January 9, 2024 • 9 mins
Ever find yourself trapped in a relentless cycle of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios before an anxious event even happens?
That's the grip of anticipatory anxiety, and I'm opening up about how to break free from this exhausting loop.
In our deep dive into the world of stress and worry management, you'll learn to master the art of deep relaxation, discover the power of distraction, and find out why practicing these techniques during your calmest moments is your secret weapon against anxiety's sneak attacks.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
- Decrease anxiety fast!!
- Relax with a mini-meditation chair grounding
- Calming meditation at the ocean shore
- Reduce stress and anxiety with a fun breathing technique
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is so uncomfortable to have a fear or
a worry that you're going to gointo anxiety.
So what can we do about itbefore it even hits us?
Let's talk about that.
Welcome to Mindful HypnosisPodcast.
It is time to change your mind.
(00:22):
Learn all about how to createnew, helpful habits and mindset
changes with integrativehypnosis Plus.
With the sprinkle ofmindfulness throughout your day,
you can easily shift into acalmer state of mind.
I am Cheryl, your hypnotist andpodcast host, and I welcome you
to a better way of living yourlife, one minute at a time.
(00:45):
Hey, it's Cheryl here.
If you love this podcast, thendo me a favor, let your friends
and family know all about it andplease don't forget to go on
over to the place where youlisten to your podcast, whether
it be Apple or Spotify, andplease leave me a review.
(01:09):
These reviews help my podcastto grow and it helps me reach
more people like you.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate youlistening.
Welcome to Mindful Hypnosis.
My name is Cheryl.
I am your host.
I don't know if you can hear it, but the rain is pouring down.
It is so loud.
It is actually very relaxing aswell to me.
(01:33):
So I wanted to discuss whathappens when we start to
anticipate our anxiety oranticipate our worry or our
stress.
There is something calledanticipatory anxiety and what
that means is that they worry,the fear and the overwhelm the
overwhelm concern, I should say,of getting anxiety or a panic
(01:58):
attack, and the anticipatory.
You can have that with prettymuch anything.
You can have it for anxiety,even for pain.
But when it comes to anxiety,what it does is it keeps us
locked in a cycle because wehave an anxious event and then
(02:20):
the anxiety starts to go away,and because it was so
uncomfortable and because it wasso threatening to our sense of
safety and our security, westart to worry about it happen
again, and it is almost as if weare putting ourselves back in
that cycle With all the worryingwe are doing.
We have the ability to dropourselves back into it Because
(02:43):
anxiety and all the chemicalsthat are released are based on a
chemical loop, so to speak.
You only have a certain amountof chemicals that are dumped out
into your system to protect youand to give you this anxiety to
protect you Again.
It's a safety mechanism.
So when we have thisanticipatory anxiety, we can
often loop ourselves over andover in this anxiety keeping it
(03:06):
around, making it worse actually.
So what are some things you cando to kick yourself out of this
worrying and concern and fearof dropping back into anxiety?
And there are three things thatyou can do and I'll tell you
these once my cat stops walkingacross the keyboard.
(03:27):
So the first thing that you cando is start to build up
relaxation techniques.
So when I talk about relaxation, I'm referring to deep
relaxation, such as a deepmeditation or a deep mindfulness
practice, anything that ispulling you into your body and
relaxing and basically downregulating your nervous system.
(03:52):
So again, this is your deepmeditation, your progressive
muscle relaxation, even ameditative walk, something that
is really pulling you down intoyour body and relaxing your
whole body and your mind.
You need to start to build upthese relaxation techniques
(04:13):
because your body is already ina heightened sense of awareness.
I suggest the best time to workon relaxation techniques is
when you're not anxious orworked up, when you're already
relaxed because your body is notfighting it.
Now you can go even deeper.
And then, when you areuncomfortable and you are
stressed and you go to use thatrelaxation technique, you've
(04:36):
already basically primed it andyour body has already been used
to it and it will recognize itand it can shift into that
relaxation faster and easier foryou.
That is number one.
Number two distract yourself.
Do something to distract awayfrom that overactive thinking.
Whether you need to go for awalk, whether you want to go do
(04:58):
some kind of a hobby, anythingthat you can do to distract
yourself right away.
If you have to do somethingcompletely silly, get up, dance,
move, sing I'm a little teapot.
Use a technique to distractyourself away from the thoughts
that keep coming in your headtelling you the anxiety is
(05:19):
coming back.
One of my clients years agoused to put an elastic on her
wrist and every time she startedto feel that anxiety coming
back in she would snap it Again.
This is a form of distraction.
It's also a form of what'scalled pattern interrupt and we
use this quite often.
We want to get you out of astate and move you into a better
(05:41):
state.
This is really good for when weneed to shift your perspective.
Number three ask yourself andgive yourself permission to be
okay with knowing that what isin your brain that you're
(06:01):
worried about right now is notreality.
It is not reality If you'reworried about something that is
going to happen an hour from now, two hours from now or tomorrow
.
That is not reality, becausethe future is not here.
It does not exist.
We haven't created it yet andwe can take all of our worries,
(06:23):
our thoughts, our concerns,everything we have, and we can
paste them into a future event,but that future event is not
here.
And the more we paste negativeshit into our future, the more
we're going to get negative shitin our future.
So whenever you start to feelas though you're getting worried
, you're getting fearful, youranxiety is going to come back.
(06:46):
Stop and think to yourself isthis really true?
And I use that question foreverybody because we forget to
ask it, because most things arenot true.
Most of what we worry about isa thought in our head, it's a
concept, it's an illusion.
So take a little bit of timeand just settle yourself for a
(07:09):
moment and ask yourself is thisreally true?
Because once you can start toslow your mind out a little bit
and push yourself into thepresent moment, give yourself a
way to distract yourself, learnsome relaxation techniques,
bring yourself back to the hereand now, you'll have a lot less
anticipatory, because anythingthat has anticipatory in it is a
(07:34):
waiting for, it's a waitingupon waiting on.
So whenever you're waiting onsomething, you're not in the
present moment, you'reruminating about something that
may, might, could happen, but itmay not.
Just want to say one more thingAny kind of anticipatory
(07:55):
anxiety or anticipatory pain,anything that you have that is a
waiting for to happen.
This is also a habit.
You have created a habit aroundthis, so these techniques will
help to get rid of that habitand put in better ways that can
help you.
So, to keep this episode at areasonable length, I am going to
(08:19):
put some resources so you candecrease this anticipatory
anxiety.
I'll put these resources withthe show notes, and this is
episode 54.
Just go on over toCherylJRentlescom and you can
find some wonderful resources,some previous old podcasts and a
few other meditations to getyou started.
(08:39):
Alrighty, then.
That's all I want to say.
You have a lovely day and Iwill talk to you soon.
Take a big, deep breath in andexhale.
Thank you for listening to theend of this podcast.
Go on over to the show notes atCherylJRentlescom for more
information and valuableresources.
(09:00):
While you're there, sign up forthe newsletter so you never
miss an episode, and if you wantto find the link to work with
me one-on-one.
You can find it there.
Remember, you have a powerfulmind and it can be changed to
support the life you want tolive.
In the meantime, enjoy your dayone minute at a time.
It is so uncomfortable to have a fear or
a worry that you're going to gointo anxiety.
So what can we do about itbefore it even hits us?
Let's talk about that.
Welcome to Mindful HypnosisPodcast.
It is time to change your mind.
(00:22):
Learn all about how to createnew, helpful habits and mindset
changes with integrativehypnosis Plus.
With the sprinkle ofmindfulness throughout your day,
you can easily shift into acalmer state of mind.
I am Cheryl, your hypnotist andpodcast host, and I welcome you
to a better way of living yourlife, one minute at a time.
(00:45):
Hey, it's Cheryl here.
If you love this podcast, thendo me a favor, let your friends
and family know all about it andplease don't forget to go on
over to the place where youlisten to your podcast, whether
it be Apple or Spotify, andplease leave me a review.
(01:09):
These reviews help my podcastto grow and it helps me reach
more people like you.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate youlistening.
Welcome to Mindful Hypnosis.
My name is Cheryl.
I am your host.
I don't know if you can hear it, but the rain is pouring down.
It is so loud.
It is actually very relaxing aswell to me.
(01:33):
So I wanted to discuss whathappens when we start to
anticipate our anxiety oranticipate our worry or our
stress.
There is something calledanticipatory anxiety and what
that means is that they worry,the fear and the overwhelm the
overwhelm concern, I should say,of getting anxiety or a panic
(01:58):
attack, and the anticipatory.
You can have that with prettymuch anything.
You can have it for anxiety,even for pain.
But when it comes to anxiety,what it does is it keeps us
locked in a cycle because wehave an anxious event and then
(02:20):
the anxiety starts to go away,and because it was so
uncomfortable and because it wasso threatening to our sense of
safety and our security, westart to worry about it happen
again, and it is almost as if weare putting ourselves back in
that cycle With all the worryingwe are doing.
We have the ability to dropourselves back into it Because
(02:43):
anxiety and all the chemicalsthat are released are based on a
chemical loop, so to speak.
You only have a certain amountof chemicals that are dumped out
into your system to protect youand to give you this anxiety to
protect you Again.
It's a safety mechanism.
So when we have thisanticipatory anxiety, we can
often loop ourselves over andover in this anxiety keeping it
(03:06):
around, making it worse actually.
So what are some things you cando to kick yourself out of this
worrying and concern and fearof dropping back into anxiety?
And there are three things thatyou can do and I'll tell you
these once my cat stops walkingacross the keyboard.
(03:27):
So the first thing that you cando is start to build up
relaxation techniques.
So when I talk about relaxation, I'm referring to deep
relaxation, such as a deepmeditation or a deep mindfulness
practice, anything that ispulling you into your body and
relaxing and basically downregulating your nervous system.
(03:52):
So again, this is your deepmeditation, your progressive
muscle relaxation, even ameditative walk, something that
is really pulling you down intoyour body and relaxing your
whole body and your mind.
You need to start to build upthese relaxation techniques
(04:13):
because your body is already ina heightened sense of awareness.
I suggest the best time to workon relaxation techniques is
when you're not anxious orworked up, when you're already
relaxed because your body is notfighting it.
Now you can go even deeper.
And then, when you areuncomfortable and you are
stressed and you go to use thatrelaxation technique, you've
(04:36):
already basically primed it andyour body has already been used
to it and it will recognize itand it can shift into that
relaxation faster and easier foryou.
That is number one.
Number two distract yourself.
Do something to distract awayfrom that overactive thinking.
Whether you need to go for awalk, whether you want to go do
(04:58):
some kind of a hobby, anythingthat you can do to distract
yourself right away.
If you have to do somethingcompletely silly, get up, dance,
move, sing I'm a little teapot.
Use a technique to distractyourself away from the thoughts
that keep coming in your headtelling you the anxiety is
(05:19):
coming back.
One of my clients years agoused to put an elastic on her
wrist and every time she startedto feel that anxiety coming
back in she would snap it Again.
This is a form of distraction.
It's also a form of what'scalled pattern interrupt and we
use this quite often.
We want to get you out of astate and move you into a better
(05:41):
state.
This is really good for when weneed to shift your perspective.
Number three ask yourself andgive yourself permission to be
okay with knowing that what isin your brain that you're
(06:01):
worried about right now is notreality.
It is not reality If you'reworried about something that is
going to happen an hour from now, two hours from now or tomorrow
.
That is not reality, becausethe future is not here.
It does not exist.
We haven't created it yet andwe can take all of our worries,
(06:23):
our thoughts, our concerns,everything we have, and we can
paste them into a future event,but that future event is not
here.
And the more we paste negativeshit into our future, the more
we're going to get negative shitin our future.
So whenever you start to feelas though you're getting worried
, you're getting fearful, youranxiety is going to come back.
(06:46):
Stop and think to yourself isthis really true?
And I use that question foreverybody because we forget to
ask it, because most things arenot true.
Most of what we worry about isa thought in our head, it's a
concept, it's an illusion.
So take a little bit of timeand just settle yourself for a
(07:09):
moment and ask yourself is thisreally true?
Because once you can start toslow your mind out a little bit
and push yourself into thepresent moment, give yourself a
way to distract yourself, learnsome relaxation techniques,
bring yourself back to the hereand now, you'll have a lot less
anticipatory, because anythingthat has anticipatory in it is a
(07:34):
waiting for, it's a waitingupon waiting on.
So whenever you're waiting onsomething, you're not in the
present moment, you'reruminating about something that
may, might, could happen, but itmay not.
Just want to say one more thingAny kind of anticipatory
(07:55):
anxiety or anticipatory pain,anything that you have that is a
waiting for to happen.
This is also a habit.
You have created a habit aroundthis, so these techniques will
help to get rid of that habitand put in better ways that can
help you.
So, to keep this episode at areasonable length, I am going to
(08:19):
put some resources so you candecrease this anticipatory
anxiety.
I'll put these resources withthe show notes, and this is
episode 54.
Just go on over toCherylJRentlescom and you can
find some wonderful resources,some previous old podcasts and a
few other meditations to getyou started.
(08:39):
Alrighty, then.
That's all I want to say.
You have a lovely day and Iwill talk to you soon.
Take a big, deep breath in andexhale.
Thank you for listening to theend of this podcast.
Go on over to the show notes atCherylJRentlescom for more
information and valuableresources.
(09:00):
While you're there, sign up forthe newsletter so you never
miss an episode, and if you wantto find the link to work with
me one-on-one.
You can find it there.
Remember, you have a powerfulmind and it can be changed to
support the life you want tolive.
In the meantime, enjoy your dayone minute at a time.
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