prioritize the activities so that the more urgent items get completed,
• 6:59
  and the rest wait for the next day.
• 7:01
  Or she might call in another member of her team and delegate.
• 7:06
  Or she might have a fine conversation with her director and alert her to the difficulty.
• 7:12
  Any of those moves keeps mobilization, action and a different kind of resolution going.
• 7:18
  It gives the anxious response less to work with and so less chance of developing into a loop.
• 7:25
  The first arrow is dealt with, the second has less to feed on.
• 7:30
  So here's what you can do. First you can name the arrow.
• 7:34
  When the bad stress arrived, asked, is this the workload or is this the anxious
• 7:40
  commentary on the workload?
• 7:42
  Well, she may not have a tidy answer, but asking it separates the two enough
• 7:47
  to be met on its own terms.
• 7:49
  Second, you can let the good stress be there. There is no need to dampen the arousal.
• 7:55
  It can carry you through to whatever revised completion is most workable.
• 8:00
  Third, and here is the witnessing angle, you can train your awareness on the
• 8:04
  passing thoughts, anxious sensations and reactions that your brain supplies,
• 8:10
  without identifying with any of them, and in fact floating on by them.
• 8:15
  Fourth, you can keep your effort on the task. If the threat detector says the
• 8:20
  alarming sensation, you note it and continue.
• 8:25
  The analyst sends another worry to look at, you note that and continue.
• 8:30
  If the storyteller sends over another hopeless prediction, you note that and returns the cycle.
• 8:36
  You may have to return more than once and that's absolutely fine.
• 8:40
  And fifth, you can mark the stand down. Choose an hour with the day's work will
• 8:47
  end and give that a physical sign.
• 8:50
  Closing the laptop, writing tomorrow's first task on a slip of paper,
• 8:55
  Putting the phone in another room The point here is to give the day cycle a visible end,
• 9:01
  Let's return for a moment to Helen on Monday at lunchtime With twelve items left and a cold coffee,
• 9:08
  She notices the tightness in her chest and asks the question workload or commentary,
• 9:14
  It is commentary for the larger part She lets the heart run fast and writes
• 9:18
  the next paragraph of the survey report,
• 9:21
  When the storyteller starts up on what could happen tomorrow,
• 9:25
  she notices that, returns the paragraph and repeats the process some few minutes later.
• 9:31
  At five, she tells the director that some items will slip to next week.
• 9:35
  At six, she closes the laptop, arrives Tuesday's first task on a yellow note.
• 9:41
  Her chest is tight at nine that evening, and she recognizes that as coming from
• 9:45
  the second hour and lets it be whatever it needs to be.
• 9:49
  The list is still longer than the day wanted and her Monday has become a long
• 9:54
  day with a lot in it, but she got through it and completed quite a few cycles.
• 10:00
  That's the argument in brief, stress is the body getting ready to work and it
• 10:05
  ends when the work does, anxiety is the alarm about what might happen and it
• 10:10
  can carry on after the work is finished.
• 10:14
  All we have to do is learn to tell them apart And let the first do its job While
• 10:19
  the second goes unfair I'm Dr. John Eaton Thank you for listening.