Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, or welcome back to the show, or welcome
Speaker 2: back to the podcast new listeners, old listeners, wherever you
Speaker 2: are in the world, it is so great to have
Speaker 2: you a year back for another episode as we, of
Speaker 2: course break down the Psychology of your twenties. Anxiety feels
Speaker 2: like such a curse. I'm just going to come out
Speaker 2: and say it. I think a lot of us have
Speaker 2: probably wished for a day where we weren't anxious, just
Speaker 2: one day. What might that be like? Or we've considered,
Speaker 2: you know, what our lives would look like if we
Speaker 2: weren't held back by these hypothetical fears about what may
Speaker 2: or may not happen, what others might think, what disasters await,
Speaker 2: what terrible things could go wrong in our future. It
Speaker 2: is a huge burden at times, even if it comes
Speaker 2: and goes in waves. Me and my anxiety, my power,
Speaker 2: we go way back. I remember distinctly, so clearly, having
Speaker 2: my first effic panic attack about the movie The Never
Speaker 2: Ending Story when I was eight years old at like
Speaker 2: a school movie night, and since then, I've always had
Speaker 2: these moments of just extreme panic and anxiety that can
Speaker 2: go on for months or or just be this baseline
Speaker 2: of just nervousness for kind of as long as I
Speaker 2: can remember. I think I said in a recent episode
Speaker 2: that there have even been times in my life when
Speaker 2: I've worried about the fact that I'm not anxious about anything,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely bizarre. I really begun to, you know,
Speaker 2: realize that my anxiety was almost comforting in a strange way.
Speaker 2: It provided me with an illusion of security that felt
Speaker 2: quite nice, when actually, although it was making me feel nice,
Speaker 2: was making me feel like I could anticipate every single
Speaker 2: problem that would happen in my life. A that wasn't
Speaker 2: the case. Things happened that I never could have thought of,
Speaker 2: and B it was actually taking away from a lot
Speaker 2: of my experiences and a lot of the joyful experiences
Speaker 2: that made up for the anxious ones. You know, I
Speaker 2: would just sit with my anxious thoughts and try and
Speaker 2: problem solve them, which I think is something that we've
Speaker 2: all done. I would try and think my way through
Speaker 2: a scenario that in you know, is completely irrational, and
Speaker 2: that is just never going to work, because even when,
Speaker 2: on the rare occasion I would get through it, my
Speaker 2: brain would just present me with a bigger and even
Speaker 2: trickier hypothetical. So it felt quite never ending. And then
Speaker 2: a few years back, I started doing things differently. I
Speaker 2: stopped letting my anxiety kind of be the loudest voice
Speaker 2: in the room. I stopped letting it, you know, always
Speaker 2: be in control. And I kind of started finding ways
Speaker 2: to almost play with my anxious thoughts, to like beat
Speaker 2: them at their own game, combining what I knew scientifically
Speaker 2: and psychologically about anxiety and how it operates, but also
Speaker 2: by kind of playing these mind games, these mind tricks
Speaker 2: and establishing like some pretty really really useful tricks and
Speaker 2: tips and strategies through trial and error, and what actually
Speaker 2: made me feel better. Did require a little bit of work,
Speaker 2: but it really helped me change my thinking from anxiety
Speaker 2: as a burden to anxiety is something that is a
Speaker 2: part of me that I can make work for me,
Speaker 2: that I can leverage in some small way. And that's
Speaker 2: exactly what I want to talk about today. Four of
Speaker 2: them there ways that I've really been able to make
Speaker 2: anxiety work for me even in really really tough times,
Speaker 2: terrible times, really panicky, anxious times. These strategies have been
Speaker 2: like my greatest tools, and recently I've really had to
Speaker 2: put them to the test again and slowly but surely
Speaker 2: they have helped me out of a tough situation. So
Speaker 2: I wanted to share it with you. I hope that
Speaker 2: you can learn something. All of these tips are really
Speaker 2: practical and accessible. You could literally try them all today
Speaker 2: if you wanted, so I really hope it at least
Speaker 2: changes how you think about your anxious thoughts, even if
Speaker 2: it doesn't change your life. Without further ado, let's get
Speaker 2: into the four ways that we can make anxiety work
Speaker 2: for us. Having a refresher on what anxiety actually is
Speaker 2: might sound really simple to begin with, but sometimes when
Speaker 2: we're really wrapped up in our feet and our panic
Speaker 2: and our worry, we think that our anxiety means more
Speaker 2: than it does, and we really need to be firstly
Speaker 2: grounded in the fact, grounded in the facts of what
Speaker 2: we're going through. You may think you know all the
Speaker 2: information about anxiety. There is a lot to know, and
Speaker 2: you probably do know quite a bit, But when you're
Speaker 2: operating from a place of survival and pure fear. Your
Speaker 2: ability to actually remember this valuable information becomes quite clouded.
Speaker 2: You know, you're just not thinking straight. And we think
Speaker 2: in those moments that our anxiety is much more valid
Speaker 2: than it is, that we should believe every single thought
Speaker 2: that passes through our brains, that every opinion made up
Speaker 2: situation could be true, because we've been hardwired to prioritize
Speaker 2: thoughts that relate to our survival, that relate to fear,
Speaker 2: that have an emotional tone to them, even if they're
Speaker 2: actually not that useful. I think, essentially trust that our
Speaker 2: mind and our body and a certain extent must be
Speaker 2: doing what it thinks is best. It must know what's best.
Speaker 2: It must be making us pay attention to these hypotheticals
Speaker 2: because we are in real danger. But what we need
Speaker 2: to realize is that our trust is misplaced. Because anxiety's job,
Speaker 2: and this might shock you, maybe it won't, but an
Speaker 2: anxiety's job is to be irrational. That is literally its job.
Speaker 2: It is to present us with the worst case scenarios,
Speaker 2: to catastrophize, to stress, to project, not to be truthful.
Speaker 2: That is not part of its job description. It's not
Speaker 2: to see a situation realistically. And why exactly is that
Speaker 2: the case. Well, because anxiety is your body and your
Speaker 2: brain trying to protect you against a perceived threat or
Speaker 2: a stressful situation, often by exaggerating an outcome or exaggerating
Speaker 2: the reality of the situation to you know, either a
Speaker 2: help motivate you or be try and get you to
Speaker 2: problem solve before the situation occurs. You know, I often
Speaker 2: think about anxiety like your mind trying to give you
Speaker 2: a practice exam. But all the questions and scenarios are
Speaker 2: questions and scenarios that you'd never actually encounter in the
Speaker 2: real world or in the real exam, and they're often
Speaker 2: impossible to answer. They'll never show up in real life.
Speaker 2: And all the while you're convincing yourself or your anxiety
Speaker 2: is convincing you you know, this isn't a practice exam.
Speaker 2: This is the real deal. You have to take this seriously.
Speaker 2: This could actually be happening right now, you know. Take
Speaker 2: feeling anxious about the future. What you're really experiencing is
Speaker 2: a fear of uncertainty because there is a lot you
Speaker 2: don't know. You might not know how your career is
Speaker 2: going to turn out. You might not know whether that
Speaker 2: big risk will pay off, whether you're going to meet
Speaker 2: your people, whether you're going to find love. So there
Speaker 2: is a lot of empty space, There are a lot
Speaker 2: of unknowns. Our anxiety likes to feel that space with
Speaker 2: the worst case scenario to basically say, okay, well, if
Speaker 2: you can handle this, if you have a plan, then
Speaker 2: we'll be fine if it comes true. Here's the thing, though,
Speaker 2: those scenarios rarely, if not ever, come true. The scenario
Speaker 2: in which you lose everything in a fire and you
Speaker 2: make a huge mistake at work and you never get
Speaker 2: a job again and all your loved ones die, that
Speaker 2: isn't going to come true. The fear of you know,
Speaker 2: suddenly being diagnosed with a rare disease when you are
Speaker 2: otherwise healthy, that isn't going to come true. Or you know,
Speaker 2: your thought that everyone secretly dislikes you, you've somehow said
Speaker 2: something to upset all your close friends without anyone mentioning it.
Speaker 2: That is false. It's not going to come true. It
Speaker 2: is your brain serving you up scenarios to give you
Speaker 2: a really vigorous mental and physical workout, so if they
Speaker 2: were to happen, you would be okay because you've already
Speaker 2: experienced the anxiety towards this situation beforehand. Hopefully that makes
Speaker 2: a lot of sense to you. I think when we
Speaker 2: begin to acknowledge that this is our brain trying to
Speaker 2: protect us but just not doing a very great job
Speaker 2: or being very helpful at all, we see our situation
Speaker 2: a bit more clearly. And it has always always helped
Speaker 2: me to remind myself that my opinion about a situation
Speaker 2: is just an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. There's often
Speaker 2: very little evidence for what I'm thinking, and as much
Speaker 2: as I try, you know, I can't tell the future.
Speaker 2: I'm not I don't have that rare magical ability. I
Speaker 2: cannot anticipate how this will work out, So I just
Speaker 2: have to be accepting of what comes. Of course, you
Speaker 2: know that's very easy to think. But when your anxiety
Speaker 2: is accompanied by a number of physical symptoms like shaking,
Speaker 2: like a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, nausea, sweating,
Speaker 2: or that feeling of disassociation or being unreal, it can
Speaker 2: become even more unpleasant. And I will say it makes
Speaker 2: it feel a lot more immediate. As much as those
Speaker 2: thoughts may not be true, what you're going through certainly
Speaker 2: is the physical feeling you're going through is very real.
Speaker 2: Whether that is displayed through panic attacks, through like consistent
Speaker 2: underlying anxiety, or just intrusive, repetitive thoughts, it is definitely
Speaker 2: not a comfortable experience. I don't think anyone is like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I love feeling anxious. That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to be like some guru who's
Speaker 2: going to sell you snake oil and say that I
Speaker 2: can make that go away immediately or that I can
Speaker 2: cure you. But what I do want to talk about
Speaker 2: is four ways that we can take that feeling and
Speaker 2: not just completely eliminate it, but make it work for us,
Speaker 2: and make do leverage the anxious hand, the anxious mind
Speaker 2: that you've been dealt. You know, like I said before,
Speaker 2: it's been at least sixteen years that I've kind of
Speaker 2: been in the business of anxiety, but only in the
Speaker 2: last like two to three that I've really started approaching
Speaker 2: this tension, these feelings, these thoughts in a way that
Speaker 2: initially felt so counterintuitive but actually which really really worked.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing that I've learnt with anxiety that
Speaker 2: I've found you kind of have to beat it at
Speaker 2: its own game. And just be as irrational and delusional
Speaker 2: in your belief that you'll be fine as your anxiety
Speaker 2: is irrational and delusional in its belief that the world
Speaker 2: is falling apart. You need to be just as persistent
Speaker 2: as your anxiety is and just as imaginative. But the
Speaker 2: thing is is that you already know that you can
Speaker 2: be all those things, because your anxiety is displaying that
Speaker 2: you have that capability. So you can use the methods
Speaker 2: that your anxiety is using to scare you to kind
Speaker 2: of scare it back. This really brings me to the
Speaker 2: first way that I've stopped fighting my anxiety and really
Speaker 2: made it work for me, And that is really tricking
Speaker 2: myself into believing that anytime I feel anxiety, it's actually
Speaker 2: just excitement, and choosing to label the sensations differently to
Speaker 2: how my mind wants to label them. If my anxious
Speaker 2: mind wants to make things up, wants to label things
Speaker 2: differently as a threat when they're not. If my anxious
Speaker 2: mind wants to lie to me, well I can lie
Speaker 2: right back. You know, it sounds like I'm fighting this
Speaker 2: mortal enemy. But here's the thing. Right Like, there's a perk,
Speaker 2: not so much a perk, but something unusual about feeling
Speaker 2: anxious that works in our favor. Anxiety and excitement are
Speaker 2: actually incredibly similar on so many dimensions, and they tend
Speaker 2: to actually activate the same kind of arousal pathways in
Speaker 2: our body. There's a really amazing article from the Harvard
Speaker 2: Business School titled Get Excited, Reappraising anxiety as excitement, and
Speaker 2: it talks about how both anxiety and excitement are or
Speaker 2: not knowing what to expect. They're based on high levels
Speaker 2: of arousal, so basically meaning a similar level of bodily
Speaker 2: response to a stimulus, and they're based on a sense
Speaker 2: or a loss of control. When you're excited, you're going
Speaker 2: to feel perhaps equally jittery, kind of nervous. You're going
Speaker 2: to feel your heart rate go up. Maybe all these
Speaker 2: thoughts start swirling around about what is possible. That's very
Speaker 2: similar to an anxious state. The only difference is what
Speaker 2: we would call positive or negative valence. So valence or
Speaker 2: valency is this idea in psychology that describes how different
Speaker 2: emotions have a different emotional effect even if they feel
Speaker 2: the same on a physical level. So anxiety and excitement
Speaker 2: they feel the same on a physical level. But as
Speaker 2: anxiety has a negative valance, whereas excitement has a positive valance,
Speaker 2: meaning that the emotional effect of excitement is appealing, it's desirable,
Speaker 2: it makes us more attracted to a situation, whereas anxiety
Speaker 2: has that negative valance, it makes us scared, fearful, uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: So I want you to tap into that positive emotional valency.
Speaker 2: If the only thing that is different is how we
Speaker 2: interpret a feeling, then tell yourself, actually, I'm excited by
Speaker 2: this feeling. This is an anxiety. This is excitement about
Speaker 2: how this is going to turn out. I'm excited to
Speaker 2: see how I manage this. I'm excited to be able
Speaker 2: to have this human experience. And you know, I used
Speaker 2: this technique a lot when I was getting over my
Speaker 2: fear of flying. I would get incredibly panicked, especially during takeoff,
Speaker 2: and so I would just keep repeating that, you know,
Speaker 2: this is actually an excited feeling. I'm excited by this feeling.
Speaker 2: This is not anxiety. These are butterflies. This is not adrenaline,
Speaker 2: its enthusiasm. And that same research paper from Harvard that
Speaker 2: I referenced before actually concluded that using this technique can
Speaker 2: improve our performance like a lot in certain situations, especially
Speaker 2: when it comes to things to do with social anxiety,
Speaker 2: public speaking, specific phobia situations. And it's a much better
Speaker 2: strategy if you then trying to just completely shut down
Speaker 2: our anxiety completely, because going from anxious to calm is
Speaker 2: a lot harder. There are a lot more nuances and
Speaker 2: differences compared from compared to going from anxious to excited
Speaker 2: because they are on the same kind of end of
Speaker 2: the spectrum. That is Tip number one. But we're going
Speaker 2: to take a short break. I hope that you stay
Speaker 2: with us, and I hope that you are excited for
Speaker 2: the next three strategies I have for you when we're back.
Speaker 2: The easiest way to tell if something is an anxious
Speaker 2: thought is when it starts with what if? What if
Speaker 2: the world collapses? What if my worst fear comes true?
Speaker 2: What if I never achieve what I want? What if
Speaker 2: I lose it all? A true fear something that is
Speaker 2: actually dangerous in the moment wouldn't require that what if
Speaker 2: prefix because you would know what was happening. It would
Speaker 2: be happening right now in the moment. And this is
Speaker 2: really valuable to pay attention to because the moment you
Speaker 2: find yourself spiraling overthinking, getting repetitive with your thoughts, and
Speaker 2: they all start with what if that is anxiety? That
Speaker 2: is not reality, It's a thought, not a fact. Here's
Speaker 2: how you can make this work for you Again, what
Speaker 2: you're really fearing here is the unknown. And it's not
Speaker 2: uncommon for us to have, you know, five six seven
Speaker 2: different hypotheticals about what could happen, or going at once
Speaker 2: or swirling around or feeling equally scared and unlikely. What
Speaker 2: we forget to realize is that they can't all possibly
Speaker 2: come true. But yet we feel bombarded with an almost
Speaker 2: cumulative worry right that each of these hypotheticals could be
Speaker 2: a possibility. And that's one of the first ways that
Speaker 2: we see that anxiety is a really, really irrational because
Speaker 2: that's not possible. And I want you to fight these
Speaker 2: unknowns with nones. Yes, you don't know how the future
Speaker 2: will pan out or what will happen in this situation,
Speaker 2: but you do know a lot of things, and you
Speaker 2: are certain of a lot of things. You know that
Speaker 2: you are capable, you know that you've survived every situation
Speaker 2: you've been in before. You know that this is just anxiety.
Speaker 2: What else do you know? You do know that your
Speaker 2: fears rarely ever come true. You do know that you
Speaker 2: are not alone. You do know that you you know
Speaker 2: many others have been through this and come out the
Speaker 2: other side. There is one uncertainty. The uncertainty is what's
Speaker 2: going to happen in this situation, What's going to happen now?
Speaker 2: But there are many, many certainties, and that is what
Speaker 2: I want you to focus on. What you do know,
Speaker 2: what you are certain of, compared to what you are
Speaker 2: uncertain of, and see how like the certainties end up
Speaker 2: stacking up in your favor. Here's a really great visualization
Speaker 2: exercise that I use with this as well, is I
Speaker 2: like pretend that I am holding these certainties in my hand,
Speaker 2: and they are these big golden orbs, these big, like
Speaker 2: weird golden balls, and I like mentally throw them at
Speaker 2: my fears, at my anxious thoughts. And I think about
Speaker 2: the fears as like this big shadowy, you know, shadowy figure,
Speaker 2: and I'm throwing these big certainty golden orbs at them,
Speaker 2: and they're just crashing through this shadow, making it smaller
Speaker 2: and smaller and smaller, making it fall apart until it's gone.
Speaker 2: And these certainties really pierce through that uncertainty, both in
Speaker 2: like the visualization, but also in your life, like you
Speaker 2: really start to believe that, yes, you do know that
Speaker 2: this is going to pass. You do know that there
Speaker 2: are all these factual things that you can rely on.
Speaker 2: You do know at the very least, that you trust
Speaker 2: yourself to get through this. That is something that you
Speaker 2: are absolutely sure of. The reason that I find this
Speaker 2: so effective is because it gives me the opportunity to
Speaker 2: remember that I am capable no matter what situation I encounter. Again,
Speaker 2: anxiety's job is to be irrational, but so often afterwards
Speaker 2: we never get the opportunity to remember what it was
Speaker 2: we were fearing because it doesn't come true. So anxiety's
Speaker 2: job is really to torment us, not to give us
Speaker 2: factual scenarios that we actually are going to encounter. You
Speaker 2: can instead use this situation to learn about yourself, to
Speaker 2: reinforce that you are confident that you trust yourself, rather
Speaker 2: than trusting your anxiety. And you've got to remember a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't get tested this way. A lot
Speaker 2: of people go through life just assuming things. And you're
Speaker 2: someone who is going to instead take that discomfort, take
Speaker 2: all those situations in which you felt fear and really
Speaker 2: pay attention to the fact that you got through it,
Speaker 2: and really remember that for the future, that you are
Speaker 2: an incredibly strong person to be facing a battle that
Speaker 2: is originating from you, that is originating from the deepest
Speaker 2: fears that you could possibly encounter. Being made to feel real.
Speaker 2: I just think you will experience true pride and joy
Speaker 2: that you persevere, and I want you to have that experience.
Speaker 2: I want you to make that happen for yourself. Now.
Speaker 2: The third way that I make anxiety work for me
Speaker 2: rather than against me is by personifying my anxiety as
Speaker 2: something that isn't threatening. So my mum was actually the
Speaker 2: one who really inspired me to kind of start thinking
Speaker 2: about my anxiety this way because of something that she
Speaker 2: said to me once when I was really really stuck.
Speaker 2: You know, she's seen me kind of battle with some
Speaker 2: pretty existential fears for a long time, and one day
Speaker 2: she was like, the fears you have now are no
Speaker 2: different to when you were a kid and you were
Speaker 2: scared of the boogeyman or you were scared of the
Speaker 2: monster in your closet. You know, it's just all smoke, right,
Speaker 2: And thinking about my anxiety is this tangible thing that
Speaker 2: wasn't scary, except for in my imagination turned a lot
Speaker 2: of it around for me. So now I try to
Speaker 2: personify my anxiety as this is so strange, but as
Speaker 2: Boo from Monsters Inc. Now, if you've ever seen that movie,
Speaker 2: it's a classic. I'm assuming that you have. But you know,
Speaker 2: Boo is the little girl and when she's she's like
Speaker 2: wearing this little monster costume and she jumps out and
Speaker 2: she goes like Boo and obviously, like Sully and Mike
Speaker 2: Wazowski like get really really scared, But it's like it's
Speaker 2: just a little kid, right, And that's how I like
Speaker 2: to imagine my anxiety trying to scare me, like a
Speaker 2: little kid that's like playing and I'm like playing along
Speaker 2: with them, and they're like Boo, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm so terrified. How scary. But really I can see
Speaker 2: that it's just this little harmless being, this little thing
Speaker 2: that is, you know, not actually going to hurt me,
Speaker 2: because you know, really your anxiety is just like a
Speaker 2: little kid playing make believe. It can't jump out and
Speaker 2: rip off your limbs, it can't pull your hair, it
Speaker 2: can't do anything to you externally. It is a feeling
Speaker 2: and one that has originated from you, so it will
Speaker 2: not harm you as uncomfortable as it feels. Giving it
Speaker 2: a name, giving it a little costume, giving it an identity,
Speaker 2: maybe it lets us remember what we're really dealing with.
Speaker 2: Here is a boogeyman, or in my case, you know,
Speaker 2: a little kid playing dress up who's trying to scare you.
Speaker 2: This has the additional benefit of meaning that you can
Speaker 2: kind of almost speak to your anxiety like it's a person,
Speaker 2: Like it's you know, an annoying visitor in your house
Speaker 2: or a little kid. You're asking it to leave. You're
Speaker 2: in control, and you can kind of also tease it
Speaker 2: and joke around with it and tell it to chill out.
Speaker 2: One of my friends calls her anxiety Brian like brain,
Speaker 2: but with the eye and the a swap to get
Speaker 2: the picture. And she's so cute because she'll be like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, Brian is just holding us up today, so
Speaker 2: I'm running a little bit late, or you know, Brian
Speaker 2: is really overthinking this. Can you tell them to chill out?
Speaker 2: Can you reassure me? Now? You know it's like if
Speaker 2: she needs to cancel plans, she needs more information, she
Speaker 2: needs reassurance. It's not her asking for it, it's Brian.
Speaker 2: Maybe in a way that kind of reduces some of
Speaker 2: the stigma or the sense that you're demanding or that
Speaker 2: you're the problem, because this separation of you and your
Speaker 2: anxiety into a character makes you realize that you are,
Speaker 2: in fact, not your anxiety. You are just a person
Speaker 2: doing the best they can with what they have and
Speaker 2: the hand that they've been dealt, even if that hand
Speaker 2: involves a little friend who likes to jump out and
Speaker 2: scare you. My final tip today for making your anxiety
Speaker 2: work for you rather than against you, for reprogramming our
Speaker 2: relationship with this state, is to take the tension, take
Speaker 2: the hopelessness, take the nervousness, and channel it into something creative.
Speaker 2: That energy you have has to go somewhere, and yes,
Speaker 2: it can definitely be expressed through tears or panic or
Speaker 2: muscle tension or trembling, but it can also be expressed
Speaker 2: emotionally through creation. Now I'm not saying production. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying to take all that nervous energy and that false
Speaker 2: alarm focus and be productive and work on your school
Speaker 2: project or whatever it is, or work on your assignment
Speaker 2: or doing something that's necessarily helpful. I'm saying be creative
Speaker 2: for a reason because what I think really helps us
Speaker 2: process and anxiety is building something, molding something for the
Speaker 2: sake of just making something beautiful. Anxiety puts us in
Speaker 2: the state of helplessness, scarcity, starkness, deficit. We feel like
Speaker 2: life is kind of meaningless at times, or like everything
Speaker 2: could be taken away from us. Our safety, our lives
Speaker 2: are at risk. Creativity is the exact opposite painting, buying
Speaker 2: four dollar clay from your craft store, knitting, building legos, scrapbooking,
Speaker 2: diary entries, writing, poetry, whatever it is that shows abundance,
Speaker 2: that shows healing, that shows that you can be in control.
Speaker 2: You can put beautiful things back into the world and
Speaker 2: channel again, yes, that anxiety, channel it into something meaningful
Speaker 2: rather than something meaningless. I cite this paper all the time,
Speaker 2: so for my regular listeners, I am going to sound
Speaker 2: like a broken record. But a twenty twenty one paper
Speaker 2: on the positive effects of creativity looked at over five
Speaker 2: hundred adults who were asked to just engage in a
Speaker 2: small creative task each day for less than ten minutes,
Speaker 2: and after two weeks, their subjective wellbeing was measured and
Speaker 2: What they found was that for those who were given
Speaker 2: the direction to be creative, they were so much happier,
Speaker 2: and the biggest area where the researchers saw a shift
Speaker 2: was reduced anxiety. In my mind, anxiety is just energy,
Speaker 2: and energy doesn't disappear. It needs a place to go,
Speaker 2: it needs direction. When you begin to master your anxiety more,
Speaker 2: you can kind of channel it in the ways that
Speaker 2: you want, and creative expression is one of the easiest
Speaker 2: ways to do that. Initially, you take that energy that
Speaker 2: is all yours, It is yours to use, and you
Speaker 2: use it to create, to expand, to build, rather than
Speaker 2: to let your anxiety convince you that nothing changes or
Speaker 2: your fears come true. They won't, I promise. This is
Speaker 2: just a survival instinct. This is just a stress response.
Speaker 2: Your brain is doing its best to prepare you. But
Speaker 2: it's best. It's also very imaginative and out there. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got a really creative mind, That's what you know.
Speaker 2: I've had a friend say to me once. She was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're just very creative, and so take that creativity. You
Speaker 2: can either use it to make up cook up like
Speaker 2: the most crazy hypotheticals, or you can use it to
Speaker 2: create something beautiful that's going to add to your life.
Speaker 2: So as a refresh before we wrap up, here are
Speaker 2: the four ways that you're going to try. Maybe you
Speaker 2: can try one. You can try to You're going to
Speaker 2: uses to make your anxiety work for you. Hopefully you
Speaker 2: will go away and when you feel panic, worry, stress,
Speaker 2: you will tell yourself that it's excitement. You will have
Speaker 2: an ongoing list of the things that you do know
Speaker 2: to engulf the things that you don't know. You will
Speaker 2: put a name to your anxiety. You'll visualize your worries,
Speaker 2: you'll make a character out of it. And finally, when
Speaker 2: your anxiety tells you to be small, tells you to
Speaker 2: deconstruct your life instead, be creative, build something, make something,
Speaker 2: even if it's like terrible, even if it's shit, even
Speaker 2: if you don't think it's particularly pretty. You'll enjoy the
Speaker 2: process and it will give the energy again somewhere to
Speaker 2: go when you turn that creative energy that you have
Speaker 2: away from the scary hypotheticals and into something beautiful and magnificent.
Speaker 2: So I really do hope that if you're going through
Speaker 2: an anxious period, I think that the biggest comfort for
Speaker 2: me has been knowing that I am not alone and
Speaker 2: you're definitely not alone either, because I can say, hand
Speaker 2: on my chest that I am feeling it pretty intensely
Speaker 2: at the moment. So we're in the same boat, I
Speaker 2: promise you, and we'll get through it. We definitely will
Speaker 2: get through it, because your body cannot be in this
Speaker 2: state forever. It just can't. We know that biologically, we
Speaker 2: know that just when we learn about the stress response,
Speaker 2: then it's not possible. So please hold on, try some
Speaker 2: of these tips. I promise it gets better. I promise
Speaker 2: this is just your imagination working over time, which is
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing sometimes but sometimes less than helpful. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I hope that you find some peace in your day today.
Speaker 2: I hope that this episode has brought you some peace.
Speaker 2: If you did enjoy it, please make sure that you
Speaker 2: are following along on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Leave a
Speaker 2: five star review, especially if you're listening on Apple actually,
Speaker 2: because we actually don't have many listeners over there, so
Speaker 2: any reviews really do help. And of course I read
Speaker 2: every single one of them so they don't go unnoticed.
Speaker 2: And if you have an episode suggestion, if you have
Speaker 2: a follow up to this episode, a question a query.
Speaker 2: An additional tip that you think people might also benefit from,
Speaker 2: please share it with me at that psychology podcast. Until
Speaker 2: next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself,
Speaker 2: and we will talk soon.
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