[Music] hello my name is Tim box and I feel anxious I feel anxious about whether or not I'm gonna remember what I came here to say I feel anxious about whether or not you guys are going to agree with what I came here to say and if I'm completely honest up until about 30 seconds ago I felt a little bit anxious about the possibility of tripping up this rug on the way out but I think feeling anxious about these things while seemingly unhelpful is perhaps understandable after all it's important to me that I say exactly
what I came here to say that my message gets heard and I achieved this without falling flat on my face yeah right now anxiety makes sense but there was a time in my life when I anxiety really didn't make sense I used to feel the kind of anxiety that meant I would struggle to even walk into a room with this many people in it let alone stand at the front and give a talk now obviously something has changed since then otherwise I wouldn't be standing here now and I think the main thing that's changed is
that whilst I still experience anxiety I no longer suffer with it but I didn't achieve this shift by trying to get rid of it now don't get me wrong back in the day that's exactly what I was trying to do I would do all I could to avoid any anxiety inducing situation I would arrange my daily movements specifically avoiding social situations if I felt anxiety starting to flare up I'd run away I do all I could to retreat to safety and then employ various distraction techniques to take my mind away from the horribly uncomfortable feeling
that something bad was about to happen it turns out that was my big mistake you see you don't get rid of anxiety by trying to get rid of it truth is you don't get rid of anxiety at all now by some twist of fate or perhaps as a direct result of what I went through back then I now work with anxiety sufferers to help them understand and ultimately overcome those feelings I spent a large part of the last ten years talking to anxiety sufferers about their anxiety and whilst all those I spoke to had their
own individual story their own personal journey with anxiety every single one of them at some point expressed exactly the same desire that I used to have the desire to get rid of anxiety completely can you imagine if we all achieved that a world without anxiety what would they even look like well for example this room would probably look empty anxiety is the feeling that tells us when something is worth demanding our attention so in some small way it was anxiety that reminded you you had somewhere to be today without it none of us would have
turned up and those that accidentally did will be watching an empty stage none of us would have businesses careers because we wouldn't have regarded studying gaining qualifications as worth bothering with and none of us would have boyfriends girlfriends husbands or wives either here or at home because we just wouldn't have seen the value of washing and dressing up to make a good impression on that all-important first date that we probably forgot to turn up to so it seems anxiety is important but of course there are those that don't feel anxiety there are two very distinct
groups the first group dead people dead people don't feel anxious you know and I think that's okay they're dead they've got enough to not worry about the second group would be those we might refer to as Psychopaths those people that for whatever reason lack the ability to have any concern for the consequences of theirs or anyone else's actions now I don't know how you were brought up but when I was a kid I was given the distinct impression that being part of either of these two groups would be undesirable so if being free of anxiety
would be such a bad idea why do we regard feeling anxious so negatively now I think the very obvious answer that question is that it feels horrible when we suffer high levels of anxiety over a long period of time it can very quickly start to dominate our life even go on to define our existence of course we're gonna try and get rid of it but what if we can't what if all of our attempts to control our anxiety response ultimately fail and where do we go I think most people go along to their local doctor
and I should say at this point I'm a big fan of doctors they've saved my life on more than one occasion and I feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for them when it comes to treating anxiety issues because it's really not what they signed up for and it's certainly not what they're trained for when it comes to anxiety doctors are restricted in three important ways firstly time you get somewhere between 8 and 11 minutes for an appointment with your local GP which is nowhere near enough time to effectively diagnose and treat an anxiety issue secondly
knowledge doctors are taught that anxiety is a mental health condition and yet they're not mental health specialists if a doctor wishes to become one of those they have to train for a further five or six more years to become a psychiatrist and thirdly resources doctors are given precious little support when it comes to actually treating anxiety I can put you on a 12 to 16 week waiting list for some form of counselling but by the time we got to the doctor we're probably in such desperate need of assistance that being told we now have to
wait three or four months to talk to some is not helpful that leaves the only other option medication I'm not a fan of medicating anxiety now whilst I'm well aware that taking drugs can change the way we feel back in the 90s I witnessed many of my friends on a Saturday night discovering that very simple truth but with medication comes all sorts of unpredictable and unpleasant side-effects and in the unlikely event we do find the drug that agrees with you that calms your anxiety response without any side effects then of course it's all too easy
to now regard ourselves as dependent on that drug and then the possibility of developing a dependency on our anti-anxiety medication just becomes something else to feel anxious about the truth is a medical solution to a non-medical problem will not solve that problem it will at best just patch over it for a short while now the irony here is that most of the people I've spoken to they already know all of this they know the doctor is not a great option for our anxiety which then begs the very obvious question so why do we go there
I believe we go there because these days we are told anxiety is an illness and this is perhaps the one certain result of going to the doctor for your anxiety you will come away from there labelled with an anxiety issue maybe even diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and now you have a brand new thing to feel anxious about during the thousands of conversations I've had with anxiety sufferers there was a common thread when asked what they felt most anxious about the answer was generally how anxious they felt and if it would ever stop this concern
is almost entirely created and fueled by the idea that anxiety is an illness anxiety is not an illness anxiety is an emotion every emotion is important every emotion has a purpose every emotion is a natural and vital part of our human experience in that respect anxiety is no more sinister than any other feeling we might have if we didn't feel anxiety would be one emotion short of the full set that really would be a disorder I want to share with you now an analogy that might go some way towards helping us understand our emotional responses
I want you to think of your mind like a ship every ship has a captain and a crew in this analogy the captain is your logical rational conscious part of your thinking it's the part that knows where you want to go why you want to go there and has a fair idea of how you think you gonna get there unfortunately the part of our mind that has its hands and all the things that steer and sail our ship that's the crew that's your subconscious your subconscious is in charge of all of your automatic responses so
your patterns of thought and behavior your belief systems and perhaps most importantly your emotions your crew sail your ship by triggering the appropriate emotional responses so for example if we regard something is dangerous our crew might trigger the feeling of fear we've become uncomfortable and this feeling will encourage us to move away from the danger to return to comfort if we believe we've been wronged a member of our crew might trigger anger will energize and our focus will be drawn towards taking whatever action is necessary to right the wrong so what about anxiety why do
our crew trigger that particular emotion now no doubt every single one of us will have our own idea about what anxiety means to us but put simply anxiety is the emotion that tells us when something is too important to simply lose focus of it's the voice of concern about an upcoming event or situation that refuses to be ignored it's the crew saying to the captain you need to pay attention to this now here's the important part your crew are operating on one very simple principle they're trying to find the best strategy for the most happiness
yes safety is important after all safety is a huge component part of happiness we can't feel happy if we don't feel safe but ultimately at all times your crew are trying to steer you in the direction of happiness as the American author Jon shed once wrote a ship in Harbor is safe but that is not what ships are built for so even when your crew are making you feel awful telling you things about yourself you really don't want to hear those seemingly self-destructive thoughts I'm not good enough I'll never succeed unlovable even these harsh words
are simply designed to steer you away from any situation that might lead to an unhappy experience they're not trying to sink the ship they just tryna sail it away from the stormy seas that we fear we might not be able to cope with but every decision your crew makes is based upon the things you've learned throughout your life and because many of these things will learn when you were very young some of them no longer apply some of them were just wrong in the first place what this means is that as far as anxiety is
concerned your crew will very often make mistakes but just because they get things wrong doesn't make them the enemy and yet this is a sentiment I hear all the time anxiety is the enemy people want to throw those crewmembers overboard and I can understand that after all if we regard a part of our mind as now actively trying to destroy us then of course it would be easy to view it as the enemy if we then believe our mind has actually turned against us it'll be easy to conclude our mind is broken it would be
easy to believe that person that told us the way you feel means you are ill I started this talk by telling you I used to suffer debilitating levels of social anxiety so how did I get control of that what did I actually do to reduce it there are three main things I did that I think helped me change the first thing I did I refused to believe I was ill of all the things I felt anxious about I decided not to feel anxious about feeling anxious I recognize that every time I felt anxiety it wasn't
random it was always triggered by a situation or a thought process once I understood this I could do the second thing that's to listen to my crew I spent too long pushing them away trying to ignore what they were telling me when you ignore someone with an important message they might just start to speak louder to get heard if you continue to ignore them they might start to shout the only way I was going to stop anxiety from shouting at me to listen to it to hear what it was saying to me I sought to
understand what my crew were trying to achieve with these feelings and to turn my enemies into my friends and the funny thing is when you start listening listening to what your minds trying to tell you you can stop shouting when the crew stop shouting the captain can be heard that's the point where you're more logical thinking gets to have some info you get to decide is this feeling appropriate or inappropriate is it helpful or unhelpful once you have the ear of your crew and you know what you would want from them the third thing maybe
the most important thing is to always always be kind to them if you're anything like me you spent a large part of your life beating yourself up over the things you did wrong or the things you didn't quite do right or just about the way you feel for all the criticism and negativity you've received from others throughout your life the person has given you the most it's probably you this has the cumulative effect of destroying morale aboard your ship a demoralized crew equals low self-esteem and low self-esteem means nail the slightest challenge will create anxiety
but the good news is you can repair the damage that's been done very easily simply by deciding from now on to always talk to your crew to yourself with kindness and positivity people do their best work when they feel empowered to achieve your crew are no different put simply if you beat yourself up you just end up beating if you build yourself up who knows how far we can reach this is why I think it's okay maybe even important to feel anxiety every single day of our lives it means the crew are still sailing the
ship and still trying to get it in the right direction it's a part of you that makes you reread the important email before you send it it's the part that makes sure you check your keys or in your pocket before you send the front door on your way out in the morning and it's the part that makes your heart skip a little bit when you think about giving that important presentation at work or in a theater truth is I still feel anxious all the time for example every Friday morning I wake feeling anxious because Friday
is dustbin day my crew wake me with the thought I need to go and take the bins out now it's not debilitating anxiety it's barely a whisper it's just loud enough to get heard and then when I've taken the bins out it's gone and this might seem like a really trivial example but this is exactly the sort of thing that will trouble us if we believe the way we feel is not normal I wonder if back in the day when I'd suffered high levels of anxiety if I've been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder would I
now dread Friday mornings would I feel anxious about the prospect of my anxiety flaring up again would I curse myself for still not being free of anxiety there tend to be too popular positions on high anxiety the first states it's a mental illness it's the way you're wired there's little we can do about it the second states is not real it's all in your head you just need to get over it neither of these positions are helpful and both are wrong the last 10 years have taught me the truth lies somewhere in the middle of
course it's real we don't ask to feel this way and yet we do even though we feel this way now doesn't mean we can't change it the first step towards changing is to accept it once we accept anxiety as a natural part of our human experience and treat it not as our enemy but as a trusted friend you'll be surprised how quickly the crew just get back to sailing the ship and we start to feel a lot less anxious about anxiety so how do you feel today do you feel anxious about something good I mean
you're alive it means as a part of you trying to tell you something that regards is important have a listen it's here to help my name is Tim box and now 18 minutes later I feel a lot less anxious thank you very much [Applause]
