Anxiety Recovery ... Chasing "Rest and Digest" (Episode 93)

SPEAKER_02 0:01

How do I rest and digest? Fight, flight, freeze, fall. Basically, if you're anxious, you're in a sympathetic state. And then on the flip side, you've got your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

If I am not calm, I'm screwed. All bets are off, and I have to start taking special evasive action. I either want to get back into the calm, rest and digest, or I want to prevent ever leaving it. I'm only okay if I'm there. Impossible. They're constantly trying to chase calm, but it has a paradoxical effect. I'm trying to control a thing, a state that is not meant to be controllable for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Anxiety recovery is when the majority of our days are in rest and digest, but we don't care if it goes into sympathetic state because life is stressful and anxiety does trigger.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Welcome to episode 93 of Disordered. Today we're talking about rest and digest. How do I rest and digest? I am Drew Linsolata, a therapist practicing under supervision in New York, specializing in the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders. I'm a former sufferer of anxiety disorders for a very long time, an author, a podcaster, an advocate, an educator on the topic, and yeah, one half of disordered, along with I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh on social media.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety and anxiety disorders, previous sufferer, author of several books, podcast, co-host, and I like to rest and digest by eating something that's been deep fried and lying down.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

I haven't eaten yet today. Now I'm starving. What is rest and digest? This is a this is a phrase I've I think I've heard once or twice, but I never use it. Fill me in.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Yeah, so if you've got anxiety, tune in. Well, it's probably why you are have tuned in. I do have anxiety, Josh. Stupid thing to say. Uh you've got to understand, you know, the involuntary nervous system. We keep it very simple. You've got your sympathetic nervous system, which is fight, flight, freeze, fawn. Basically, if you're anxious, you're in a sympathetic state, you know, which is ironic because you're not really sympathetic when you're anxious. That makes sense, right? Yeah. So that's the sympathetic state. And then on the flip side, you've got your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest. So when you're someone who isn't thinking about their anxiety, your intrusive thoughts, threat monitoring, scanning, going on Reddit to try and find the carbon copy of yourself to give you the 100% reassurance that you're not going crazy and that you will be okay, when you're not doing all that stuff and you don't do your compulsions, or you're just distracted, engaged in things, you'll find yourself in the rest and digest state. This is when we all feel like those windows of I feel like normal me. Oh wow. And if you listen to the last episode, well, maybe I should um, you know, uh check to see if I'm okay. Oh no, oh damn it, I'm back in sympathetic state again. Um, could talk a bit about how do how do I access this? How do I access rest and digest? Or how do I just feel like normal me again?

SPEAKER_03 3:09

So rest and digest is that you're chilled, you're not necessarily under stress, you give your body is literally at rest and has the ability to do those like maintenance things like digesting food and repairing itself and doing that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah, it's basically when you're calm. But I use this as a conceptualization for anxiety is that anxiety recovery is when the majority of our days are in rest and digest, but we don't care if it goes into sympathetic state because life is stressful and things anxiety does trigger. Now, for a lot of people who are trying to chase anxiety recovery, they think that they have to constantly be in rest and digest. And any switch from that, any autonomic state shift, which is the nerdy term, into sympathetic, well, that's the place where our anxiety exists and we fear it. How do I immediately get back to rest and digest? And that's when we start to try to force it. Resistance, shock, attention, resistance, compulsions, because actually, unconsciously or even consciously, we're trying to force ourselves into rest and digest. And this applies to anyone who's tried meditation, it didn't work. Yes, because you're trying to force your state, you're trying to force it into that. For me, I used to obsess about food, digestion, things like that. I was trying to force rest and digest, quite literally, whilst being in a sympathetic state, and wondered why my digestion was messed up, acid reflux, bloating, etc. And then I was doing more and more behaviors in that. And so what we're going to talk about today, which kind of echoes a lot of what we speak about, is how do I get to rest and digest the calm state the quickest?

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Or I might also say, how do I make sure that I stay in that? Because I think you hit on something important. Like a lot of people in our community just feel like I'm only the only okay, acceptable, safe state is that is rest and digest. I'm if I am not calm, I'm screwed. All bets are off, and I have to start to take special evasive action. So I either want to get back into the calm, rest and digest, or I want to prevent ever leaving it. I'm only okay if I'm there. Impossible.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

And actually, non-anxious people switch between the two all day, every day. Yeah, it's normal. It's it's normal, but because the association with being in the sympathetic state scares us, we think recovery is only being in the rest and digest. And these are the people that are like, yeah, they they've they're constantly trying to chase calm, but it has a paradoxical effect.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Yeah, that's true. The more you're trying, because I think well, you know what? The takeaway here probably we'll get right. We're five minutes in. Here's the takeaway, we're out, everybody. No, you'd say takeaway. Yeah, the takeaway. Now I'm hungry. I can see it in his face, like, I'm hungry now. The takeaway here might be, or the general principle would be it's that thing where I'm trying to control a thing, a state that is not meant to be controllable for the most part, right? The change in state from activated to calm is there for a reason. It serves a purpose. We have to have it. So trying to manage it, I'm gonna micromanage it. You know, that's this whole thing, of course. Regulators, control. Yeah, if I'm gonna I gotta regulate so that I can micromanage and always be on top of controlling the state that I'm in, whether it's sympathetic or parasympathetic. And that's just not, it was not ever designed to be that way. It just wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Yeah, yeah. And and this is why you've got to be careful with the information you take in. So before this episode, Drew and I were talking a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of things like polyvagal theory. And there's a lot of stuff, and if you're anxious, you're gonna have this in your feeds and things like that. So be very careful, you know. Like, here's a device that can stimulate your polyvagal nerve. You're trying to shortcut a way to try and get to rest and digest. And you see it, there's someone led on a bed, and they've got this gadget attached to their temple, and they look really calm, and you only have to pay an exorbitant amount of money in order to have this kind of you know, snake oil be being sent to you. And it's just like, no, because it's impossible, because what you're doing here, and the pr and one of the underlying messages of this podcast is that there's something called reciprocal inhibition, where you can't be in both states at the same time, nor can you observe the exact moment you switch into rest and digest. This is why you suddenly everyone does this, every anxious person does this. Oh, I'm calm. They never go, watch. I'm gonna count to five, and my anxiety is gonna disappear. Ready? One, two, boom, I'm calm. Never works, never, ever works. I've spent days, weeks, months just staring at my anxiety, hoping for it to go away. But because I'm in a sympathetic state, fight or flight, I'm behaving like that is appropriate. I'm looking for threats. So if I'm in fight or flight, sympathetic state, doing a safety behavior, i.e., looking for threats, that is not going to trigger rest and digest, the calm state. And this is what was a light bulb moment for me. And for others, like, oh, that's actually a compulsion. I'm trying to rush it along.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

I think, and that's with a paradox there, especially is you are essentially using parasympathetic tools. I'm sorry, sympathetic tools to try to force the parasympathetic state.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

So now I'm going to do the things that like I do when I'm in an activated state, which is monitoring, checking, being very aware, like threat detection, situational awareness. Like, I'm gonna do all of those things, which are the hallmarks of the activated state, to attempt to force the inactive state. Really? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Jamming on the gas pedal to try to slow down. That ain't gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Always pops out, people, particularly with the anxious people are obsessed about the digestion, IBS symptoms, etc., and they will force everything down them, you know, like senicots and lactatives and all these things. Don't get me wrong, if you have IBS separate to this, yep, that that's a different thing. But a lot of anxious people will focus on that, or they'll try and focus whether it's focusing on D DPDR or whatever, they try to monitor for it and obsess, observe of it, because they believe that using sympathetic tools can put them in a sympathetic state, and that just does not work. It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

I know. Did you do that, Drew? Oh, I did constantly, constantly, constantly. Because I think you can't just do it's interesting because if we look at things like, well, like you said, well, I meditate and it doesn't work. All right. Well, if we're using meditation and mindfulness in the acceptance thing, and we're learning to watch the process, observing is more of a parasympathetic thing. So that's why some people can't get their head around meditation. That's exactly right. No, no, no, meditation isn't about calming down, it's about being able to watch this process, the machine work without jumping on it to ride it. So that's what that's interesting. And then the part where like you I love when you say, like, I spent all day long staring at my anxiety. I I I have a clear image of what that looked like, but it seems so accurate. And even in, and I don't know if you would agree with this, even when working with therapy clients, we're doing like uh it's interceptive exposures or imaginal exposures in in session, and we're literally using tools like suds numbers to let the person watch it go up and down until I ask the person how what that number is, then they have to think about it like, oh, oh, it's gone down. Yeah, we're literally doing an exercise where we're using a suds number to measure it on purpose for a reason, and they still can't notice the time when it changes.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

You can never do it, it's impossible. It's one of the biggest illusions of anxiety. Yeah, if I keep an eye on it, it'll come down. No, you've got it. There must be an analogy we've got here. It's like you've just run a bath, you know, and you take the plug out. He's he's standing there observing, watching the bath you know, unfill itself. No, you're not. Because you just kind of trust that it's gonna empty itself. Yeah. But anxious people are like, I can only feel better when the bath is completely empty. So they unplug it and they watch it and they watch it and they watch it and they watch it and they watch it. And eventually, yeah, maybe, maybe it will. But it takes a long time, it's a waste of time. You could have ordered something deep fried and delicious and done so much more with that time, but instead, no, we're observing your observation, is yeah, that is a behavior from fight or flight. Yeah, and which would explain why when we are distracted and engaged, we are less anxious.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Yeah, interesting. Uh then there's the whole, because exhaustion does play a role in this, right? We uh one cool thing about the sympathetic nervous system is it's time limited. Like we don't have the ability to maintain that. For I know people are gonna say, no, I have panic attacks the last days. I know we've talked about rolling or undelated panic. So go back and listen to that. But it is, it's time limited by physiology. So if you're looking, if you use the the draining bathtub uh, you know, image, which I think is great, I'm sitting and watching it, watching it. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, drain. And then ultimately the tub is in fact empty, and I'm like, job well done. And I pat myself on the back because I did that because I watched it so closely and I wished so hard for an empty tub. It was gonna empty no matter what, whether I watched it, went and read a book, talked to my dog, like it doesn't matter. It was gonna empty anyway.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Yeah, and and and also it's not fun to watch it. You know, what if it doesn't? I wouldn't even use a bathtub, I'd use a swimming pool. Those poor guys have got to clean the swimming pool. Imagine they've got to empty it all out. Then they sat there just watching the swimming pool. And yeah, and the time's gonna go by a lot slower. And if you know these got up, he's done something, read a book, done things that activate parasympathetic and other things too, like socializing. Have you noticed when you've suddenly engaged in a conversation? I did this when I was last on a plane, I was nervous, so then I was like, Well, what would non-anxious me do? So I just started talking to the person next to me, and five minutes later, I wasn't anxious. I didn't even notice it changed.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

So it's yeah, like if you want to try, how do I get to rest and digest? Act like you're in rest and digest. Yes, while you're gonna know you want to feel right, while you're not, though. That's the part that trips people up. Like, but I'm not, I'm not Tom. I know I'm not parasympathetically activated. I'm clearly in a state of anxiety. Well, are you willing to feel that as it is and accept it as it is, and then take the risk of acting as if you are okay? Because that's the only thing. And again, if I go back to my like therapy client example, we're having a conversation, like we're literally involved in like debriefing, or we're talking about what's going on, the exposure, you know, we're coaching them through, like recognize watching the feelings. Can you describe it? Does it have a color? Blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. They're doing a parasymp, they're doing a parasympathetic thing, they're conversing with me. And then all of a sudden, that's when they're like, Well, it's your number now. Oh, oh, oh, went down. Oh, now I'm at I'm at 40. Like, oh, see what happened? Like, and why do you think that happened? Oh, and some people will say, Oh, because you distract you're here to distract me. I'm talking with you. I'm like, but isn't it a risk to talk to me instead of monitoring your heart? Yeah, oh, you know, then you get that light bulb moment, it's really great.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

But yeah, it's getting your head around the fact that you know, sympathetic nervous system is is is your activation, your executive function increases, which is a posh word for do something, do something. Yeah, and when you go, hmm, I kind of don't, I know sympathetic nervous system being in fight or flight, executive function, that is my brain telling me I'm anxious, I need to do something. Yeah, uh, and when you don't do something, or do something else, yeah, you signal to the brain, our friend, the amygdala, nah, I'm not gonna act out like I'm not gonna do what you suggest with that urgency. You know, I'm gonna behave how I want to feel right now. Yeah, and lo and behold, if you commit to it, it works. You just have to have patience.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Someone is screaming at you to do something, and you take the risk of doing something else, often it will like it's gonna chime in and do the whole like, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Then I don't just do something, do this. I need you to watch your heartbeat or count your breaths or like watch to see if your DPDR okay is okay, or are you really feeling like you want to hurt yourself? Like, no, no, don't don't go read a book. That's not what I meant by do something. Like, so the anxiety response is very specific. It doesn't want you to just do something, it's very specific of what it wants you to do. Very prescriptive, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah, it applies to people with morning anxiety. You wake up, default thought that we uh spoke about in the previous episode, really good episode if you check it out. Default thought is how do I feel? Oh, I don't feel great, you know. And then there's the chance now, like to be usually when you wake up in bed, I like to on a Sunday, like I like to lie there for a bit, chill out, whatever, listen to my audiobook, wake up, read the news. Um, I'm in behaving, I do that regardless in the morning, whether I wake up feeling anxious or tired or whatever. I have that parasympathetic behavioral routine. But for the people that feel stuck and they feel dejected and annoyed in the morning, oh, why is this still here? Whatever. The behaviors fall under the sympathetic state. Because look, you're acting like a meerkat. Basically, a sympathetic state is you are a meerkat. Picture a mere cat. A meerkat, one of them has to stand on the edge of the burrow looking for stuff, it's always looking for danger, and you're in meerkat mode, but you don't always have to be in meerkat mode, you know. We can find out the sloth state. I love that meerkat and the sloth state, you know. Find your inner sloth state and practice with it, and then what will happen is that you will get more and more autonomic state shifts, which is the switch between sympathetic and parasympathetic. And anxiety recovery is the shift between those. The more and more, the more you practice, the more you practice willful tolerance, the more you practice all everything that we bang on about on this podcast, those switches are great. And like Drew says, it's the difference between the oh my god, uh well so what? Right. Then you will the more you practice that, the more your nervous system will switch and the quicker will switch.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

I love the morning stuff. That thing, you know, I'm gonna listen to my audiobook, watch the news, or whatever it is, you know, make my coffee. When I when I wrote the book, The Anxious Truth, I wrote about that. I even call it the morning effect. I think the morning is a really great time to practice rest and digest. Because the default for so many anxious people is I wake up and I instantly go into state management. Instantly, as soon as I ask myself how I'm doing, I'm automatically in a doing mode now. I'm like in state management mode. But like, no, really, the morning for most of us in the Western world is get out of bed, stand up, get yourself dressed, brush your teeth, wash your hair, comb your hair, you know, whatever, go to the bathroom, like have something to eat or drink. Like, those are maintenance, those are non-critical maintenance, boring nonsense tasks. Those are parasympathetic tasks, if you will. So you're gonna have to do those while you're activated. That that's a great time to practice because often it's really low pressure. But if you wake up in the morning and instantly start trying to manage your state, your day is you're gonna have a crappy day. There's a really good chance your day is gonna feel very long and very exhausting.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

And you're right about that. And the mornings are the a great time because you know, we've got increased cortisol levels in the morning, which is fine. Don't try to mull with your cortisol levels. But if we're sensitized, yeah, it's it's very normal to feel more sensitized in the morning, which is a great time to practice.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Very good. I I like the idea that it's so interesting, you know, sympathetic, parasympathetic, yeah, they're descriptive. Rest and digest versus fight or flight. Use these things as ways to conceptualize the different states. But one of the things you were talking about, I'm I make no bones about the fact that I'm not a fan of polyvagal theory. I do understand that explanation. Some people find that conceptual isn't love polyvagal theory. I'm going to a polyvagal conference right after we hang up. I bet they they probably exist. I think one of the issues is sometimes when we're so desperate, we want something to work. And I understand that because I I want the things to work too. I don't I don't fault anybody for searching for these things. We confuse understanding with control. So yeah, like we're we know way more in 2024 than people did in the 1500s. There's no doubt about that, and that's a beautiful thing. But just because we know how something works doesn't mean we're able to control it. And I think in our space, especially in these autonomic state switches where we think we can control it, well, because we know how the nervous system fires, that must mean we can control it, correct? Not always. We also know how the planets orbit and we can't control that. There's most stuff that we know we don't control, we just describe.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

It just takes away the mystery of why you're feeling that certain way. Right. Well, you're right. Like often I'll be like, you know, yeah, it's okay to feel anxious in the morning, you know, cortisol levels, and and immediately you get the well, how do I lower my cortisol levels?

SPEAKER_03 20:55

What foods, you know, no, what food should I be eating? What should I be doing?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

No, like it's why these devices and snake oil things really appeal to people because when we're feeling vulnerable, yeah, and I know I've felt that I've tried it, I've done all the tinctures and tricks and acts and whatnot. Because you feel so vulnerable and scared, it's so appealing. Is that imagine I can have a device, a switch that I could attach to myself like an automaton, and I click it and I suddenly feel calm. That's not what we're designed for, you know, and it annoys me when therapists encourage that as well. Don't get me wrong, it's you can ground and things like that and learn relaxation things, not as a compulsion, but as a as a stress buster. Love it. If I'm feeling stressed, I will do some relaxation stuff. Sure, sure, you know, but not because I fear the sympathetic state, I just rather not be in it.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

I think that's also yeah, sorry, Drew. No, no, okay, you finished because you had a thought there.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Whereas if you're in the sympathetic state, your aim as an anxiety disorder sufferer, whether it's OCD. Panic and stuff. Your aim is to be okay in that state. Right. And then you will go to back to the other state. If you're stressed and want to do some relaxation, deep breathing, stuff like that, yeah, you can do that because you're not afraid to be in that state anymore. So you're doing it for stress, not because of your fear and misinterpretation of fear.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Yeah, I agree. I also think that there's a difference. So when you are using, like I'm going to use, okay, so I'm super stressed out, right? I'm in a par, I'm in a sympathetic state. Just because oh, my day is a mess and like, oh, my boss is a jerk and all that stuff. It happens, right? So I'm feeling keyed up, I'm feeling all the physical things, my shoulders are all tense and up around my ears. I'm gonna do some deep breathing, or I'm gonna go meditate, sit in a quiet place, or read. Yes, and I know what people might be saying. Well, didn't you just say you can't use parasympathetic things? You can't use sympathetic things, but I'm not using sympathetic things because in that situation, what I'm learning to do is not fuel the stress. I can't help reading a reading my book or like reciting verses or whatever is meaningful for you, which is fine, doesn't change the fact that your boss is a moron. It doesn't at all. It just helps you recognize, oh, I'm doing that thing where I'm feeding into it. I don't have to do that. Same principle, just that for the person who's stressed at work and maybe amped up and goes home to play mindless video games for a few hours with his friend from the UK. That's different. It's it's not urgent. It's not, I have to get out of this and I I need to manage the state. It's just, oh wait, I can make better choices here. I just don't feel afraid of being stressed out at the end of a long day and deciding to play video games.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

That's the difference, though, isn't it? Where it we often say don't technique if I don't try to do things to get rid of stuff. But techniques do work for stress. Yes, different. They do not work for fear of fear because they're defense. But if you are stressed, then definitely techniques work. And what but what happens is these wellness messages become conflated. Yep. So, like, oh, I've watched someone get really anxious at work, they don't have an anxiety disorder, but they're anxious at work, they're anxious about upcoming deadlines and appraisal, etc. You know, and so what they will do is they'll go home, deep breathe, meditate, do something relaxing, play video games, whatever. Brilliant. And that works for them, and that works for me when I'm stressed. If I'm on the hamster wheel of anxiety disorders, you know, where I have a fear of fear, I fear being in a sympathetic state, because that's it. The anxiety only exists in a sympathetic state. I fear the sympathetic state, I fear anxiety. I've seen this person deal with their stress using techniques. Why is it not working for me? And that's why your meditation does not work, where all these things work, if you're in the fear of fear cycle. Yeah, if you're super stressed and anxious about other things that not where the core is is not your fear of fear, those things will work, and that's the differentiation.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

You know, and I think one of the big differences also is, and I'm thinking as you're talking, which you're making excellent points, is if I respond to stress with lighting a candle or listening to soft music or whatever I like. Like you do all the time, all the time. It's my default. That's what I'm gonna do as soon as we get done, after the polyvagal conference, of course, on a light I can't listen to spa music, but I'm not if if I'm really stressed because maybe there's money problems or whatever is going on, the weather, oh my hat, my roof is gonna blow off in a hurricane, whatever. If I sit and meditate, I know that I am not changing my bank account balance. I'm not changing the health of my pet. I'm not changing the state of the roof over my house at all. I'm deciding to do something different in that moment because I can choose to do something different. Whereas the anxious person or the person in a state of disordered anxiety feels like I am, I am literally trying to change the actual circumstances of my entire life, meaning I'm gonna prevent my body from acting the way it's supposed to. I'm gonna change the fact that I'm an anxious person, I'm gonna I'm gonna change the universe. No, you're not. You're doing the same thing as a stressed person. I'm just gonna choose to do something different right now. And it's not gonna change the fact that I have panic disorder. Not today. Over time, it it should, but there's a big difference there. Like I'm just gonna do something different. I'm gonna sit and play a video game for an hour to relax because I can choose to do a different behavior. It's not gonna change anything about the world. Nothing, zero. The world will be the same when the game is over. An anxious person doesn't want the world to be the same after their meditation, they want the world to have changed. Yes. And it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Here's the million dollar question. Oh boy. Hope I win. Given what we've been saying. Obviously, being in rest and digest is is is one of the better feelings to have, isn't it? It's what we all want. Calm, fun, joyful, socializing, engaged. You know, these are all pr all uh states of being in the parasympathetic state. If I have an anxiety disorder, how can I spend more time in that state? I want to feel normal, calm, relaxed, joyful. How do I do that when I'm always in sympathetic state?

SPEAKER_03 27:14

I mean, we've said a million times, it's unfortunately you have to first learn to be not okay. And we have a question about that too. We do have two questions we didn't play, but they speak directly to this thing. If can I learn to actually just accept the state that I'm in at the moment, I have a much, much higher chance of winding up in the desired state if I accept the state that I'm in, whatever it is, in this moment.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to learn to be in the sympathetic state first. And most people with anxiety disorders are learning, still learning to be that it's okay in the sympathetic state. It's not something that we fear. It's not nice, it's uncomfortable, it's scary, but when it's okay, you know, then you will access that more. You know, for example, let's take some examples. Uh I'm going to uh I'm going to uh I don't know a career a careers fair and there's loads of people there, and other careers fair, uh but but I I considering not going because I might panic. Well, actually, I've been practicing being anxious. I'm practiced being okay in a sympathetic state, not compulsing. So I don't mind if I'm anxious at the careers fair. And lo and behold, the attitude shift, because you've done that, you're more likely to access the rest and digest because of it.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Yeah, and I think when people we could tie in the prince, I I think we should play these questions too, because they're good illustrations for people listening because they're real world illustrations of this concept. But when well, how does exposure fit into this? Exposure is practicing being in the the activated state, it's not learning how to not get into the state. So, you know, one of the things I say all the time, well, how can I learn to not be afraid? You have first you have to get better at being afraid to not be afraid. It it's a shitty deal, it just is.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

You're teaching yourself you can handle it. That's the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Yeah, which you, by the way, anyone listening, you've handled everything that everything's ever thrown at you. You just don't believe it. Yeah, you've handled all anxiety, all of it.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

This is where the the generalizable or universal principles of anxiety disorders start to get weird in an individual sense, because this is where people's lived experience and their cultural background and their beliefs and their self-image and their sense of self-efficacy come into play. Well, I did you handled it though, and the person was like, Yeah, but it felt, yes, that's the resistance to the reality that you did handle it. But I didn't, it wasn't the way I need it, and I can't handle anything but what I need. And like, well, okay, now we get into the nitty-gritty of why the internet can't treat you because you're an individual and those things have to be addressed. I want let's play these two questions if we could, because I think they're good illustrations for people listening of what exactly we're talking about. What do you think? Okay. All right, sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Hello, guys. My name is Mary Jo. You can use my name. I'm a licensed professional counselor, been in practice for 40 years at a university, retired now. After my retirement, things kind of went down the rabbit hole. And I'd like to kind of describe my anxiety as very functional. I get things done, I go everywhere I need to go, but the physical effects of doing that are overwhelming. I'm often in a sweat. I have you know heart flutters, the symptoms are terrible, and I just can't seem to get past that. Um usually I go into a real dark place after I go through a real emotional situation. For example, my son was just in the floods in um that Hurricane Helene presented, and I didn't hear from him for a couple days, and it just set me down the rabbit hole, and I have such a hard time pulling myself out of that. Do you have any suggestions for this old counselor? Thanks for all you do.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

That's a great question. And I would totally hire Mary Jo. She has the therapist voice. Very good.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Yeah, that's great. And humility to it as well. And yeah. But first of all, I mean, if you were you you had a legitimate worry in that question, you know, if you've not heard from your son who's been in a natural disaster, you know, with a flooding, and then yeah, you're gonna be you're gonna be worried about that, you know. But from what I'm gauging from the rest, and probably what's not helping that that worry or exacerbating it, is we're in meerkat mode if we're gonna use today's theme. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Yeah, I agree. Uh it's this is the I want to be, I can, I must be in rest and digest. I have to be in that state. So, and I can appreciate what Mary Jo is saying because the symptoms are pretty awful, they're very uncomfortable. Nobody's trying to say that they're not, but it but they're here, and like being activated into a sympathetic state or a fight or flight state is a fact of life sometimes. And it's like, no, but when that happens, it's unacceptable. I can't have that. This is awful. This is just so awful. How can I have this? But you do have it. So, this is where we get into those principles of like, we don't get to guarantee never being activated.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

And you know, what are the behaviors Mary Jo is doing? Is she behaving uh with the uh this isn't accusatory, Mary Joe? We're just using this, but like in what state are Mary Jo's behaviors? Are they are they parasympathetic or are they in sympathetic? And when I say me a cat mode, it's like I'm ruminating, I'm playing out the catastrophes, checking how I feel, checking my exhaustion, super attuned to my symptoms. And yeah, it's like this little mere cat going, Where's the threat? Where's the threat? Where's the threat? Where's the threat? And we will stay in that state because it thinks it's being helpful. If we behave like a mere cat, we'll stay in mere cat mode.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

Or or I'm looking back at the experience again. When I wrote when I wrote that book, I talked about the experience after or the story you tell yourself after. Well, I did it, I did the thing, I lived my life today. I was very anxious and I took it with me, and I proved myself capable of doing that. No, I'm not gonna tell that story, I'm just gonna keep repeating. It was awful, it was terrible, it was awful. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, yeah. You know who really hears that more than anybody else? You do. So that's part of the behavior, too. But you know, I I think it's a good, really good illustration of like, no, I I gotta manage my state or it's not okay. Let's play the next one real quick, too, because it's a variant on the theme, and I I think it's also quite illustrative. So here we go.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Hi guys, thank you so much for your hard work. Um, I really appreciate it, and it's also really reassuring um to know that other people also suffer from anxiety. At the beginning of this year, I had my worst um setback slash um flare-up of my generalized anxiety or disorder ever. I also have agoraphobia and health anxiety and all the good stuff. I noticed that the biggest improvement was after I had this mindset shift that you also mentioned, um, where you suddenly don't care that much anymore about your anxiety. And in my head, I'm trying to make a prevention plan to if it gets worse again, what I can do to get into that mindset faster. Do you still have a tip for me and something like that? Um what I could do to less care about anxiety in the future, even if it gets worse. Um, yeah. Thanks so much. Bye.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Got any feedback on that one? How do I not care? Isn't there a tip for not caring?

SPEAKER_02 35:19

You answer that one. You that's that's that's your bike. I'll take that one.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

So the the answer to this question that I would offer would be there is no tip for deciding to not care, right? So if we go back to I want to be in rest and digest, I really want to be there. That's where I have to be, that's where I want to be. I want to spend all my days there. Well, how do you get there? Well, Drew and Dra says, well, you have to you have to get okay with being in the other state first. And I think be getting okay in the other state is part of that, is you can acknowledge that you don't like that. I I do care. I don't want to be in this state. That's okay. You don't have to want it or love it or appreciate it. But I I can't just decide to turn that off. I can't turn my opinion of it off. So I I always tell people, like, well, so what you're saying is recovery is when you just don't care. So how do how can I not care about this horrible thing? No, no, you do care. But what am I gonna do? What are you gonna do while you care? So I would look not so much at like, oh, I got to make sure I can not care. What's the tip for getting back into not caring? No, no, no. What are you going to do in response to the activated state that that looks like you don't care? And then that feeling of don't care follows after that. So don't don't try to just decide to not care. That's not realistic. You're gonna get frustrated by that.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Yeah, yeah, and you and you're practicing it as well. And ultimately, how do I not be anxious? Practice being anxious, right? How do I get into rest and digest? Well, then practice being in fight or flight.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Yeah, I would almost guarantee that you know, we don't know, but this person was like, Well, the biggest improvement is when I made that shift. We talked, I think that's episode 10, the attitude shift. But the attitude shift isn't, oh, I don't care. It's all this is fine. This is totally fine. Like, no, it doesn't feel that way to you. The attitude shift is I'm gonna go into it even when it feels like I'm on fire, and I'm gonna be willing to learn from that and let that happen and see what I can take out of that. And then suddenly you notice, oh, I don't have to care as much as I did two weeks ago. Look at that.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

But but also behaving like it's fine, right? You behave like I'm gonna behave like it's fine. I'm not gonna feel like it's fine, but it's I'm gonna behave like it's fine. And that's all the information that's needed.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

It's literally that silly meme dog, the this is fine, dog. He's sitting in the flames, drinking his car. This is fine. Like you have to act like that dog a little bit, even though it feels like you're in the flames, and not caring is the result of that when there's no actual flames, the decide anxiety disorders. It feels unsafe, but it is so good question.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

It reminds me of I'm talking about literally rest and digest, you know, about when we're talking about diet and things like that, you know, how uh a green salad like can make me bloated, but uh eating a pizza and you're fine. And there's a few people sent in some of them like it's weird. I've tried to control my diet and I'm focusing and trying to fix how I feel at home by eating all these great FODMAT foods. But I noticed that when I went out and had a greasy pizza with my friends, I was fine and I wasn't bloated. Well, yeah, because you allowed yourself to be in parasympathetic state by doing parasympathetic things. Yeah. By eating a green salad, monitoring, checking to see if it's gone down and that your anxiety's changed, you're doing sympathetic things. I hope all this made sense.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Yeah, it's it's so kind, it's confusing, it's paradoxical, it doesn't make sense. And sometimes I think I always want to acknowledge these are hard messages to hear. Like, oh, I had you really, but isn't this the episode where you're gonna give me the tip that changes my mindset or changes how I feel? No, unfortunately, there never is one. I would love if there was. If we find that, we will you guys will be the first to know. I promise. Maybe a second.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Yeah, what is it? We haven't got it, we haven't got the wonder tip.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Best I can do is that makes everybody feel better. Exactly. Uh we've got to question though I want to ask though is there was a million-dollar question earlier. Did I did I win the million dollars? I answered it. Yeah, yeah, you did.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

No, yeah. No, you didn't, of course you did. Of course you did. Um, yeah, uh, let's uh embrace some community wins.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Sure. The little did it anyway. I have a written one I can read. Should we do it? Yeah, I've got written one too, but you go first. I'll go first and then you can wrap it up. We'll save the best for last. Um, hi, listening to your podcast, and it opened my eyes. At age seven, my epilepsy was misdiagnosed as anxiety. My partial seizures look and feel like panic attack. I also have panic attacks, so it could be difficult to tell the difference. I went to a therapist who didn't understand why I was having panic attacks, as I understand tools to stop them. My epilepsy got diagnosed at 35, medication helped massively. Now my seizures are under control, but I still get panic attacks sometimes. I thought I was coping really well. I didn't realize I was white knuckling through life, also self-checking all the time to see if I was anxious. And it's been really helpful to listen to you explaining your what-ifs. I didn't realize other people were worried that food was poisoned. That was me. Um, I have thought that occasionally, and it made me laugh as I thought I was special. Now I'm waiting for a panic attack to do it anyway. I haven't had any since listening to the podcast, as I'm now aware of my thinking. So catching my thoughts before I work myself up, it's also making me smile, observing my catastrophizing parasympathetic activity, but I'm excited for panic to happen to practice and to be able to say I did it anyway. The attitude shift. Thank you. I'm slowly working my way through your podcast catalog. Feels like it could be a kickstart. I need just identifying there is a micro and macro fear response. Very good for waiting to practice panic.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

I love that. It's perfect. Willing to be in sympathetic. I'm willing, I'm willing for that to happen now. And then the irony is it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

There's a paradox again. I love like I can see I'm I'm observing my catastrophizing now, and therefore I never get swept up at it because I'm watching the machine run. That is a great did it anyway. That was excellent. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Superb, ties in lovely. Yep. Uh, I've got a message from Jenny. Uh, greetings, gents. I didn't want to put one name in front of the other. Coward Jenny. Make a choice. And that's firmly cemented me as second. Uh I have been suffering from clinical depression and social anxiety for as long as I can remember. Listening to your podcast has made me realize that I also have things like the fawn response, perfectionism, misophonia, and others, which helps put a name to it rather than just it feeling weird. For the longest time, my mom was my safe person and safe place. We did everything together, traveling and living overseas, working together at different times and living together. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She got through the treatment and was on the road to recovery until four years ago she passed away after a blood clot got into her heart. Since then, it was difficult to do anything without her with me. A couple of months ago, I discovered your podcast and wanted to try an exposure like you talk about. The weekend of my birthday, I had decided to go to the movies by myself, as that was something that me and my mum would do together. I had a very tiring session of EMDR and just wanted to go home to sleep. But I decided to do it anyway. I was anxious of being in public on my own and sat on the edge of the aisle with my legs shaking and my headphones in trying to hide. But I stayed until the end and actually enjoyed the movie. I now have plans to meet some people for lunch next weekend. Small steps, but hopefully steps in the right direction. So I want to thank you both and all the other did it anyways for the inspiration to try something I have never done before. That's awesome. Well done. Well done. And you should be proud of yourself and with the emotional impact of that as well. And it's lovely, you know. I know your mom isn't here now, but I hope you took her with you in your head and in your heart and enjoyed the movie.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

It's a great example of like something important that you value, driving a really productive exposure. They're best when they connect to your actual values. This is a thing my mom and I used to do together. I'm gonna go to the movies. I love that, Jenny. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

I love that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

There's a lot of feeling in that, Jenny. Thank you. 100%. Very good. All right, 42 minutes in. I think we did a pretty decent job with this. Rest and digest. I want to go rest and digest myself.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

We're gonna rest and digest because we've got an hour before our next disordered round table. Um, I I don't know what the next topic is, but sign up to the mailing list or keep an eye out for the round tables where every few weeks we get together with members of the community and we talk about a certain topic. Uh, I think today is agriphobia, but it might change. We'll do we'll do them all. So, yeah, if you want to be part of that or on a nice online call, we talk about it, we have a nice casual discussion, then yeah, sign up.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Yeah, they're really fun. I love doing them, so I'm looking forward to this. I guess we're out. That's good. Thanks for hanging out, guys. We will see you next week. By the way, Drew, happy new year. Oh, yes, happy new year, Josh. You and your tinctures. You know what's so great about having a podcast partner from the UK? I'm literally podcasting in the Middle Ages, tinctures. Tinctures and snake oil. I'm gonna go drink some mead now and take my tincture. Oh, you're tankered. Oh my goodness. All right, guys, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.