 Good morning. Good afternoon. Hello and welcome to day 78 of the mindfulness challenge. How are you today? I'm feeling quite sporty. The fact I can't do anything with my dodgy knee is and stopping me wanting to get into that sporty mode and and try to do something mindfully, sports, walking, exercise, even when we're doing press-ups. If we just think about our bodies extending and how they come back and can feel the sinew of our muscles and every time we do that press-up we're just feeling the energy moving. It's beautiful. Mindfulness exercise. Not mindfulness exercise is, that's what we've been doing for 78 days. Mindfulness exercise. Being able to be in the moment and getting the dog to bark when he is the postman. Going to show that I'm live and I don't edit it. But mind he's having his exercise. The postman is going to have his as well because he's going to chase him up the street. But it's about having that mindfulness exercise. Having that exercise to be able to do a bit. Okay. So next time you're exercising just doing mindfully. Instead of thinking, I've got to do 20 press-ups. I've got to do, you know, I've got to run for five miles because I just got to get it done and I've got to get it done because I've got to get back and do this and do it. Be with yourself. Be with yourself and exercise mindfully in a way that, you know, allows you to be there in the moment. Enjoy it. Feel it and appreciate it. Come off that treadmill of the mind and go on to the treadmill of the exercise and be with that moment. Foot by foot. Step by step. Push by push. Raise by raise. Swim by swim. Arm by arm. Whatever it is, be in that moment. Day 78. Today though, we're going to talk a little bit more about, I wanted to do exercise today because I'm going to try and do some more exercise today, but Day 78 is about anxiety. We've spoken at length about anxiety. We've spoken at length about how feeling anxious can really have, you know, a lot of, a lot of toll on us. But the problem we have with anxiety, and again, I always say this because what normally happens is, and I was talking this to my daughter in the car this morning, going to the shop, and we were talking about stuff, and I said, what's really weird though is, is that on a Monday, and it's not weird, suppose, but it really is interesting. On a Monday, my first half a dozen emails, and I probably get somewhere in excess of 50 emails a day now. I try and answer all of them, okay? So if I miss you, I'm sorry, I apologize, you might have gone into spam while I might have just, but I try and answer all of them. It's important. The first half a dozen emails, first six emails, generally set the tone for the week. And what I'm finding towards the latter part of this week is anxiety and situational anxiety, where we talk about feelings of panic and fear and helplessness and despair in a situation where we sense that there's this feeling of danger, this agitation and irritability, and all of these things, this feeling of being overwhelmed by the situation and the surroundings around us. And that can be done by just starting to go up for the first time or somebody coming into your energy that gives you that feeling of being anxious, and it can have a lot of symptoms. You start to feel them. You start to feel, as I said, the feeling of being overwhelmed, the increase of heart rate, maybe some chest pains, a bit of palpitation, upset stomach digestive issues, all of these things really sweating, all of these things kick in and you, oh my God, I'm having a heart attack. Oh my God, I can't breathe, I'm hyperventilated, I'm gonna die. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And I'm not making light of it, because it's happened to me previously, it's happened to me on several occasions. And those occasions were the things that would become the pillars of my mindfulness practice and understanding that mindfulness gives you a tool to be able to manage the experience of anxiety. It may not stop it initially, but it will help you to control it and live with it in a perspective that doesn't stop us from leading that normal life. And that all stems down again, I keep talking about it, but shift in our perspective. It encourages mindfulness to step outside from the habitual thoughts or the situation that is rising. In this instance, when you're out and you feel anxiety, you feel anxious and you feel these things going, I'm going to show you a very simple exercise. And it's not a massive meditation today, yesterday was quite a long one, today's quite a short one. But it's about easing the stress response, because your body is now going into fight or flight and your body is wanting to really act as if there's imminent danger, as if the blood quickens, the heart races. And what happens is it takes all of the energy from your stomach, hence the reason you have those digestimences. And then you're hyperventilating, which gives you a problem and pressure in your chest and then you have the pain and you might then start feeling tingling down your arm. You think, oh my god, I got chest pain, I got tingling down my arm, I'm going to heart attack. The reality of the situation is the hyperventilization is starving oxygen of a lot of those things in your body. So the need to truly be able to handle some of that is important. So we're going to go into meditation, just want you to close your eyes. And when we close our eyes, I want us just to very simply just to breathe obviously, but I want you to count in some of these things. So as you're breathing, I want you to count one. And as you breathe out, I want you to count one. And as you get to the end of your breath, you say to yourself, I'm feeling calm. You count in two. And you count out two. And you say to yourself, I'm feeling calm. You count in three. You count out three. And you say to yourself, I'm in control. You count in four. You count out four. I'm definitely in control. You count in five. You count out five. I'm feeling balanced. I'm feeling calm. I'm in control. I'm feeling balanced. Now I want you to open your eyes, okay? Because if you're in a situation when you're having anxiety, it's very difficult to go, oh right, okay, we got work. So I want you to, when you feel, you'll start to feel. When you become a lot more aware of your body through mindfulness, you start to feel things a lot earlier. The signs show themselves a lot easier. When you feel that, you go, okay? One, one, I'm feeling calm. Two, two, I'm feeling calm. Three, three, I'm in control. Four, four, I'm in control. And five, five, I'm feeling balanced. And the truth here is, is that when your mind knows you are calming yourself down, it'll work with you. When it doesn't know and it doesn't feel as if it's working and that doubt comes in, then what happens is, is it amplifies again. And then you think, it's not working. I can't do it. I've got, you got back again. Okay? I had a huge panic attack and you would hear me talk about it and written in my book. They put me in hospital. And then the subsequent ones, when I learned that technique of one, two, three, four, five, I felt them coming and I go, I'm calm. Two in, two out, I'm calm. Three in, three out, I'm in control. Four in, four out, I'm in control. Five in, five out, I'm feeling balanced again. It made a big difference. Although I felt it, and even when you're doing it, it may grow slightly, but as you focus and concentrate on that number and your breathing, it will slowly dissipate. Now you might have to count to five on three, four, five, six occasions. Don't go any more than five because you tend to forget and then you lose your concentration and the thing just takes control again. It's about being in control of that breath because in your mind, when you calm yourself down and you come away from the narrative of what your mind is saying from fight or flight, things are a lot easier. Okay? It's a very simple technique on day 78 of the Corona Mindfulness Challenge. I hope you enjoy it because I think there is a need for us to be able to get back to some form of new normal and that's going to have some anxious moments for those people who, you know, are going out for the first time, who suffer from anxiety anyway, and the ability to control it through that. You will realise that you are in control of your body, although your body will start to do things, you have the ability to override them and mindfulness and in particular that technique gives you the gives you the tools to be able to do so. As always, put your hand on your heart and say, good morning Julian, I love you, good morning Julian, I love you. And we need to take the fear out of anxiety as well and it's important to note that practicing mindfulness, especially on your own or in a group setting, can trigger anxiety for some people and that anxiety, anxiety, social anxiety in particular is what I'm talking about. So reassuring words and a compassionate heart to yourself and to those around you will allow your fears to subside for you to be in the present. And there's a lot of support out there for you. I just want you to live your best life and in doing so acceptance, control, cultivation, meditation, empathy, compassion, love are all words really that we need to manifest on a daily basis. Have a lovely day and I shall see you on day 79. Thank you very much.