The Anti-Anxiety Tool Kit
by Melissa Tiers
Stop the bully in your brain:
Think of anxiety as a network of neural clusters in the brain that create an area of association. Neuroscientists say – ‘the cells that fire together, wire together’
For instance a violin player will have an area of association that correlates to the hand she uses to finger the instrument. The more she practices the ore robust the area becomes.The more the pattern, the thicker and stronger the cluster of neuronss becomes
New research shows that the brain is mallable and capable of changing even the most ingrained patterns
So each time you stop the pattern of anxiety, you are working to rewire the brain.
You can interupt the anxiety and connect that cluster to a more resourceful state like relaxation, loosening up the area of association. Stop cravings with the following tricks.
- BI LATERAL STIMULATION
Grab a ball or an apple – anything you can toss and think of something that causes you anxiety. When you feel that anxiety in your body, rate the level of it on a scale of 1 to 10.
Now pass the ball back and forth from one hand to the other, crossing both hemispheres of the brain. It will have a more rapid effect if you keep one hand in front of you as the other swings out to the side each time you pass the ball. Repeat until anxiety completely diffused.
This works because by activating both hemispheres, you are spreading blook and electrical impulses throughout the brain, which floods that area of association and diffuses it – That bully of an anxiety cluster just can’t keep itself together
- PERIPHERAL VISION (Stop the world)
Start by picking a spot or focal point to start. Slowly begin to expand your peripheral vision to include all the space around that spot.
Now expand your vision even further to the sides, all the way up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Expand it even more allowing your visual field to open so that you can imagine almost becoming aware of the space behind you.
After practicing 3 or 4 times, you will notice a general calm come over your mind and body as you realise your internal dialogue has stopped
(Carlos Casteda called this, ‘stopping the world’)
All your habituated patterns, emotional responses, long term memory, cognitive filters and core beliefs are in the domain of the unconscious mind. This is why, when you learn it use it strategically, you will be able to change much faster.
- HEART COHERENCE Created by the heartMath Institutes
Bring your awareness to your heart and as you do, imagine breathing deeply in and out from your heart. You may want to hold your hand over your heart to keep your awareness there as you breathe through it.
Picture your heart pumping healthy blood throughout your body, it is also radiating energy through your whole system.
Your heart is the strongest emitter of electromagnetic energy in the body. By doing the exercise you are beginning to retrain your brain into a coherent and more relaxed brain wave state.
The heart sends information to the brain in many ways:
i) Electromagnetically, through pulse
ii) blood pressure waves which releasing atrial peptide, which inhibits stress hormones
- JAW DROPPING MOMENT
A quick way to begin to take away some of the power from anxiety/craving.
Relax your jaw as much as you can. Loosen it even more and imagine it dropping to the floor.
Doing this stimulates the Vagus nerve which carries information from the nervous system to the brain, keeping it informed about what the body is doing.
When you drop your jaw you are stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system to counteract the fight or flight responses PLUS you are encouraging the lungs to reach for a nice deep breath, creating a flood of the biochemical associated with the relaxation response.
- BECOME THE DIRECTOR
Step out of a situation causing anxiety/ craving and press the pause button – As though you are watching a movie.
Now ask yourself how you would prefer to feel in this situation.
Imagine trying on that better emotional state – like slipping on a coat of cofidence, willpower or calm.
Stepping back into the movie and notice how it feels. If it’s still got some anxiety in it, step out again and add more good, positive feelings before stepping back and trying it again. You could add a colour to the good feelings e.g blue for calm, green for willpower. Notice how that image of yourself takes on that colour and begins to relax; Neck, shoulders, spine, chest and legs.
In your movie, once you feel the way you want to feel, flow out of it and let your mind rehearse this new response. With repetition, you will rewire your brain
- Shifting Perspective
As soon as you start to feel anxious locate where it is in your body. When you find it, notice the shape or other qualities of it and try playing with it. Change the shape and shrink it down and notice what happens. Imagine it has a colour. What colour does it feel like? Now what colour would feel better?
Imagine as your change that colour, the anxiety, cravings changes into something else.
- Another way of feeling better is to imagine dropping right to the centre of that anxiety, physcological or phyisical cravings is breathing through it.
Notice what happens. As you drop to the centre ask yourself ‘If this were a message from my unconscious mind, what is it? or, If there were a lesson here what can I learn from this?
Every emotion has a set of biochemicals associated with it. When you have a certain biochmical state in the body, the brain generates more thoughts and emotions that are similar. It’s as if you have a certain pair of coloured glasses on so that everything you look at is coloured by them.
When you are in an anxiety state, everything you seem can make you feel anxious. The past, present and future are all coloured by that biochemical pair of shades you are wearing and it’s really hard to see a better way or solutions until you take the glassess off.
This is why most of the techniques involve a step off, or out of the memory. This allows you to disassociate long enough for you to take those glasses of and think about a better biochemcial state. By asking yourself ‘How do I want to feel instead? you send the mind on a search for a better feeling state.
Once you find that better state, you have to get yourself to feel it. As you think yourself into that better emotional state, you can imagine that you are putting on a better or rosier pair of glasses rhrough which to view your options of the situation. Notice how things change when the glasses come off or change colours.
- The meaphoric 2 step
When you’ve located where in your body you feel the aniety/craving ask yourself ‘what is this like?’ and notice what metaphor emerges.
A boiling pit? Imagine turning off the flame. Smothering it with a fire blanket. A big boulder? Imagine smashing it with a drill etc.etc.
Sounds too easy? But understand the unconscious mind speaks in metaphors (as in dreams). I challenge you to play with this when you start to feel anxious, have that craving for a particular food or a cigarette. Notice what metaphors symbol come to mind. Than imager a counter metaphor to change it and notice how much better you feel
- CHANGING INTERNAL DIAGLOGUE
Notice how manipulative the internal dialogue you are running that keeps that anxiety/craving going.
As soon as you start feeling the anxiety/craving notice what you are saying to yourself. We are very good at feeding our anxiety or giving in to craving by talking to ourselves. Realising you become more aware of all the things you would rathe be hearing (I am making a decision to be healthier. I am a superhero, all powerful).
Or change the change the tonality of the voice. Minnie Mouse telling yourself you are not good enough. Donald Duck saying that the cake won’t hurt you.
Perhaps a teachers voice saying you can’t sing. Talk to yourself at the age you were when you first started smoking. What did you wear, believe?
Or just add the word SO to the beginning of the sentence – SO what if they don’t like me?
- EFT EMOTIONAL FEELING TECHNIQUE
This technique is a power tool that can be experimented with.
This is extremely rapid in its ability to neutralize anxiety/cravings and the triggers that lead to them.
EFT is a techniqe that involves tapping on powerful acupuncture points while redirectin the mind and conditioning in an anchor for a state of calm.
Robert Smith www.fastereft.com or www.emofree.com
Set an anchor for peace and calm. This is done by taking a moment to close your eyes and recreate a feeling o peace. Think of whatever it takes to remind your body what peace and calm feels like. Now link it to the tapping of the acupuncture points.
Again, a quicker more discreet method iswhen that internal calm state is accessed,just grab hold of upper wrist and take a deep breath. As you slowly exhale think PEACE.
- NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) – GOOD INTENTIONS
NLP is a pseudoscientific approach to communication. Underneath every behaviour is a positive intention. Your unconscious mind is both adaptive and protective and this means we have certain feelings for a reason. When we find out the reasoning, we can work withit to find a better way to satisfy the underlying intention while letting go of the anxiety.
For example, imaginea child who when asked to stand in front of his first grade class, didn’t know the answer and so felt embarrassed and self-conscious. The next time he is called to the front of the room his brain immediately remembers the last time this happened. So he starts to get a little anxious. This causes him to go blank on the answer and once again he feels embarrassed and his system is flooded with stress chemicals.
As an adult, he has a phobia of public speaking. His brain is only trying to protect him from feeling the initial stress and embarrassment – a survival mechanism.
It is useful to honour the subconscious in its attempt to protect us.
The answers already cover solutions to this. Address the reaction and as ‘What’s the message here?’ Imagine have a dialogue with that anxiety/craving and coming to some mutual beneficial way of changing the way to feel or act in certain situations, using some of the solutions we have already covered. Be creative of how you address the cause and how to counteract your reaction.
- DROP THROUGH
Drop through or emotive journeying. = When you start feeling anxious/craving a substance, locate where it is in your body and imagine going right to the center of that feeling. Imagine it as a layer that you can drop through by asking yourself, ‘what’s underneath this?’
Drop through and notice what feeling lies underneath then drop through that by asking ‘what’s underneath this?’ Keep going until you kit a good feeling or resource state.
Sounds crazy? But, once you find the resource at the core, underneath all the layers, then allow yourself to soak it up. Imagine it like an amazing curative energy or elixir and allow it to fill you up.
Once you are full of that core essential state, imagine travelling back up the layers, bringing this amazing energy and noticing how it transforms any negative state.
As you imagine and feel all these emotions changing, notice how much more powerful you feel, notice how different that initial anxiety/craving feels now.
- TURN IT AROUND
Another cognitive approach comes from the work of Byron Katie. It is simple yet has profound effects. I recommend you explore her work in depth www.thework.com.
Basically she believes that the only reason we suffer is because we believe the thoughts we are thinking. Challenge those thoughts as they occur.
Byron does this by asking for questions and then doing what she calls a turn-around, which is a way of inverting the belief.
The first step is to determine the thought that is currently running through your head in the moment or right before the anxiety. Simply as yourself, ‘how am I thinking about this situation or myself that has me feeling anxious?’ e,g, going into a meeting and feeling anxious. How do you feel? Why? Is that true? Dig deep and get to the cause of the feeling. What is the reality? Is it a past memory?
Byron Katie: ‘ you are at war with reality Anytime you are arguing with the things you should or should’t be doing. And is that really working for you?
When challenging beliefs, which creates a feeling of negarivity, anxiouness ir a craving,, your mind knows the routine. Ask yourself, ‘Is this true?’ The emotions will now change.
- SELF HYPNOSIS TO REWIRE THE BRAIN
Because anxiety is a powerful form of hypnosis as it creates many different ideas and misinformation. Hypnosis is a state of hyperfocused awarenesswhere the barrier that separates the conscious and the unconscious mind is pushed aside. This leads you into astate of heightened suggestibility.
An example of this is being wrapped up in a film and feeling the emotions – tears, laughter, fear. The brain doesn’t know the difference between real and an imagined event.
Without even trying or being aware of it you push aside that critical factor of the mind. It happens naturally.
When you have a focused state of awareness combined with suspending disbelief, you will have that heightened state of suggestibility where your unconscious mind is more receptive AND THAT IS HYPNOSIS.
- Find yourself a quiet where you won’t be disturbed and sit comfortably
- Diffuse your focus and relax your vision
- Then close your eyes and think ‘ten’ as you imagine a wave of relaxation moving from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Let it settle in with your breathing
- You will then open your eyes andclose them as you think ‘nine’ andadd another wave of relaxation downyour body.
- Open and close ‘eight’ and feel another layer of relaxation deepening this stat of comfort.
- Allow every muscle togeteven more relaxed as you continue counting down to ‘one’
- Then imagine a movie in your head. This is your template upon which you can add or delete differenc scenes dependingon what you would like towork on.- see yourself being or reacting exatly the way you want to
- When it looks good and compelling, visualise floating into the you that has already started to change. Feel how good it feels
- Then Float back into your body and smile
- This can be done daily changing the movie as you see appropriate
- Don’t use negative words like I dont want to feel anxious’. in the movie. Use positive words ‘I am confident, smoke free, eating healthier, etc’
By practicing self hypnosis regularly, you are conditioning new responses to those negative triggers.
See the SMOKING COURSE TO PERMANENTLY STOP
Possible reaction from others: You won’t be able to, Come on and join us for a smoke
Your response
I’m in control and will no longer allow myself t be a slave to nicotine. It’s nice knowing that I’m free from that crap
To others Thanks but no thanks. Im done I’m done and I’m happy I’m done and already enjoying the benefits
“The most powerful words in the universe is the words you say to yourself”
Marie Foley