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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;26;27
Dr. John Mayer
Welcome to Anxiety's a bitch. Episode three. I'm calling this episode. Build a fortress against anxiety. You might call it prevention. I apologize for using such a vile curse word. Prevention. What's he talking about? Oh, in the US health care industry. Prevention is just a dirty word. It's disgusting to the CEOs.
00;00;26;29 - 00;00;55;09
Dr. John Mayer
It doesn't generate any billable hours. Well, I might be banned from podcast, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. Before I launch into this podcast, I would encourage you to review the first two podcasts in this series as a reminder of the fundamentals I discussed. Let's get at it. One of the most transformational methods I use to help people cum their anxiety is to help them build a personal world that buffers them from stress.
00;00;55;12 - 00;01;21;00
Dr. John Mayer
It's like building a fortress that has an invisible force field around you that keeps anxiety out. I have to issue a warning. I'm going to make this sound like I'm billing you a Disney World. Cinderella's castle. But to create this lifestyle fortress, it's not easy. You have to be patient. Some things won't work for you at first. But remember that little seed analogy I mentioned in episode one?
00;01;21;02 - 00;01;48;09
Dr. John Mayer
Keep pushing up and up and you will become a flower. Let's peel the onion here and start with your most outer surroundings. And I'll work my way inside. Please pause this podcast now. Well, that's a cool iteration. Take a look in the mirror. Take a good look. Now quickly Google the words images of happy people. Then immediately return to the podcast.
00;01;48;11 - 00;02;15;11
Dr. John Mayer
Do you see any of these people appear messy? Unclean? Are they in settings surrounded by filth? Clutter? Hoarding? I can't tell you how many times I'm telling people to care about their appearance and surroundings, and how it builds confidence and wards off anxiety. Next, take a look at your living space. No, don't turn me off this time. Take me along.
00;02;15;13 - 00;02;46;03
Dr. John Mayer
Look around. Order! Chaos. Clean. I don't have to be Neil deGrasse Tyson to tell you that if your house is in chaos, your emotions will be also. Clean it up and put it in order. Watch Marie Kondo or HGTV if you have to, but get your house in order. It's amazing how this eliminates anxiety. By the way, the activity of cleaning and ordering your house is a great anxiety coping mechanism in and of itself.
00;02;46;05 - 00;03;10;01
Dr. John Mayer
As you focus on these tasks, it takes your mind off worries. The finished products makes your life so much easier when you know things are clean and you can use them efficiently emotionally, you'll feel at ease, relaxed and comforted. Speaking of Marie Kondo, she would be proud of me. My closet is super organized. My hand clothes are color coordinated.
00;03;10;01 - 00;03;38;16
Dr. John Mayer
Same with my shoes. Everything else is labeled and plastic tubs. No, I'm not obsessive compulsive. I like to sleep. Sleep is huge to a healthy lifestyle. Yep. Again, we didn't need Neil deGrasse to explain that either. So any and everything that gives me milliseconds more sleep. I'm for and getting dressed in the morning is hassle. Number one, my clothes are organized and handy.
00;03;38;19 - 00;04;07;00
Dr. John Mayer
Boom! Quick dress. Less stress. Another one of those alterations come for the psychology. Get the poetry as a bonus. I have learned to keep my desk and workspace in the same order. Typically, I finish seeing patients around 12 or 1:00 in the morning. But before I quit for the day, I put away my files, notes, close my computer and clean off my desk.
00;04;07;02 - 00;04;39;13
Dr. John Mayer
Why? Again, because it makes me more efficient and less stress. And when I come back in the morning, it looks clean and fresh and professional. I don't let garbage spilled all over my desk. Give me an instant distaste for going to work. That brings me to the many interventions I did in the 2020 pandemic. During this time, so many of my telemedicine patients were working from home and I could see their homes and apartments as part of the therapy.
00;04;39;13 - 00;05;09;06
Dr. John Mayer
I offered this technique and the results were spectacular. Let me give you an example. One of my patients was a very senior executive at one of the leading U.S. companies. Like so many executives during the pandemic, he was filled with the anxiety of working from home. He was in a panic and totally burned out. I noticed that he was working in an empty room in his condo, sitting on a folding chair and using a card table as a desk.
00;05;09;08 - 00;05;43;21
Dr. John Mayer
In our second session, I gave him the following intervention. My friend. How can you feel good about yourself as a seven figure top executive? When you're staring at a laptop on a cheap card table and sitting on a steel folding chair in an empty room, painted quite ugly, by the way. He chuckled and took the point. Well. Every session session since then, that room became more and more decorated, more comfortable, and even painted in the 21st century color.
00;05;43;24 - 00;06;13;01
Dr. John Mayer
He began to feel better and better about himself in his situation. Using the techniques I detailed in episode two helped of course, as well. I think you get it. The benefits of keeping your environment neat, clean, and organized are enormous for calming anxiety. As Nike would say, just do it. Taking care of business here takes minutes, but the benefits are astronomical.
00;06;13;03 - 00;06;45;29
Dr. John Mayer
That word with apologies to Neil deGrasse Tyson. Of course. Ever wonder how neat and organized he is creating this order in your life to tamp down anxiety leads me to one of the techniques I teach that is most beneficial. Scheduling and calendaring or managing your time. Ever wonder why every cell phone, computer, iPad, laptop, notebook, all of our electronic devices come with a calendar app.
00;06;46;01 - 00;07;15;21
Dr. John Mayer
It's because all these companies were started by genius wizards that are screaming at you to use this app, like I did to become a genius wizard billionaire. The problem is that most of us use our calendars as memorials or museums of dates, rather than a tool to make your life less stressed. I don't care if you're 14 or 84, if you're not using your calendar and scheduling your time.
00;07;15;23 - 00;07;44;11
Dr. John Mayer
Shame on you. You are missing an easy tool to reduce your stress and make your life easier. Scheduling your time is not just filling in time slots on your calendar and forgetting about it. Here's how to use it. Best. Fill in your regularly set work or school attendance obligations first within those hours. Write in the specific names of the scheduled meetings or classes.
00;07;44;13 - 00;08;12;13
Dr. John Mayer
Now those are what I might call set times. I give these entries the wrong color, but the beauty of this system is how you manage off set times. Offset times generate the most anxiety. We are typically casual about offset times. Oh, I have to get this report done by Friday or I have to study for that test. But we don't give these tests there.
00;08;12;14 - 00;08;41;03
Dr. John Mayer
Do you remember that concept from episode two? We talk about them as if they are some fog that hangs over us. I suggest you block out time on your calendar for offset time tasks, both professional and personal, and give each type of task its own color. Color code everything for quick reference. Calendar. Everything. Time to do work. Reports and projects.
00;08;41;10 - 00;09;18;21
Dr. John Mayer
Research. Reading. Preparations for meetings. Everything. Even personal chores. Workouts. Dating's. Party. Students in your offset times. Schedule. Study times for subjects. Reading and research time. Practice for the Arts. Sports practices. Club meetings. Dates, parties. Workouts. Chores. Calls to mom and dad, and so on. Every category of event gets its own color. Here's a crucial tip for everyone when you schedule time.
00;09;18;24 - 00;09;45;22
Dr. John Mayer
Be strict with the start and stop times. You give a task, even the personal ones. Okay, I just heard Mr. Heckler know you. I don't have to be strict on dates or parties and such, but I will say you can lessen your anxiety if you apply this to the mom and dad. Call. Start times don't mean that you are getting your beverage, clearing your emails, finding the correct files.
00;09;45;29 - 00;10;11;17
Dr. John Mayer
No, it means you are ready to start right into that task and n times are vital. The most important part of calendaring this is when we are the most negligent. If you allow an hour to do an assigned task, stop on time. I recommend setting your phone alarm to warn you that you have to wrap it up in a moment or two.
00;10;11;20 - 00;10;39;10
Dr. John Mayer
Okay, doctor, time. What if I'm right at the end of finishing something? Am I? Time is up. Well, here's where we get sloppy. And we open the door to mutual anxiety. Stop. Don't go on. Instead, look at your calendar and put the finishing into an open time slot. Or move something else around. Here's why. Typically, what we do is we are working on something.
00;10;39;10 - 00;11;04;17
Dr. John Mayer
We get on a roll, but we reach the end of the time allotted and we run over into our next obligation. That makes a mess of this task. Makes you late, rushes you. You miss five things and you become super anxious. My system is cleaner and it's built to stop anxiety in its tracks. You control your time. Time doesn't control you.
00;11;04;20 - 00;11;28;09
Dr. John Mayer
Endings are critical. Here's another advantage of endings. When you have that horrible project, you just have to get done and you've given it a scheduled time. It helps to get you through it. When you look at the clock and say, okay, this sucks, but it's over at 10:00 no matter what. I can do that. Or you want another reason to hold fast to endings.
00;11;28;12 - 00;11;49;27
Dr. John Mayer
How about the fact that leaving something and coming back to it with fresh eyes makes you a genius? You study better, you solve the unsolvable problem, or you come up with the brilliant innovation or the right words. All right, all right. I can see in the long thing in your faces for one last things I need. Reducing benefit of calendaring.
00;11;49;29 - 00;12;24;04
Dr. John Mayer
You schedule a task and then complete that time slot. Cross it off, and you've just given yourself a big attaboy. Seeing a time slot completed on your calendar is an affirmation. Affirmations build confidence and self-esteem phenomenally. Scheduling and calendaring brings me to another aspect of time being on time. We have a love hate relationship with time and more on the hate actually meeting.
00;12;24;04 - 00;12;52;11
Dr. John Mayer
Start ten minutes late. Emails returned weeks late and we accept this behavior. We don't realize the anxiety it causes not only for ourselves but for others. Ever think about how the person waiting feels? Anxious for sure. Irritated? Probably. And the cycle we create by being late is that it makes us late on the back end, and we create that revolving door of being late for our next meeting, and on and on.
00;12;52;14 - 00;13;22;22
Dr. John Mayer
The result is we have built an anxiety timebomb over what? Something very preventable. Reduce anxiety. Be on time. Let me throw in an extra bonus reward of being on time. You will learn a boatload about the people, the topic of a meeting, your client, etc. by being on time. I make a habit when I consult or give a speech to arrive at the facility 20 minutes early.
00;13;22;25 - 00;13;50;01
Dr. John Mayer
I cruise around the community, browse inside the building, schmooze with the gatekeepers, banter with the office staff. This gives me a tremendous advantage when I give a speech. I make a reference to a local business. The crowd knows I'm in, did my homework, and I care. By the way, this technique works for zoom meetings as well. When you are early, you chit chat with the other attendees.
00;13;50;03 - 00;14;28;22
Dr. John Mayer
You get a peek into their homes or offices, and you're never the one feeling left out or playing catch up. Hey, want a gossipy tangent? You know who really sucks at being on time? Returning calls, emails, texts, the Hollywood types. But I have time. And another episode. I can show you how to get around these facades. In the next episode, I'm going to go from building our outside fortress to building your internal one to reduce anxiety, things that come from inside you to create your total fortress against anxiety.
00;14;28;24 - 00;14;39;24
Dr. John Mayer
I'll see you then.