 This week on the anxious truth. We're going to talk about how to slay your anxiety dragon in 2022 Well, we're really going to talk about how to start slaying it when we learn that anxiety recovery is really about building a bunch of little Recovery habits and then stringing them together. So let's get started Hey, welcome back everybody. This is the anxious truth podcast episode number 189 189 happy new year. This is our first show of 2022 If this is your first time listening to the anxious truth or watching on YouTube I am drooling salata and creator and host of this podcast the anxious truth is a podcast that talks about all things anxiety and anxiety Recovery, so if you're having problems like panic attacks panic disorder agoraphobia, that sort of stuff This is the place you want to be you are welcome here at all times if you are a returning listener or a longtime listener Welcome back. I appreciate your time and attention as always Today's episode is really all about the idea that anxiety recovery does not happen in big leaps and bounds It's not dramatic. It's not epic if anxiety is a dragon and you're trying to slay it You don't slay it with one swing of your sword You actually slay it with like a thousand paper cuts probably more like 27,000 paper cuts to be honest with you So we're gonna talk about that today But before we get started I want to remind you of one little thing and that is on January 3rd Just a couple of days ago. I launched a project called the anxious morning and the anxious morning first Well, it's off. It's off to a great start. Everybody's really enjoying it It is a little email newsletter and podcast that comes out every weekday morning So it's a quick anxiety recovery lesson something to think about tips and tricks techniques Things that will make you think things will make you talk All related to anxiety and anxiety recovered recovery delivered into your email inbox every morning when you wake up So you don't have to go scrolling through the frantic kind of doom scroll of social media to get it It's a three to five hundred word email You can consume it at your own time at your own leisure and then use it as you see fit There is also a podcast associated with it, which is essentially just the audio version of that email three to five minutes long Every weekday morning. Everybody's loving it. Go check it out at the anxious morning calm It's a hundred percent free to subscribe so take advantage of it If you like this podcast, you're gonna really dig that too is a little snippets every weekday morning that I think you'll find Really helpful. Okay, so that being said and by the way if you're already subscribed and you're enjoying the anxious morning Thank you for your support. I appreciate that So let's get into this Everybody wants especially when the new year, right? So we just had the new year Everybody wants to overcome their anxiety in 2022 and that is completely doable, of course But again, if you look at an anxiety disorder as a dragon, it needs to be slayed We have to realize that this is not a thing where we whip out our giant sword And you know when one fell swoop we sway the dragon slay the dragon in one epic dramatic move It doesn't work that way. This is really a journey of very small steps that just add up, right? So recovery is granular. It happens in really tiny bits It's a result of very small changes and small individual experiences and they add up over time So it doesn't come in giant leaps and broad sweeps And it really is about starting small and building new recovery focused habits and practicing them and being Incremental and consistent and then adding them all together, but the key word here is habits We have to start to develop these habits. So there are quite a few of them that go into, you know The overall recovery process, I'm sure and they're very individual based on your particular circumstance But to get the ball rolling, especially if you're feeling kind of stuck and you're thinking like okay This is gonna be my year I'm gonna get over this anxiety once and for all the way to do that is to build a bunch of recovery focused habits Take these small little steps every day string them together be consistent and over time Your relationship with anxiety and fear begins to change because of all these habits that you're going together It's treating together they add up and they add up small habits that you practice every single day add up to big changes over time So let's took it five Let's really start with just five of these little recovery focused habits that you can work on That are almost universal to everybody's situation So these are five to start with but if you're confused if you're not really sure what to do Let's start with these five habits now Why do we need to develop these habits? Because in the end what we're really trying to do is we're not trying to banish anxiety So the dragon metaphor yeah, it's okay But we're really not trying to kill our anxiety because you can't like anxiety actually belongs into human life We're really just trying to go back to a normal healthy relationship with it And the way we do that is we learn to recognize these maladaptive Responses that we have to the feelings of anxiety Symptoms and thoughts that come with it and then we start to change those reactions So we need to recognize the reactions that are getting us into this mess and then we have to start to change those and People will ask all the time, but how do I change my reaction? How do I do this? Well, you change your reaction to anxiety panic and fear over time by building new habits and practicing them So this is where habits come into play right? You can't just decide to react differently to your anxiety You have to start to change your behavior Little by little bit by bit you practice this every day day after day again and again And you do enact change over time now. This is not years and years of time, but it's not days This is not a thing. We're okay. I'm gonna give you some here's top five tips to make your anxiety go away Go away in two weeks. It doesn't work that way. I wish it did. It just doesn't but we can start with these five habits That you can start to work on building these habits and practicing them putting them into your life every day And this will help you to answer the question. How do I change my relationship and my reaction to anxiety? I know it's scary. I know it's really difficult. I know you feel like you must react in fear You must stop it. You must escape. You must get saved. You must get help I know you think that but it's actually not true and when we start to change that and say, okay Don't have to do it that way anymore. I can do it a different way a way that is difficult and requires me to be courageous especially to start And we're gonna do these hard and scary things to start to change this reaction that I have and get anxiety back To a normal healthy place in my life. We can start with these little habits these five habits, right? So it's important that I do have a quote in the show note show notes that I want I don't normally read verbata from the show notes, but I'm gonna on this one because I think it's important So a lot of people will think I'm gonna run over my anxiety This is the year that I I win the war like I'm gonna be a warrior. I'm gonna be victorious I'm gonna slay this dragon But here's the quote I want you to really hang on to and that is we do not turn into courageous anxiety Dragon slayers overnight We build a bunch of new dragon slaying habits on a small scale We keep practicing them then we string them together over time. This is not dramatic epic or fast In fact, it can be somewhat boring and we'll try your patience, but this is how it works So that is like if you go to the anxious truth comm slash one eight nine Which is the show notes for this episode you can find that quote I put it on the page and I wanted to read it verbatim because I think it's important This is not dramatic. It's not epic. It's not fast You can't just decide to become a warrior and brave and run it over and I'm gonna kick its ass It doesn't work that way again. I wish it did, but it doesn't this is a journey of small steps that add up together We will slay that dragon with a hundred thousand paper cuts not with one slash of a big old broadsword It isn't gonna happen So let's look at five habits that you can work on that might be new for you But if you start to work on these five habits to start it can get you on the way This is not meant to be a cure for your anxiety. This isn't five things to do to make it go away This isn't therapy. This isn't medical advice, but these are five really simple habits You can start to build into your day that will help you at least move in the right direction So I can start the first one is Start having number one is start your day in a new way Now this one is really difficult for a lot of people if you're listening you may have a lot of anxiety in the morning Now some people have more anxiety in the evening, but nonetheless What we want to do here is we want to look at starting the day in a new way If your habit is that you wake up in the morning however way you wake up after however way you slept I understand a lot of you may be having sleep problems if your habit right now is to lay in bed and Stay under those covers and dread getting up and dread facing the day and think about how you feel and scan your body and Evaluate how you feel how anxious Emily how anxious will I be today? Am I gonna panic today? Is anything gonna make me panic today? What what am I gonna think about today? Am I gonna have symptoms today if that is the way you start your morning? Consider that you should start your morning in a new way And what I always tell people to do is to get up when you open your eyes get up Put your feet on the floor come up with a very basic morning routine a very basic routine. It could be all hygiene based Literally brushing your teeth washing your face like combing your hair putting something on to wear putting your slippers on it Doesn't matter a very basic morning routine that starts with putting your feet on the floor and ends with feeding yourself breakfast or a cup of coffee or tea or something and sitting in the kitchen and reading the paper the paper like who the hell Paper anymore, but you get the idea a very basic morning routine You wake up you put your feet on the floor and you execute those route that routine no matter how you feel This is a good habit. This is a recovery focused habit that will propel you forward It will be part of your recovery journey if you can put this into play Wake up get up run your routine. It doesn't matter how you feel you know what you're gonna do I get up. I walk across the room. I go to the bathroom. I wash my face. I brush my teeth I comb my hair. I put my robe on I go into the kitchen. I make an egg or some oatmeal Whatever it is you do. I don't care what your morning routine is. Just have a routine Know what it is before you wake up and then run it when you wake up This habit when you do this every day begins to change your relationship with anxiety Because you think that if you wake up anxious or apprehensive about the day You're supposed to lay there and ruminate on that and worry about it and think about it But that's not a productive way to relate to your anxiety a more productive way would be this I can get up I can run my morning routine even when I feel anxious and afraid I can do that and you begin to teach your brain Like I can do this. I'm capable even when I am afraid and anxious So starting your day in a new way is habit number one. I urge you to consider doing that habit number two And by the way Turn up my notifications here. I'm getting a lot of slack notifications as I record So habit number two and by the way, I wrote a whole lot about That morning routine in chapter five of the anxious truth, which is my recovery guidebook So if you don't have that book, you can find it at the anxious truth calm And I wrote about this extensively there habit number two is actually based on another book I wrote called seven percent slower, which you can find at seven percent slower calm Habit number two is slow down Just slow down if you are like most anxious people how most non-anxious people we rush through our day So if you are having a problem with anxiety There is a really good chance that when anxiety hits and you feel it begin to rise You begin to rush you begin to rush mentally you begin to rush physically Anxiety will tell you to speed up and run around and if you are kind of in the grips of it You will listen and you'll do that and you'll start rushing around So habit number two that I can give you would be to recognize this and begin to slow things down Now you can decide to slow down and keep practicing it again and again and again Like I said, I wrote an entire book about that called seven percent slower if you want to check it out But it's really about catching the habit of oh, I'm doing it again. I'm rushing again Let me slow down. Let me slow down. Let me slow down. Let me slow down when you intentionally slow yourself down Physically it becomes a little bit easier to be present to be a little bit mindful of what you're engaged with right now And when you slow down we're going back to changing our relationship with anxiety Slowing down is sending another signal back down to your brain that says everything's okay So when you get up in the morning and brush your teeth and run your morning routine Even when you're anxious you're telling your brain everything is okay. Your brain is saying nothing's okay You have to show it with these habits know everything's okay So getting up and running your routine shows your pretels your brain everything's okay Slowing down when it wants you to speed up tells your brain everything's okay So now we have two little habits that you can start on this year that start to change your relationship with anxiety of fear And bring it back into its normal place Number three habit number three is a big one This one is one that most people don't understand and sometimes get misinterpreted, right? Habit number three is wait before you speak your fear and when I say speak your fear I mean if you are in the habit which most anxious people are of always having to tell somebody how you feel if I am afraid if I am anxious if I'm worried about something if I'm feeling symptoms I don't like if I'm having thoughts I don't like if I just feel unease discomfort vulnerability uncertainty fear. I have to tell somebody Usually it's going to be your safe person or your comfort person. I need to tell them how I'm feeling right now I need to tell them what I'm afraid of I got to tell you that I'm anxious I have to tell you that my heart is pounding I have to tell you that I'm dizzy I have to tell you that you know, I think I'm gonna die. I have to tell you that I'm gonna I feel like I'm gonna have a seizure before you speak that fear out loud Put in a pause So the habit here is set a timer on your watch your phone I don't care count it in your head Before you decide that you need to speak out loud again, how you feel Put in a pause 60 to 90 seconds wait Just give it 90 seconds at the end of that 90 seconds wait another 90 seconds and then ask yourself What is what is this going to accomplish when I speak my fear out loud? You are in the habit of relating to that alarm So your brain is sounding an alarm when it doesn't have to that's a same anxiety problem And you are in the habit of relating to that alarm by Answering it like it's real So when your brain triggers that alarm that says something is wrong and you run to your partner or your sister or your best friend Or whoever it happens to be and you have to say something is wrong. Something is wrong I think I have to go to hospital something is wrong. Something's wrong with me or I think when you go crazy I can't take this anymore You are responding to that alarm in a reaction that says yeah, that's the something's wrong When we pause and we do not speak that fear out loud, this is difficult But we're sending a signal back down again that says I don't have to talk about this. It's okay. It's always been okay So again habit number three that says when my brain tells me that something is wrong But I know there's not I'm going to tell it everything is okay And I'm gonna tell it this with this new behavioral habit. I'm gonna act differently Get up in the morning and run your routine The second one will start to slow down the third one now is wait before you speak your fear Put in those pauses and really detach from that that impulse and ask yourself What is this gonna do for me? I'm not sure what this is gonna do for me and see if you really feel that you need to speak it out loud again Now you might have to repeat this 25 times every day, but this is how we build habits Right and we're the motivation to build these habits build these new habits that we don't have now We change the old habits and build new ones the motivation is that when we do this We are engaging in a process that teaches our brains the lessons it needs to learn So we're not doing these things because it's gonna flip the anxiety switch. This isn't really outcome habits This is process habits. I need to start to have a different process That I use to relate to anxiety and fear and this is going to lead me to a better place in my life So habit number four I say is called regulate your anxiety information diet Not diet what you eat your anxiety information diet start to really think about this So this is also a really overlooked thing. That's kind of easy to get to this is a behavioral change That you can make that isn't really that hard to find and do if you are spending all day long in the social media Scroll of doom and by the way, this is one of the reasons why I launched the anxious morning was to help people get useful anxiety information Without having to scroll do the doom scroll all day long to find this stuff. That's one What that was one of my motivations I don't like the endless frantic social media scroll of doom in mental health I actually hate it and so I said I want to get out of the middle of that I'm gonna I'm gonna take this discussion out of that. That's why I launched the anxious morning email and podcast But if you are spending all day long Scrolling through Instagram scrolling through Facebook watching YouTube videos listening to podcasts reading 16 anxiety books I'm in this program. I have this anxiety app I'm in this group. I follow this guru and that guru if you spend all day long Listening to podcasts and reading anxiety books and going through anxiety groups and and all of that stuff all day long It's time to regulate that diet Pick one or two trusted sources. Maybe I'm one of them I don't know that would be great. Maybe I'm not maybe you're gonna pick a different source to me That's okay, too You pick one or two trusted sources and stick with them and everything else is gonna have to go by the wayside Now that might sound crazy to you But it's not because again your reaction to this fear your anxiety and fear in the way you consume social media is Basically saying yeah, yeah, this is bad. Something has to happen. I have to find a fix I need a fix I need a fix I need to fix me something to fix me fix me fix you I need tips any tricks any know you don't so when you regulate your anxiety information diet is habit number four And you start to pair that down. No, no, I'm only gonna listen to one podcast I have this one book that I'm reading. I'm gonna finish that book I'm not going to spend all day trying to consume anxiety and recovery information You are treating that alarm that that anxiety as less important So no, I don't need to frantically search for a fix for this I can educate myself with one or two trusted sources. That's all I need That is another way behaviorally to send a signal back down to your brain that says I got this everything's okay I know you're trying to protect me, but look everything's okay. We don't need to buy another book We don't need to listen to yet another podcast. We don't need to find another guru to follow to help us reframe this Try regulating your anxiety information diet. That's habit number four cut down on the amount of doom scrolling and mental health that you're doing It's not helping you. So this is an easy habit to just to pick and start to change And you know what give yourself a time frame. I'm gonna leave these 10 groups behind I'm gonna only watch I'm gonna only follow these four accounts or whatever it is Listen to these two podcasts. That's it. Give it a week or two If you want to ditch those and go to different sources, that's great But only have one or two trusted sources at a time That is a good way to regulate your anxiety information diet and it's a good recovery focused habit to get into Number five. Here's the fifth habit that you can start with Start to record your wins no matter how small they are This is important also because when you are in that that reactivity mode where every time your brain sounds an alarm You say okay alarm alarm alarm and you and you find ways to react to it as if it's real You we lose our sense of judgment there We see everything through a lens of fear and negativity everything went wrong. I felt terrible I was so afraid. I felt like I was going to pass out. I thought I was going to go insane I'm so afraid that I'm going to have a seizure. I'm afraid I'm going to go insane or become psychotic And we just play those things over and over and over and over So we lose sight of the fact that reality shows us that those things don't happen Or when you go out and do an exposure if your therapist is giving you exposure to do you do your exposure You complete it successfully. You've done the the task Or you've met it a life challenge something came up. Oh my god. I had to pick up my son at school I wasn't planning to do that. I did it instead of spending the rest of the day telling yourself How terrible that was because of how you felt and what you thought was going to happen Record the win and the story is essentially I just did a really hard thing And I did it and I was okay. I was just uncomfortable and afraid So start taking some time 10 minutes before bed Do it in your phone record a voice memo scroll it on a napkin get a notebook It doesn't matter, but one really easy habit that you can start to work on is to record your wins Right, so I'm not telling you to not write down your thoughts and feelings That's totally fine if you want to do that, but make sure you're balancing that by also recording reality I felt terrible all day today, but nothing actually happened. I made dinner. I took care of the kids I went to work. I actually did it. I was in two meetings. I did it even though I felt terrible I did it. That's a win you have to start to record those wins and recognize them So that the overwhelming negative I must say stay safe thoughts do not dominate all the time If you do not do this, you will fall into the trap of always judging every situation based on how you feel Or felt or what you thought was going to happen So you start to record your wins which is essentially everything that I thought was going to happen Didn't happen and even though I felt so afraid and incapable. I actually did the task. I did it So record your wins so that reality can start to creep in and weigh in on this Don't let only the fear and the negative thoughts take over So those are our five habits Those are our five recovery focused habits that you can start if you want to slay the dragon in 2022 You're gonna have to build a bunch of these new reaction habits and use them consistently string them together They will add up every time you don't speak your fear Every time you unfollow another mental health account every time you sit and write a 10 minute journal entry at night To describe how you won that day not just how terrible it was every time you do that That's another little paper cut on the dragon. That's another little paper cut on the dragon And so and facetiously I started by saying it's 27,000 paper cuts or it's 100,000 paper cuts It literally is like this is every time we engage in one of these little five habits And then you begin to build more recovery focused habits on top of this Every time you engage in one it's another little paper cut another little cut another little cut and sooner or later You slay the dragon So the outcome does happen over time But if you're in 2022 with that new year new year all charged up I'm gonna this is the years is my year Know that the way your year looks air quotes your this is my year Is this a lot of little habits taken consistently incrementally you glue them together you string them together You build on top of each other and slowly you slay that dragon Slowly you build a new more productive healthy relationship with anxiety and fear. That's how this works So there you go. Let's go over the habits one more time before we head on out The five habits that you can use to start to slay your dragon bit by bit is number one start your day in a new way Do not lie there ruminating and worrying about your day get up and do something productive I don't care how small it is hygiene habits are fine to start with it doesn't matter Get up put your feet on the floor and run that plan every morning Show yourself and your brain that you can do it even when you think you can Number two slow down do the best that you can to slow down when anxiety is telling you to speed up This is difficult. You have to keep reminding yourself slow down slow down slow down But you can do it you can do it and the more you do it every time you slow down instead of speeding up It's another paper cut on the dragon Number three wait to speak your fear before you want to tell somebody again How terrible and awful this is how you feel you want to tell them your symptoms check it out Check my symptoms. Is this right? Does this sound is this really anxiety? Am I okay? Put in those pauses 90 seconds another 90 seconds. Ask yourself. What am I accomplishing here? Fourth one was regulating your anxiety information diet get your head out of the endless doom scroll Of instagram and facebook mental health Much of it is not helping you at all. I would hope that i'm helping you But maybe i'm not either i don't know you'll have to evaluate evaluate that yours that yourself But in the end get out of the endless scroll regulate your anxiety information diet Immersing yourself all day long in social media content and internet content about anxiety and recovery is not good for you Cut that down one or two trusted sources Give them a run for a week or two if you want to switch those sources go ahead but cut that down And number four number five the last habit in this episode is Start to record your wins the wins every day you have them If if nothing more than I got up this morning and I and I took a shower and I got dressed I fed myself. I got the kids off to school. That's a win That's a win start to record those wins It matters. Otherwise you will get stuck and This was such a horrible day. This was so horrible. I felt like it was going to go insane My dpdr was so bad. I think i'm going to lose my mind. I you will get stuck in that pattern Interrupt it by taking 10 minutes at night before you go to bed to record the wins for the day I don't care what they are. It doesn't matter how small they matter So there you go Those of you're five what I would like to think would be anxiety focused habits that you can kind of jump on In 2022 to start to slay that dragon little little bits at a time. All right guys, so That's it. This is episode 189. We're done I'm out of here. I'm going to play you out this song right here This is after globe on my friend ben drake You can find ben and his music at ben drake music.com. Check him out. He's a great guy And he lets me use that song which I love If you're listening to the podcast on itunes or spotify or any place where you can rate and review Leave us a five star rating write a review It really helps out in the podcast if you're watching on youtube Please subscribe to the channel like the video all that the whole nine yards And that's it guys If you don't know the anxious morning if you haven't checked it out Go to the anxious morning com and check out my little daily Email newsletter and podcast comes out every weekday morning. You're going to dig that too. That's it I'll see you guys next week in the next episode. Don't know what it's going to be But it's going to be something and remember this is the way