 Hey there, I'm Drew Lincelada, creator and host of The Anxious Truth. Welcome to episode 260 of the podcast. This week on The Anxious Truth, we're going to look at the constant never-ending cycle of checking in with yourself and scanning to make sure you're okay. This is something that many, many anxious people get stuck in. They find that they are constantly checking in with themselves, constantly looking for anxiety symptoms, sensations, changes in their bodies, constantly scanning for scary thoughts, disturbing thoughts, things that might trigger them, and it can be exhausting. So when I asked for podcast topic suggestions recently in my Facebook group, this is one of them. Somebody asked, how do you stop the constant scanning cycle? So today we're going to talk about that. But just a quick programming look before we do that, just want to remind you that The Anxious Truth is more than just this particular podcast episode. There are 259 podcast episodes that came before this. There are three books that I've written on anxiety and anxiety recovery. There are courses. There are workshops. There's a ton of free social media content. So if you're stumbling upon the podcast for the first time today or the YouTube channel, head on over to my website at TheAnxiousTruth.com and check out all of the goodies. Everything is there. Take advantage of all the resources and check out all that I have to offer because I think it's valuable content and I think it can be really helpful for people who are struggling to get a grip on anxiety problems. And if you are already following my work and you're using it and you find that it is helping or you're enjoying it and you want to find a way to support it in some way formally, all the ways that you can do that are also on my website at TheAnxiousTruth.com. Financial support buying things is never ever required here but always appreciated. So however way you support this podcast or this YouTube channel, whether it's leaving a podcast review or a thumbs up on a YouTube video, thank you very much. I do appreciate your support. So I'm going to try to make this short today and yes I'm recording from outside because it's beautiful and I'm really trying to take advantage of that lately. It's a kind of part of self-care to get out in the outside under the blue sky and de-stress a little bit and I can sit here with you guys. I have to wear my sunglasses, I'm very sorry but I have huge glare problems when I'm outside and I can just sit for hopefully 10 minutes informally and just chat with you and I find it to be somewhat relaxing and I enjoy doing these things with you guys. So today we're going to talk about the scanning cycle, the constant cycle of scanning and checking in and if you are struggling with an anxiety problem, I'm guessing you know what I'm talking about because you're probably stuck in that scanning cycle. I know I was. The minute I opened my eyes and became conscious I would immediately check in to see what was going on in my body. What was my heart doing? How was my breathing? Is anything tingling? What do I feel? Any aches? Any pains? Am I too hot? Am I too cold? Am I the right temperature? What I was thinking about? Am I thinking about death? Am I thinking about death? So anxious people often get stuck in this cycle where you are constantly checking back in with yourself to see what's going on physically, mentally, emotionally because you have determined that your own body, your own thoughts, your own mind are threats to you. They will trigger states of panic and anxiety and fear that you don't want and so you spend a whole lot of your time and a whole lot of your energy constantly checking in and scanning to see what's going on so that you can remain on guard against possible triggers because I know you don't want to be triggered. When I was asked how am I supposed to stop that scanning cycle, well, the answer is going to sound very familiar. If you follow along with this podcast or my videos or you bought my books or anything like that, you probably already know what I'm going to say. The trick to stopping the scanning cycle is to recognize that we do not get to decide what thoughts to not have. You have been conditioned and you've gotten yourself into a sensitized place where you're constantly on guard and you are conditioned to automatically think, how am I doing? I better check to see how I'm doing and that becomes automatic. You can't decide to not do that. So people think that I'm going to give some sort of tips that will allow you to just simply stop doing that, to stop scanning, to stop checking in. This is especially true if you do find yourself having a pretty good day or maybe you get engaged with the outside world. Maybe you're at a birthday party or maybe you're at a concert or you just get caught up reading a book or a movie or listening to music that you like or you're outside and actually find that you're enjoying yourself and then suddenly, boom, you go back into the scanning cycle, checking for anxiety, checking for symptoms, checking for scary thoughts and the whole thing is ruined. So if that is you, I feel you, I know what it's like to be there. But there are no tips for turning that off. I can't tell you, well, just do this and that won't happen anymore. There's no switch that we can turn off. It's an automatic thing that is designed to protect you. Your brain is scanning and scanning and scanning, thinking that it has to. It's trying to do the job that it thinks it needs you to do. It's trying to do the job it thinks you need it to do, there you go, I got it out, in order to stay safe. But so we don't have the ability to just flip a switch and stop that from happening. But what we do have the ability to do is we do have the ability to change the way we interact with that cycle. Because I'm guessing that right now, if you get caught up into the checking in and scanning and evaluating cycle, you are essentially checking in and then doing something with the results of that check-in. So if you find maybe, oh, I don't know, my elbow feels a little weird from leaning on the table here or I don't know, suddenly I feel a little cooler than I was a minute ago, or is that something in the corner of my eye? Is there something wrong with my eye? You can probably relate to some of those things. And when you get those scan results, if you will, then you do something with them. You find a threat and then you try to address that threat. You try to mitigate that threat. You try to get away from that threat. You try to keep yourself safe. You try to avoid being triggered. What we can change in the scanning cycle is that when we scan, which is almost automatic at this point, you can take those results and choose to not interact with them. Now, what I mean by that is I want you to, let's use an analogy here. Let's assume that you go for a visit to the doctor. Maybe it's just a routine physical, whatever. It's nothing serious. And the doctor comes in and says, we're going to do some scans. We're going to do some blood work or whatever it is. I'm going to do a scan, an MRI, an x-ray, whatever the doctor thinks they need. And then the doctor hands you, here are your scan results. Here is a piece of paper that has the results of your blood work or your MRI or your x-rays or whatever it happens to be. You will look at those things and then say, OK, what do we need to act on here? And that's normal. That's what you would do in that situation. In the anxiety scanning cycle, that happens again and again and again and again and again. So imagine living in a never-ending loop where this over-enthusiastic, over-protective doctor keeps running in and scanning you and then shoving results in your face. Check this out, check this out, check this out, check this out. Now, that wouldn't happen in real life, but imagine if you did. Let's conceptualize the anxiety scanning cycle as an over-zealous, over-protective, maybe a young doctor that doesn't know any better. Being enthusiastic thinks they're really helping you, thinks they're saving you, but doesn't understand that they are way out of line and in total overkill, overthinking mode. So your anxious brain is going to act that way. It's going to keep checking in, keep scanning. How am I doing now? How am I doing now? How am I doing now? And instead of taking those scan results that your anxious brain shoves in your face and says, you better look at this, this is really important. What we can do is something a little bit different. So imagine that your anxious brain hands you your scan results in the form of a big piece of paper that's loaded with results, tingling in the elbow, cold in the shoulder, floater in the eye, scary thoughts about death, and my stomach is a little wonky. Uh-oh. Instead of going through those scan results, pouring through them one by one and trying to take evasive action on each one of those results, what you can do instead is to take that piece of paper, crumble it up and throw it on the ground. Now that might sound ridiculous. You might be giggling at this point. It's meant to be a little ridiculous, but figuratively speaking or metaphorically speaking, that's one thing that we can do to change that scan cycle. So when your brain automatically scans to make sure that you are okay and to look for the threats and make sure you're not going to be triggered and make sure that you don't have to worry about that crazy intrusive thought about harming somebody or doing something you don't want to do, or, oh my goodness, what if you're actually a terrible person? When those sort of things pop up, scary thoughts that trigger you, scary sensations that pop up that you're looking for all the time, all the time, when you get your scan results from your anxious brain that checks in every couple of minutes to see what's going on up here and in here, you could say, hey, thanks brain, appreciate the results, crumble, crumble, crumble, I'm throwing them away. Now, that will feel wrong. That will feel irresponsible. That will feel reckless. It'll seem like you're totally risking something here, because when you take those scan results and you crumple them up and you throw them on the ground or into the fire or into the trash or the bin, your brain is going to come back to you and say, what are you doing, man? This is clearly important. I'm scanning for important, serious, urgent, dangerous, threatening things. How can you throw this away? You must look at this report and take immediate action. And your answer is, I know that's what you want me to do, but I don't really have to do that. And the only way for you to learn that is for me to keep disregarding your results. And then your brain will stop off in a huff and do it again and scan again and jam those results in your face. So instead of thinking that you have to find a way to stop it from doing that, instead, take the results. Thanks brain, you did it again, crumple, crumple, crumple in the bin. And that is the way that we start to interrupt the scan cycle. Now, at first, that will feel very wrong because you're going to think, I can't risk this. If I'm having a scary thought about maybe not really truly loving my partner, or if I'm having a scary thought about my sexual orientation, or if I think that there might really be something wrong because this pain in my back could be a heart attack this time and I don't do anything with those scan results, that will feel super dangerous. And like, you should not do that. But that is a way that we can start to modify and interrupt the scan cycle because every single time you crumple up those scan results and throw them in the bin, you are sending a signal back to your anxious brain that over-enthusiastic, over-protective rookie doctor and saying, I appreciate what you're doing here, but you are way off base and you don't need to be so aggressive about this, I promise. And the only way that you can communicate to your anxious brain, that part of your body, that part of your brain that is tasked with identifying threats and keeping you safe and alive, is behaviorally. You have to take action. And the action you could take is, I'm going to crumple up the scan results, throw them in the fire and pretend they didn't exist, even though you are feeling very uncomfortable about doing that. So you're rolling the dice. To you, it will feel really, really risky. But every time you throw away the scan results and you wind up navigating through the discomfort and uncertainty that that produces, you are teaching your brain a lesson. Those scan results did nothing but scare me over and over and over and over. So I'm going to go ahead and let you scare me, but I'm not going to help you do it anymore. That's essentially what you're telling your anxious brain, your amygdala, your lizard brain, that over-protective zealous, like well-intentioned, but way-off base young doctor. That's what you're saying. I appreciate that you're trying to save me, but really all you're doing is scaring me and I don't have to help you do that anymore. We're good. Here's how I'll show you. Crumple, crumple, crumple, throw away the results. Let me get on with my life. And then you're just going to have to put up with the fact that your brain will keep going back into that cycle and keep jamming test results in your face, urgently, frantically, like something is really wrong and this is really important. And then you just have to practice changing the way you receive those results and what you do with the scan results. So the bottom line here is that you should not be trying desperately to find a way to turn off the scan switch. You can't do that. There's just no reliable way to do that. You may find that you can sort of short-circuit it from time to time, but reliably speaking, and this is just based on what I hear from so many people, a very large audience, is that even when you come up with a way to do that once in a while, the scan is going to break through that every once in a while as well, especially if you're under duress or you're particularly scared that day or you're really tired or run down or feeling sick or you're under a lot of stress or you're really emotional, your ability to like turn off the scan switch will really degrade and you will get caught back up in that cycle. So when that happens, instead of resisting it, go with it. Hey, thanks for scanning again, but I don't actually need to read these results because nothing is ever wrong. I'll know if it's wrong. Crumple, crumple in the bin, next. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. But remember, very important for me to say this, remember that what you're doing is going to trigger you. It is going to make you feel uncomfortable. You are going to feel like you are risking something. You are putting yourself or maybe the people you love in danger. It feels that way. It will feel very wrong to do that, but this is a way that you can over time teach your brain that it doesn't have to automatically scan during every waking moment. That is a way that we can stop the scan cycle. We just can't stop it immediately. We can change the way we interact with it and over time it becomes less and less intense. The scans become fewer and further between and each time you do a scan you get out of it much quicker. And even if you do find something in a recovered state where you're back to sort of a normal healthy relationship with anxiety and fear and your own body and mind, you will scan and know when something really is wrong. I go, yeah, this is really something I have to look at. Things that I was sure were problems back then I would have bet my kids, my house, my dog on it turned out to be wrong. They were not problems after all. And having gone through the exercise I'm describing to you I am much better now in a recovered state at actually knowing when something does really need my attention and when it doesn't. And sometimes you will be a little bit unsure but one of the things that you will learn that process is I'm not really sure about this now but since I'm not sure about it now that tells me that it's not really important now. Let me give it a little time and let's see what's going on tomorrow or in two hours or in two weeks and I'll reevaluate then. So the scan process is something that every human being engages in from time to time it just doesn't have to be off the rails and out of control like yours is right now or like mine was back in the day. So use the scan results analogy if you can imagine that every time you find yourself checking in and scanning and looking for scary sensations or looking for scary thoughts imagine that what you're basically doing is waiting for those test results to come back from your over enthusiastic doctor and the minute you are handed those results instead of pouring over them frantically to save yourself crumple them up and throw them in the bin and send your over protective brain off to do it all again and then do it again and again and again. And over time if you can navigate through that discomfort that distress the challenge of doing that you will find that the scan cycle begins to shrink it gets less intense it starts to quiet down and then one day you find that you scan only when needed and in a really productive way like all human beings do. It's a good mechanism. We need that mechanism just that it doesn't have to act the way yours does right now. So that is my two cents on how do you stop the cycle of scanning and checking in and evaluating how you feel. You change the way you interact with it and it modifies over time like everything else in recovery. So that is episode 260 of the anxious truth. There's no fancy music. There's no fancy editing here. There's no production values. There's just me sitting under the blue sky with my stupid sunglasses on trying to keep the glare out of my eyes talking to you guys. I hope you have found this helpful. Try to take this with you in some way and use it if you can. It is difficult to do but it is effective if you can practice it and get your brain around the fact that yeah this is the way I probably have to do it. So come back next week I don't know what we're talking about. I think next week in episode 261 I think I do know what I'm going to talk about. We might be talking about what sort of end stage recovery looks like because a few people have asked me about that. If it's not in next week's episode I promise it will be soon. So anyway, come back and see me. If you are digging the podcast and you're listening on Apple podcast or Spotify or some platform that lets you rate a review please leave a five star rating if you like the podcast and maybe take a second to review it because that helps more people find the podcast and then we get to help more people which is really why I do this to begin with. Of course if you're watching on YouTube and you like the video then like the video, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment, I promise I will circle back and check them all. I do it at least twice a week. Hit the subscribe button, hit the notification bell so you know when I upload new content and yeah, just do the best you can today to take some step forward toward recovery toward who you want to be and away from fear because every little step that you take like that matters, they all add up. I hope this has been helpful. I will see you next week.