 As you can clearly see, I am not a woman but I am somebody who struggles with a generalized anxiety disorder so I can't help but empathize for women who struggle with fear as well as anxiety based on things that happen to women on a regular basis. So in this video we're going to talk about these issues to increase awareness but then we're also going to talk about some solutions so stay tuned. What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. So what is anxiety? Anxiety is a reaction to fear, to stress. It is a natural part of our body that we needed way back in prehistoric times to make sure that we weren't getting eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or something like that. This is our alarm system that tells us that something's going on. So struggling with an anxiety disorder myself, I was constantly afraid of just people and places, situations, social anxiety going out in public and I have a lot of female friends and the stories they tell me, I try to put myself in their shoes and I personally don't even know how I could handle these situations like I have the utmost respect for women for dealing with a lot of these struggles that they deal with. I was inspired to make this video based on a video I saw on Facebook where it was women sharing about these different preventative methods that they have to have when they're walking out to their car alone at night or they're going for a jog by themselves or they're going to a bar or whatever the case is and I'm just like yeah I get that, I get why that makes sense and especially with all these me too stories coming out, I have just seen so many of my female friends talking about the situations that they've had and experienced and it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart knowing that you know this world is a scary enough place as it is and knowing that just based on your gender you have to be a little bit more afraid than everybody else because of all the things that happen in our society. So just to put this in perspective real quick, in 2006 a study was taken by the National Crime Victimization Survey. They found that 232,960 women were victims of sexual violence. That means that is over 600 women per day okay? So when we're talking about why women are so afraid, this is a clear example why. So before making this video, when this idea to make this video came up, I asked a bunch of my female friends. I know a bunch of a lot of women from different backgrounds and different scenarios and I was asking them like what do you do to deal with this anxiety of just being a woman right out in the world and what's interesting is I was talking to one of my friends and I met her a few years ago and one thing I learned about her not only does she like you know do a lot of fitness and she teaches spin classes but she also got certified in combat training and I'm sitting there asking her I'm like yo so like does your combat training like knowing that you have that you know those skills like does that help reduce your anxiety and she told me like to be honest not really and this is a reality of the situation because women are naturally smaller than men and they develop muscles in different ways. My friend you know she's buff she could probably kick my butt right but like if the wrong dude came around I'm like she would have a struggle. So combat training isn't something that you know is able to reduce that anxiety. One commonality that I've seen from a lot of the my women friends who I've talked to about this is that they all carry some kind of defensive protection and this is anything from pepper spray um in some areas I know women who own guns that can fit in their purse. Me personally I am a fan of this little guy that is a cute little key chain stabbing device that looks like a kitty cat so dude tries to roll it up you gouge them in the eye but anyways so a lot of the women I know take these preventative measures and now we're going to start talking about solutions because what this goes off of is what I've talked about in a couple of my last videos which is the locus of control knowing what is in your realm of control having that internal locus of control it helps reduce the anxiety knowing that if something were to happen you have some sort of escape or defense against this potential threat while in no way is this a 100 guarantee what I encourage women out there to do is find the things that you can control and when talking to my best friend about this too she brought up mindfulness she's one of my only friends who actually practices mindfulness and we were talking about this and practicing mindfulness is another way to increase your locus of control because mindfulness in a nutshell is paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgment so when you are regularly being mindful you are always paying attention to your surroundings so some people just for example you might go out to a certain scenario and you notice that something's off but you can't really put your finger on it people who regularly practice mindfulness that internal alarm goes off a lot sooner and they acknowledge what it is they are better at pointing out the exact reason why this scenario is maybe not okay so I highly recommend aside from preventative type of defense but also picking up a mindfulness practice I will link in the description as well as in the info card my video about that my three favorite free mindfulness apps you can practice for as little as five minutes a day and what it's doing is it's increasing your overall awareness as well as your sensory clarity on my channel we talk about the problem but we focus on the solution so please if you are a woman watching this or if you know a woman please share this with them to maybe give them solutions but for the question of the day my female audience or even men out there who know women who do something to help reduce their anxiety in this crazy world leave it down in the comments below because maybe we can offer advice and suggestion to others who are looking for it so if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you haven't yet quit right below here I'm always doing videos about mental health mental illness and addiction so hit that little round subscribe button but anyways I appreciate you watching if you want to check out more videos click her top right there but I'll see you next time thanks again