#9 | MindBites - 3 Of The Best Techniques To Combat Anxiety

Welcome back to MindBites, our high value short form episodes where Joe and I will pack as much information for you guys. Throw it back into your day to day lives. The topic we're going to discuss today is our three best techniques to overcome anxiety. I'm going to start us off in the first one. We've discussed many a time because Gabb obviously has notorious it's journaling. It's just sort of you on journaling.

So prior to maybe two years ago. Two years ago I had to read a lot about it. I'd seen people who obviously prefer to write stuff down and speak about it or record themselves talking. I started doing it actually is really nice because the best thing for us, like a subjective put them from my point of view anyway. Certainly I think it's just taking accountability of things you're writing down and, like I've compared it to when a couple of phones of mine ask about it.

Journaling is a self reflective practice where individuals write down their thoughts, feelings, experiences, whatever it may be. This can be done in various formats as well, so this can include diaries, gratitude journals or sort of like a more structured approach that focus on specific themes or prompts, exactly like the one Josh has shown me. Now. This is why it works. So this is a science behind it. First off, it helps with cognitive processing. So writing helps in the cognitive processing of emotions and experiences. So this allows for a clear understanding of someone's thoughts, someone's feelings and also helps in sort of detangling complex emotions and identifying the root causes of anxiety. The second one is emotional release. So journaling provides an emotional outlet, a sort of safe space, if you can save, to express fears, frustrations, worries, without judgment or social repercussions. This act of expression can be in a way like kind of cathartic. It reduces the intensity of negative emotions as well. And the last one is self reflection and insight. So if you're journaling regularly, it encourages sort of a self reflection on yourself which leads to greater self awareness and insight into one's behavioral patterns and triggers of anxiety. This awareness is kind of the first step in cognitive behavioral change. So I think German. German is huge.

There's probably something I need to do more as we talk about it's just finding what works for you, but 100% I think the one that stuck out is when you said Troy. So Troy said it was called scripting right, Because he didn't want to say journaling, but it's like the fact that's helped him so much is just crazy. The science behind it makes complete sense. I love what Gab's doing with notorious, but it's like I don't think journaling the times I've done it. I can't stay sort of disciplined and don't like that. It makes sense. I can do it and I'll do it for a week or so and then I'll scrap it and then miss a couple of days. That's the kind of hard thing I find with that. Yeah.

I think you're smart. I think the two that stood out for me especially were the emotional release, I think, and also being free of judgment, and the thing that again, like meet to Troy, is Troy's tried every not every form, but a lot of therapy forms, one of some of which are extortionately expensive and quite sort of this end of the spectrum, like traveling to Peru and all that kind of stuff to sort of find that sort of medicinal healing, is it's free. Riding stuff down costs absolutely nothing. There's no time it takes to do it. All you need is five, 10 minutes in of each day or week, depending on, obviously, the time you're doing it, like you're going to drink, or in each day or as a man.

Things come into your head Right. So I recommend to a lot of my friends who ask any advice on things is just start to write stuff down. But, similar to you, it's quite hard to sort of stay if it's not something they used to do and it's quite hard to sort of stick it into your routine and keep it there. My advice to anyone listening and watching this is that if you are that kind of person is try delicate, maybe 15, 20 minutes in each day or the end of each working week where you might sort of plug the PlayStation and have a game with your mates 15 minutes, take it out and then write some stuff down and it really really helps to sort of alleviate those feelings. And I come out to what I said a minute ago is is feeling not judged, because it's your own feelings getting down to paper, that is free of judgment and it's just getting stuff away which for me and then many, many others and you're like you're sort of science really backs it. Yeah, I love that.

I think just quickly for me, before we move on to part two, is I always run from a business point of standpoint, so not going to mental health here that I write everything down on a whiteboard, and sometimes just write it down, allows you to see things differently, allows you to link things up which you didn't know were there before.

So even just the simplicity in writing things down in terms of business that will that just translates again if your head's scrambled writing it down, being like, oh, that can help that that consult, that is massive and I don't think people realise that is. You might think you're sorting things out in your head, but having it down, leaving it on the paper and keep coming back to it to check on different aspects of it, you see things which you don't in your head. I think that's kind of the best thing in terms of that is, I need to do more journaling for my mental health, but I do it a lot, like I said, for business. On my whiteboards and stuff, you just you see things at different aspects and it makes it really really easy after you've done that.

Yeah, and making on to what you just said, I think if you, if you do, have one on the spectrum, you know really high end ADHD, where you've just got a million and one things going on your head at once. It's really hard to pinpoint one, two or three of those things and put them down. So if you do, if you are a kind of person who has quite a messy brain, there's a lot going on in there. It's just putting it into paper. Putting on to paper can make a lot of sense and it can then sort of clear out the rubbish and you can really pinpoint those things you're trying to hone in on. If it is from a business point of view or a mental health point of view, the basic they go hand in hand. I guess the parameters are still exactly the same.

So, yeah, I love it, bro the second one is we talk about this all the time physical activity. Yeah, obviously huge for both of us. I don't want me to define what physical activity is. I'll go straight into why it works. So physical activity stuff like walking, jogging, dancing, whatever it is, whatever works for you releases endorphins and it stimulates the release of endorphins. So the body's natural painkillers and mood elevators, often referred to as the one is higher if you're running. These chemicals play a significant role in reducing stress and improving your mood, which I think is so true. Every time you do exercise, you do something hard. It doesn't even need to be that hard, just going for a walk, being out in nature. It does release a set of endorphins like you don't feel worse. You don't go for a walk or a run. Yeah, you might feel tired after the run.

I can't do it I can't even behind, but the majority of the time is, mentally, you feel so much clearer, so much better, just to get on with the rest of the day For sure.

Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm no much more boring than it was yesterday. You know it was horrible rain the last couple of days. If you are on the weekend, this is basically you can vouch for the bottle we've had the last week. We won our game called off yesterday and I was expecting about it and I was sort of, for the first time in a while, quite a little forward to a match I'm not playing for the last month I'd have a time off, like you and quite a little forward to a game. That went off long story short and I was like I'm such a low mood now, quite a little forward to getting out there and leathering someone and then again got cancelled. And then I took myself to the gym. I thought I was the killer. Now the day is mine.

I thought my late morning go to the gym. I felt straight away back up on top of the wall again. I thought really good, and then it's going to show that if I was here before expecting exercise I'd go and do some other exercise and then I'm somewhat better off for it and I enjoy the rest of my day the results of that. So that doesn't mean you need to go to the gym for two hours. It means you can just go out for, like you said, go for a walk dancing, jogging, whatever it might be, whatever you think yeah, 100%.

For all my fellow nerds out there who like looking at all the things which I don't think Joe does is regular exercise promotes neurogenesis, so this is the growth of new neurons, and increased neuroplasticity, so this is the brain's ability to form new neural connections. These changes improve brain function and resilience to stress. And, lastly, the reduction of stress hormones. So exercise can reduce levels of bodies stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol. It also helps in balancing various neurotransmitters that are often implicated in anxiety, such as serotonin, dopamine and GABA GABA, which I think is so interesting.

Obviously, we talk so much about physical activity, so that whole thing one more time. I like the nerdy study bits.

But yeah, that's so interesting for me is, especially if we talk about this all the time, like I don't even think you need to go into the nerdy science of it is just there's no negative side to physical activity. We say this all the time. It's like it's free, it helps you, you never do it and it feels worse and it's just like Joe. But we've had that step from one of the podcasts where we talked about like only 20% of people are doing like physical activity or assembly around. That's not the exact number. We were just like why, like I understand you're in a bad place.

It's hard, like I've been in that hard place myself. Sometimes you don't want to get out of bed and you don't want to get outside and exercise, but it's. It really baffles me a bit is if you do have 15-20 minutes at lunch, like you said this before, it's like take it, like go for a walk, like outside, you don't have to do anything. Like Wait. A lot of people overthink that and just spend it inside, which I find is crazy. I can't do that with me, the HD. I struggle to sit still, but I don't think you're the same as well.

I think I, you know, I totally agree with you. I think it is harder because I think with the, you know, up until a couple of years ago, pre-covid I think, most jobs would have involved having to go to the office. Therefore it forces people to go out, whereas now 95% of jobs, unless you, you can't really bring it back home, right back home with you. Most jobs now are quite to stay at home all day, every day. So there's no less incentive people to get out, to get outside.

I'm on this morning and I was saying how Family, friend of theirs or family member basically like housebound for 95% of the day, if not more, because they're right long hours and yet they there's no chew to work as they're walking to the office space. So even that half an hour 45 that some people getting every day now don't have that. So it's not even less accessible. To be able to go outside whilst working from home is great for some people, it's been crippling for the obesity rates in this country, like, look at the rates of obesity in the last couple of years since COVID, it's, it's staggering, it's absolutely staggering. Well, obviously factors in place as well, but the fact that everyone works from home now is like it's Worrying how little people are moving and it's just like forcing someone to get out and about. Seemingly is getting harder and harder.

Hmm, yeah, I love that. I think that come back to point of COVID, that's like I've never even thought about that like working from home or even hybrid sort of. Is it hybrid working where you like do a bit of both? I flex you, you reduce yeah when I work from home, I'll do like four or five thousand steps. Well, I'm out at the office.

That's not a good thing.

There's a lot, that's I'll do 1215 thousand because you're like and you have to walk between places. You have to. If you do want to go out for lunch, you have to walk somewhere first and stuff out, like that's the whole nice part. That's why I like getting there also separately, like socially it's.

It's really damaging as well because, like, if you are, let's say, 16, 17 year old boy or girl and you had to go through COVID and get to 18, 19 and you know, socialize, what's other, because you're housebound and then applying for a job when you're still working from home, you don't get to meet anyone like you've been. Social circles been decimated, so it's even less incentive to go and meet your friends because you've gone a. So it's like yeah, mates, sun's pretty wearing actually is the third one as well.

This is actually my favorite. One of this is what I do for Pretty much everything these days. This is structured problem solving. So structured problem solving is a step-by-step process used to identify, analyze and solve problems. Involves clearly defining the problem, generating potential solutions, evaluating and then selecting the best option and implementing that. So that's sort of five steps. So let me repeat that again is defining the problem, generating potential solutions, evaluating, selecting the best option and then implementing it in place. This is what I do for everything, whether it's my mental health, whether it's business, whether it's like my social life.

Maybe comes those weird decisions where you're like, should I are sat at all? I'm super tired, like I know it's such a minor thing, but this happened with me that she yesterday was like, do I go out see the boys? Like do I go out and get drunk or do I just need a bit of me time? I'll let you sit there and I'll plan it, and it works so well for me. Everyone might be listening to this like mate, you're a weirdo, but it works so well for me. Being like I'm tired, I'm very conky, I've had a long week. Is it the best thing to go out and get no sleep To see the boys, that's positive friendships. Drinking, that's a negative. It makes for awful the next couple days and then just sort of wearing that, which ones which, which ones best for me and yesterday it was know and just being like sorry lads, not today, like I'll see sometime next week for coffee or even just for beer after work or whatever it is.

What your friends like. I mean, this has got a load of question. But what are your mates like in the set? Because I know for a lot of people it's quite tough to say no to their mates because, especially with with blokes, with this competition number on the forehand, it's quite hard to not be judged and to make to feel like you're the outcast and you're a bit of a weirdo for not wanting to go with your mates and it's. It's different for me because I'm going to write a different boat to you, whereas sorry my mates, I know that the peer pressure of going out with their mates far outweighs the logic of not going out.

Yeah, I think for myself is obviously my mates are like lads, lads like they banter we, we rip into each other, just like any sort of boys friendship group does. But I think the more I say stuff, they it's more like, oh mate, like come on, like let's go out, meaning, like they just want to do something, they just want to be around. It's not like meant in the malicious way and it's, I think, the more I talk about this stuff is obviously they know exactly what I'm doing. They know where my mental health is. They have an understanding of that. I'm like lads, like I can't tonight. They're not just going to be like, oh you know, screw this guy. Like this guy, they're just like, yeah, fair enough, mate, like we'll see next week, whatever it is. Or sometimes, if it's like we had a plan I canceled, then it's a bit different.

Yeah, my group makes very understanding, right, we want at the start. But it's more like they didn't really know what was going on. It wasn't really their fault. It's just like they probably thought I was just being rude. But if you're just clear, precise and be like lads, I don't feel great and that's not easy to do for some people. It wasn't easy for me either having a lab lads as my best mates, but it's a poison. Not feeling like I don't really want to come out Is like if they're your friends, they'd understand that they are going to judge you for that. Then they really want the people you want to hang around with. In my opinion, Mate.

I absolutely spot on. I think it's really really important out there. I think girls listening are watching this. I think more so for guys. I think it's really difficult because I had a conversation with someone yesterday who is like one of the more gang people I know who is such a definition of life. You look up lads, lads and definition of that, like he loves, loves, bruising, loves, going out, loves is like you know, stoich Lads is huge for him and yet even he was on really struggling. I'm not quite sure what to do and and it's easy for me and you to sit here and say I'll just communicate. But if you ask someone like that who previously haven't got any on the surface problems, it's really hard to sort of say to your mates now so I don't fancy, I'm really struggling, it's, it's it's very hard.

So hard it's so difficult. So I think it's just a communication thing. I just think you have to sort of listen to your self first, every single time, and you have to be selfish. And I think if you, like you say, if you have friends that chastise you for doing that, then they're not friends in the first place.

Yeah, mate, I completely agree. Yeah, that sums up our three of the best techniques to overcome anxiety. So we have one journaling, we had two physical activity, and we had three structured problems solving the need to completely subjective, obviously backed by science as well. But these are what work for Joe and I, especially what works with friends of ours or people we love. So that's why we wanted to put these three in a sort of little montage, in a way short form video for you guys on mindbites, because we think they're so, so effective.

Let us know below what you guys know. Sorry, let us let everybody know what works for you guys. And we'd love to hear because I know a lot of people don't like to journal, a lot of people won't like to do physical activity and it's sort of different for everyone. This is what works. It's backed by science, it's backed by German as well. We absolutely love these things. So let us know below what you guys think. We hope you enjoyed the episode, but for the meantime, I'm Tom and I'm Joe. This is Inside of Mindmind Bites.

Love you guys.