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Let’s break the rules here. The first 5 of these Podcasts get right into practical help. Only after that I get around the long boring, but important stuff on what Anxiety is and does to your body. If you are suffering from anxiety-YOU DAMN WELL KNOW WHAT IT IS!
Let’s fix it!
I created this series as a reaction to all the pop-psychology and pseudo-science advice on the Internet. Patients mentioning these posts make me tired and grouchy.
I am a noted and accomplished clinical psychologist, a scientist and a clinician. These podcasts cut through those weeds of bad advice and give you very usable, practical approaches to calm your ANXIETY. If you want to quickly calm your stress and anxiety, listen in.
The techniques and approaches here are solidly based on the best practices and research in mental health and on the analysis of 6200 successful cases of coping with anxiety. Each episode gives doable techniques to help you NOW! These easy-to-listen podcasts are reassuringly life changing!
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;21;29
Dr. John Mayer
Episode six Anxiety's a bitch. What the hell is anxiety, anyhow? Shu. The first five episodes bombarded you with tips and techniques. Now we can catch our breath a bit here and discuss in more detail what anxiety is and what it isn't. Oh wait, I promised you a bonus tip.
00;00;22;02 - 00;00;47;27
Dr. John Mayer
So let me keep my promise. Here's a tip that helps many people. It's more about your mental attitude towards sources of anxiety rather than behaviors. Try to reframe stressful situations into learning and growth opportunities. When a stressful situation comes into your life, instead of bracing yourself and preparing to fight. Try thinking to yourself, what can I learn from this?
00;00;48;00 - 00;01;16;06
Dr. John Mayer
And what can I get out of this? Some examples. Taking tests. A work review. An ache or a pain? Remember the Dean's lecture from episode one? Money worries. Our little flower example from an earlier episode also showed us how growth stems from struggle. Take criticism and feedback as learning. What is this teaching me and what can I get out of this?
00;01;16;08 - 00;01;44;10
Dr. John Mayer
Now let's talk about what anxiety is. Confession I've been guilty in the previous episodes of occasionally using the terms anxiety and stress interchangeably. I did this on purpose because there is a fine line between the two. As I'll explain now, and most importantly, the methods I have been detailing in these podcasts to calm your emotions are the same for both anxiety and stress.
00;01;44;13 - 00;02;14;25
Dr. John Mayer
Both anxiety and stress are emotional responses, but stress is typically caused by an external happening. The trigger can be short term, such as a work deadline or a fight with a loved one, or long term, such as being unable to work. Discrimination or chronic illness. Often, stress is reduced when the external cause has been eliminated, such as when you finish a hard work assignment or money worries are reduced.
00;02;14;27 - 00;02;42;03
Dr. John Mayer
Anxiety, on the other hand, is caused by internal reactions to stressors or causes. It is anxiety when you have a persistent feeling of worry or dread. Anxiety hangs on even when that stressor is reduced or eliminated. See the difference? Anxiety is the most common mental health issue in the United States. Anxiety disorders are classified in the following ways.
00;02;42;06 - 00;03;14;24
Dr. John Mayer
Generalized anxiety. Panic disorder. Phobias, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. By the way, we are tackling all of these anxieties in this podcast series, and post-traumatic stress disorder will have its own episode. It's more common than you think. Look for it. Anxiety and stress can cause many of the same physical and mental symptoms.
00;03;14;27 - 00;03;48;00
Dr. John Mayer
But because anxiety is of longer duration, the physical toll on the body can be long lasting and devastating, and the physical manifestations of anxiety can be quite surprising and unusual. Importantly, controlling stress, as I have been demonstrating throughout these podcasts, can significantly reduce these physical illnesses. To help you understand anxiety, I'd like to go through some of the ways that anxiety can cause physical reactions in your body.
00;03;48;03 - 00;04;16;18
Dr. John Mayer
I have seen and helped many of these unusual conditions. First, let me explain a general principle of why our body gets so affected by anxiety. The operations of the brain. Thinking and emotion don't just occur by some stagnant process. The neurons that could fired, and the electrical energy that it takes for the brain to operate takes energy. And that energy has to go somewhere.
00;04;16;21 - 00;04;46;00
Dr. John Mayer
This energy then travels through our bodies to explain what happens next. I have to take you back to high school. Physics. The second law of thermodynamics. Remember that from standardized tests. This law explains that energy has to go somewhere. It just doesn't die. So in this case, the energy created by anxiety ends up being dispersed throughout our bodies and our health pays a price.
00;04;46;02 - 00;05;19;07
Dr. John Mayer
Muscles tighten. Biochemistry changes. Blood pressure rises. Head pounds. Nerves. Fire. The body reacts fiercely. An example will help a young man I treated in therapy. He had thigh cramps and leg shaking when he first saw me. These were manifestations of his anxiety as therapy helped him cope with his anxiety. This symptom amazingly traveled on to stomach pains and an over buildup of stomach acid.
00;05;19;09 - 00;05;47;00
Dr. John Mayer
Then it traveled upward to chest pains and a sore throat. And finally dry mouth. And as if expelled out his mouth, his physical symptoms of anxiety were gone. All this time, his primary care physician could not detect many physical causes to these symptoms. I know this seems like voodoo, but there are other surprising effects anxiety can have on our physical health.
00;05;47;03 - 00;06;21;08
Dr. John Mayer
Each of these have been reported in medical studies. I cite the muscle tension of anxiety can blur, vision caused excessive tearing and more burning sensations in the muscles, particularly large muscles such as the thighs and calves. The back, arm, shoulders, seizure disorders, strange odors, and or the lack of sense of smell. So interesting in this time of Covid and can be confused with Covid.
00;06;21;11 - 00;07;07;05
Dr. John Mayer
Dizziness, earaches, lack of coordination. Diarrhea, loose bowels and frequent urination. Tics shakes this one most people know memory loss, forgetfulness, cognitive dysfunction, lack of concentration, weight gain, cravings especially for fats. More about that in a minute. Sleep disorders and nightmares. Heart palpitations. Heart problems. Again commonly recognized weak immune system. Autoimmune disorders. Jaw pain. Teeth grinding. Sweating. Hair loss and skin issues.
00;07;07;07 - 00;07;37;04
Dr. John Mayer
Why can all this happen? Let me get all sciencey here. Bear with me. It's important. And I think you'll find it interesting. Anxiety stimulates the amygdala in the brain. This is part of the limbic system. The amygdala then sends signals to the regions of the frontal cortex that are involved in analyzing and interpreting data. Next, the brain evaluates whether this data the anxiety here is a threat to you.
00;07;37;06 - 00;08;09;14
Dr. John Mayer
Thus, judgment is involved. As a result, the fight or flight response is evoked. Cortisol, a hormone, is released in the adrenal cortex and this increases blood sugar and blood pressure. Higher blood sugar and blood pressure has effects on sleep. Headaches, stomach problems, and many of those physical reactions I just listed. The allostatic load on the body is increased.
00;08;09;17 - 00;08;44;11
Dr. John Mayer
Think of this Allostatic load is the total amount of stuff your body has to take care of every second of your life. Health is a proper balance in this over all load. The allostatic load increase has effects on the hypothalamic pituitary gland, the sympathetic nervous system, and the overall cardiovascular system. Interesting is that the increased allostatic load leads to an increase in consuming of drumroll fat.
00;08;44;13 - 00;09;09;04
Dr. John Mayer
Now you can guess why I was drawn to be a psychologist and studied the brain. My cardiologist friends can argue all they want, that the heart is the most important organ in the body, but without the brain sending messages to the heart, the pump will. That pump will shut off. Similarly, my proctologist friends scream at me that the anus is the most important part of the body.
00;09;09;06 - 00;09;32;27
Dr. John Mayer
I was just trying to see if you were paying attention. But I will tell you, the proctologist does scream a lot. After all, it's a dirty job. Okay, okay, I'll stop now. But to. To be honest, I don't know any proctologist. By the way. Oh, I see a hand waving in the audience. What about worry? Isn't worry anxiety or stress?
00;09;32;29 - 00;10;07;16
Dr. John Mayer
Worry is a trigger. Or you might think of it as a subcategory for both anxiety and stress. And like stress, worry doesn't by itself cause such strong damage on the body as anxiety. Often worry is defined by mental health professionals as apprehensive. Expectations. This apprehension is negative and can result in fear. Worry is also typically focused on one target, whereas whereas anxiety is an overall feeling.
00;10;07;18 - 00;10;35;26
Dr. John Mayer
Finally, most professionals categorize worry as purely mental, whereas anxiety is both physical and mental. Let me explain that distinction. The act of worrying is centered on the prefrontal cortex, our thinking part of the brain, whereas anxiety engages not only that area of the brain, but also the limbic system and other parts of the brain, such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus.
00;10;36;01 - 00;11;06;17
Dr. John Mayer
As I mentioned earlier, anxiety affects our overall mood day functioning more pervasively and not as identifiable as worry anxieties. Root cause in US is often not identifiable and therefore more frightening. Whereas with worry, we can typically identify the focus of what is troubling us. In short, our bodies act more severely in anxiety and less and worry. Well, there you have it.
00;11;06;19 - 00;11;33;08
Dr. John Mayer
This is what anxiety is and isn't. Most importantly, this is what we are facing and trying to control anxiety. Next up in episode seven. Yep, I'm changing gears again. And instead of continuing to look at Anxiety's effects on the body as previously scheduled, we'll look at anxiety and kids. Then in episode eight, I will take up performance anxiety.
00;11;33;10 - 00;11;37;23
Dr. John Mayer
Hope to see you then.