Transcriber: Emilia Soso Reviewer: Zeynep Yagci Here’s anxiety hack that can instantly calm you down. I don’t know how to control it. Take this bucket of water.
Six magic words to stop anxiety. Something cold on your wrist, neck, chest or head. Three best ways to break a panic attack.
If you can't lower this compound, then you get anxiety. Even though I'm feeling anxious. If you struggle with anxiety, panic attacks, grab salt.
I’m about to hypnotise you to release any anxiety you’ve been experiencing. The fastest way to break a panic attack. Is to put an end to your anxious overthinking.
Here's a quick anxiety relief technique. Put an ice pack on the back of your neck. Your left hand, put it on top of your head.
Tilt your eyes slightly backwards. Dead weight, just let that finger pull. Very strange but simple technique.
A nervous system reset. Feeling triggered, that is your nervous system being dysregulated. Anyone feeling calm?
(Laughs) This talk is for anyone who struggles with anxiety, particularly those people who struggle every day, maybe struggle with panic. fear of fear, you fear your symptoms, maybe you think you’re going crazy or something’s going wrong, and you feel you’re broken in some way. If you’re anxious right now, like I am, whether you’re in this room or it’s 2 a.
m. on the YouTube, and that’s okay, that feeling is welcome here. You are not broken.
Anyone in this room ever had a panic attack? Fun, aren’t they? They’re really good.
If you’ve never had one, I highly recommend them. (Laughs) If you thought Breaking Bad was good. .
. Honestly. Just feeling like you’re losing your mind, going crazy, your heart’s pounding, sense of dissociation and detachment, and the sudden urge to escape because you might humiliate yourself, all in the back of an Uber.
Anyone here guilty of overthinking? I’ve got a few whoops for the overthinkers. Here’s a pro tip: save all of that overthinking for the moment you get into bed at night.
(Laughs) That’s where you solve all of life’s problems. Anyone ever had an intrusive thought? You never get, like, fun intrusive thoughts, like winning the lottery or pillow fighting Ryan Gosling.
They’re always something really bad, like, grim in nature, whether it’s, you know, what if I lose control, about violence, sex, taboo, bizarre, the folly of existence itself. It’s a bit like watching Manchester United. (Some laughs) And that’s how you lose half the audience.
(Laughs) And again, anyone anxious, ever whilst feeling anxious, googled a headache? It's fun, isn't it? Yeah.
Your threat response isn't interested in the fact that you're dehydrated and been staring at screens all day. Oh, no. It wants you to scroll to the bottom, to the fun ones, right at the bottom.
Yeah, you’ve got all those. And meanwhile, it sets you off. I’m Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I’m a psychotherapist and author who specialises in the topic of anxiety and anxiety disorders.
Many years ago, on a Tuesday morning, I was at work and I was making a cup of tea, milk and teabag first because I’m a psychopath, and I was doing that, and suddenly I looked up. I looked up and everything looked weird. It felt strange.
I was hit with this whoosh of adrenaline. I didn’t recognise my own hands, my voice, everything looked like clay, and I thought I was going crazy. I’d actually just experienced one of my firsts ever panic attacks, but that was the incident that led me to joining the one in five club, which is I developed an anxiety disorder.
To understand anxiety disorders, you’ve got to understand the role of the amygdala, which is a small, almond-shaped part of our brain that is one of the oldest parts, the fastest, and the dumbest parts of our brain. It's responsible for triggering anxiety, fight or flight, and all the fun symptoms that we have. My amygdala is firing off now.
I’m having intrusive thoughts literally right now about throwing up on the front row. Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to do it. I'm aiming for the second row.
Get a good trajectory on there. To understand the amygdala, it’s really important because we are bombarded with information about “Turn off your anxiety now”. Hmm, doesn’t quite work like that.
You know, it’s the amygdala when. . .
How many of you have had one of those pavement dreams, sidewalk dreams where, you know, you’re nice and relaxed and you’re asleep, and then suddenly, you dream you fall off a curb, and then you bolt up in bed. Anyone else had that? Well, thanks, because that was going to be really embarrassing to take that to a Freudian therapist.
“Keep dreaming of curbs”. And that’s it, the amygdala steps in just in case. Just in case that was a real curb.
If you’re watching a scary movie and the fellow with the chainsaw comes out, he’s like, “Yeah, I’m going to kill you. ” The amygdala fires off just in case. Just that split second.
If your hilarious friend likes to make you jump, again, for that split second, the amygdala jumps in just in case. It operates on a just-in-case mentality, and it gets you to prepare for threat. The other day, I was walking through Manchester and I got almost hit by a taxi because I was scrolling.
I looked up and thankfully the amygdala jumped in and saved me because I was being a moron, you know? I didn't choose to do that. I leapt back, I didn’t consciously choose to do that, it was there to save me.
But sometimes that amygdala gets confused, particularly with the stresses of life, which leads to things like panic disorder, which is the fear of fear. If you have panic attacks and then you suddenly fear those panic attacks, you’ll build your life around those panic attacks. If you have GAD, your amygdala is firing off all day, every day, and then your cognitive brain is trying to say, What if it’s that?
What if it’s that? What if it’s that? And you start worrying about stuff that never used to bother you because the amygdala and the cognitive brain are like, “We’re trying to work out why all this is happening now.
” Anyone with OCD? I’ve also been diagnosed with OCD. You’re probably experiencing intrusive thoughts, and then the amygdala decides, after prolonged stress, you have an intrusive thought that’s so horrible, and the amygdala then adds to that intrusive thought, and you start to worry about what it means about you, because the amygdala, just in case that thought is the threat, and for a lot of people with OCD, I think it’s one in twenty in the UK.
There'll be a few OCD heads in here. Hi. You see?
It's okay. And yeah, you’ve got to understand that. The amygdala wants to look after you just in case.
To calm anxiety, we’ve got to turn off the amygdala. Lots of my clients tell me, Josh, can I have my amygdala removed? I’m like, No, it doesn’t quite work like that.
But I can understand the frustration. To turn off the amygdala, we need to show it that anxiety itself is not dangerous. If you are someone who is anxious a lot of the day, you probably fall into fixing compulsions, which is I’m anxious and that’s not acceptable.
I must get rid of it now. I did this for years. I never left the house because I was scared of how I felt, and I wouldn't do anything until I was fixed.
So I did it all. Started with the deep breathing, the tapping, the magnesium supplements, the CBD oil. .
. Honestly, I spent so much money. I tried to be hypnotised.
There were all these things. Anything but to feel a feeling of anxiety that I didn’t like, I tried it. Then you’ve got the magic of self-optimisation culture and social media.
You know, here's five things you can do to get rid of a feeling. No, the amygdala is always watching and it’s going: Is this feeling I’m giving you a threat in itself? Okay, I'll look out for that.
And you end up in a cycle. If you’re anxious and then suddenly you want to get rid of it, because, yes, it is uncomfortable, I know. I’ve ended up in A&E with panic attacks.
I know how bad anxiety feels. But looking back, I was trying to get rid of it and I was resisting a feeling. And the amygdala.
. . That just tells the amygdala that anxiety itself is a threat.
And when we misinterpret and fear the anxious response, that's the cornerstone of most anxiety disorders. You've got to understand the nervous system really quickly. There’s a phenomena called the autonomic state shift.
So when we're really anxious, we're in the sympathetic state. And when we’re really relaxed, we’re in the parasympathetic state. Sympathetic, parasympathetic.
And there’s a phenomenona. When that switches, that’s called the autonomic state shift. The autonomic state shift.
ASS, for short. And here’s the problem that a lot of people don’t tell you. You cannot observe the exact moment the autonomic state shift happens.
You cannot observe the exact moment anxiety disappears. And yet anxious people try it all the time with coping techniques. I’ll try this, is it gone yet?
I’ll try this, is it gone yet? And it doesn't work like that. And I tried to do this for so long.
It’s a bit like when you’re driving along and someone cuts you up. You’re really angry, and you go on this revenge arc in your imagination, you know, you’re going to get him back, you know, get him sacked from their job and burned down. Maybe just me, sorry.
That’s quite concerning. Then suddenly your favorite song comes on the radio. And then you sing along, and the next thing you know, oh, I’m not really bothered about that anymore.
The autonomic state shift happened, and it's the same with anxiety. But if you're trying to observe autonomic state shift, you get into trouble. Trying to observe ASS, only leads to trouble.
(Laughs) I'm standing by that. So what do we do? How I got better?
Willful tolerance. I wrote down all my fixing compulsions and I do this with my clients. What are we doing that’s resisting everything?
Most common compulsions are checking, seeing how you are, comparing how you feel, and constantly trying to fix yourself. Write those down, and then you practise being anxious. I’m going to practise being anxious.
But you have to do this compassionately. And this is the second and final ingredient to get better. Compassion is so important.
Anxious people berate themselves, they have a huge internal critic, and you’ve got to be your friend. I’ll start you off. You have tolerated everything life has thrown at you up until this moment of listening to me, whether it’s anxiety or tragic life events.
Your tolerance skills are a 100%. I just invite you to do it wilfully. Learn that you are the coping technique, if you struggle with anxiety.
Stop giving the credit to everything else around you, whether it’s scrolling through that and doing magical things and trying to find everything external from you. You can tolerate anxiety, you are the coping technique. You can do this.
And that's how I got better. But you can't do it without being your friend. So I invite you to wilfully tolerate your anxiety, whoever you are, whether you're in here or Keith watching on YouTube.
You are the coping technique, and believe in yourself, and you will get better. I did, and so can you. I’m Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh.
Thank you very much.
