Therapy in a Nutshell
Calming Anxiety With Your Body’s Built-in Anti-Anxiety Response 11/30
Calm anxiety naturally by activating your body's built-in anti-anxiety response with self-regulation techniques in this Therapy in a Nutshell video.
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Your body has a built-in, natural ability to calm anxiety. Learn four simple, body-based ways you can calm anxiety by turning on the parasympathetic nervous system.
Calming anxiety is something you can learn to do when you learn how the parasympathetic response works as an anti-anxiety reaction.
Anxiety, PTSD, trauma, and other intense emotions are rooted in the nervous system, specifically the sympathetic response, but our body has a built-in natural ability to calm anxiety by turning on the parasympathetic nervous system.
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Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC, and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.
About Me:
I’m Emma McAdam. I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and I have worked in various settings of change and growth since 2004. My experience includes juvenile corrections, adventure therapy programs, wilderness therapy programs, an eating disorder treatment center, a residential treatment center, and I currently work in an outpatient therapy clinic.
In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction.
And deeper than all of that, the Gospel of Jesus Christ orients my personal worldview and sense of security, peace, hope, and love https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/believe
If you are in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or your local emergency services.
Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC
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[Music] i once read a story about a woman who
adopted a stray dog that she found wandering the highway he was a sweet mutt he was good with kids
he was well behaved and he didn't make messes in the house the only downside was that every time
they got into the car he would get worked up into a tizzy he would run back and forth across
the back seat frantically panting with anxiety and if that wasn't bad enough he would then
throw up all over the back seat this happened every time they got into the car now you can
imagine the dog owner was about at her wit's end in in desperation she decided to take
the dog to a trainer and ask for help the trainer taught the woman to teach the dog to
be calm by having the dog lay down in the car she explained that when the dog's body is in a calm
position it sends messages to the brain that he's safe and triggers him to relax the woman started
working with the dog every day putting him in the car gently making him lay down and before long
he stopped throwing up in her car problem solved in previous videos in this course we learned
that our emotional reactions are much deeper than our thoughts they show up in the body and are
powered by the fight flight freeze response in our limbic system now we're going to talk about
how to soothe anxiety in your nervous system through the skill of self-regulation basically
this means calming down your nervous system and creating the physiological response of
feeling safe when we are actually safe [Music] this video is sponsored by take two minutes take
two minutes is a non-profit dedicated to helping improve your happiness they use text messages to
send you a positive message every day and you can just text them to get sent a custom activity
designed to help improve your mental health they have guided meditations an easy gratitude
journal and some great resources to help with anxiety sleep and improve your mental health
their service is free sign up now just go to their website at take2minutes.org or text the number on
the screen to start getting positive messages and activities today is it possible to have an anxiety
disorder or ptsd if your body is calm i've worked with many professional trauma educators who say
that you cannot have ptsd or anxiety disorders in a relaxed body anxiety and ptsd are the
outward symptoms of having your nervous system stuck in high alert when when your amygdala is
sending the message that you're in danger and it's triggering that fight flight freeze response
so this is why anxiety is something that you feel in your stomach or ptsd locks you into hyper
vigilance you know jumping at the slightest threat this is because your nervous system gets
stuck in that sympathetic response people often feel helpless to change their stress response
and it can feel impossible because because this fight flight freeze response is an autonomic
reaction but we have more influence than we realize so for example when stressed our muscles
get tense without us consciously thinking about it however we can control our muscles when we think
about it or when we feel nervous our breathing gets shorter and shallower but if we consciously
take a deep breath we can slow down our breathing these are two autonomic reactions that we can
influence we can change how stressed our body feels by doing simple techniques the coolest
thing about this is not only does your brain send a message to your body about whether to be
stressed or calm but your body sends a message to your brain about whether to be stressed or
whether to be calm so when we choose to breathe deeply or slowly we choose to turn on that
parasympathetic response which fosters calm so in this video i'm going to teach you a half
dozen ways to regulate your nervous system and turn on that parasympathetic response when
you practice this you can transform your nervous system from being dominated by the stress response
to being dominated by the rest and digest response now a quick side note many people are familiar
with relaxation skills with relaxation skills we stop doing a task we step away and we engage
in an activity that takes a lot of our attention so for example watching tv right relaxation skills
really are important but again they are hard to practice daily i mean the healthy ones are hard
to practice daily obviously watching tv is really easy but um they can be a form of avoidance that
leads to problems in the future so we sometimes have this idea that if we're working we also have
to be stressed right if we're working we have to be stressed that these are fused and that the
only way to be relaxed is to be away from work seeing a situation this way creates a dependence
on avoidance and if you remember back in section 4 avoidance makes us anxious when we think of
situations as the cause of our stress we create helplessness around our stress levels so if you
have the belief that i'm stressed because of my job then you may feel like the only way to escape
that stress is to quit your job or just grate your way through it now there's another way to think
and act we can train our minds and our bodies to separate the situation from the response so let
me give you an example if instead you recognize i'm stressed because i constantly believe that i'm
in danger when i get feedback at my job this can help you reduce that stress response at work now
we're going to talk a lot more about this this way we think about danger in the sections on perceived
danger and creating safety but when we acknowledge that it's the belief that we're in danger when
we're actually safe that's making us anxious then that opens up a little space to change how you see
your job so if you have a massive stress response in the face of your job evaluation you could
change your thinking by reminding yourself this is not a threat to my physical safety
i don't need to fight off a tiger right now i'm safe so in this way relaxation skills can
sometimes backfire they're helpful and important but self-regulation skills are things we can
do while we're still at work and while we're changing our thinking right unlike relaxation
skills self-regulation skills are things we do while performing a task to keep our nervous system
balanced we can practice them throughout the day and while doing almost any activity they keep our
nervous system calm while active and they decrease stress and exhaustion so basically the goal of
self-regulation is to pair the type of thinking that says i am safe right now with a relaxed
body which keeps us calm clear-headed and focused so when we're calm we're better able to make
value-based decisions instead of being reactive and practicing this creates relaxed vigilance let
me tell you a story about how i learned this right i used to work at a treatment center for teenage
girls i really liked the job it was very rewarding but for me it was also really stressful each of
these girls faced many challenges and i cared a lot about them i always wanted to do my very best
to help them one of the most stressful parts of my job was parent weekends when the parents of these
girls would fly out and visit for three days and we would cram as many individual family and group
therapy sessions into the weekend as was humanly possible for my first two years working there
these weekends were times where at work i felt like i was sprinting right i didn't sleep well i
was high strung i was stressed out i was trying to almost frantically cram as much intensity into
my day as possible i didn't know any other way i thought that in order to perform under
pressure i had to be worked up and wound tight that if i cared about my work it was natural
that i was going to be stressed and that the only alternative was to choose a job that was boring or
not important i really didn't know any other way so i just kept going through this like stress
and exhaustion cycle then one january i attended a conference on treating trauma that changed my
perspective using many of the activities that i'm going to teach you in this chapter the facilitator
trained us to foster a calm body while engaging in an intense activity as i practiced these
skills i developed the ability to facilitate a parent weekend without having to be completely
stressed out i still cared i still brought my a-game and i was excited to be there and we
still did a million sessions in a weekend but by monitoring and relaxing my body's stress
response i was able to stay more regulated in my body i was able to think more clearly and i was
able to go home at the end of the day feeling more energetic and less exhausted it was still hard
work but it became enjoyable and sustainable again the ability to be busy engaged even vigilant
without our nervous system freaking out is a skill that can be learned eric gentry who trained
me in this he trains er doctors and policemen and special ops and soldiers with ptsd and he teaches
them how to be active how to actually create safety this experience this felt sense of safety
even in genuinely life-threatening experiences how to do it without being
dominated by the stress response we we create this state by pairing the belief that
we're safe okay i know that no one is killing me right now with mindful awareness and physical
self-regulation and when we do this we perform the same tasks that we previously found to be you
know exhausting and stressful we do this instead while keeping a calm body now in a previous video
i taught you four skills that send a message from your body to your brain to calm down they are deep
belly breathing the valsalva maneuver peripheral vision softening your gaze and the yawn and in
my last video i taught you the shake it off skill many of these are simple things you can do
throughout your day to regulate your your stress even when you're facing stressful tasks i think
it's pretty cool that your phone or your smart watch can also remind you throughout the day to
take a deep breath or to pause or to go for a walk now all these skills can help your nervous system
calm down and it's like they're strengthening your calm muscle the more you practice the better
you'll get at getting calm now there are lots of other activities that help stimulate
the vagus nerve and and its calming effects so i'm gonna teach you four more right now
so go ahead and write down your anxiety level right now on a scale from zero to ten this
first skill is an interesting one it's called the emotional freedom technique or tapping so
go ahead and just gently tap on your forehead seven times and now do that
again right here next to your eye and then right here under your eye right here above your lip below your lip one two three four
five six seven your collarbone right here under your arm and then right here on the karate chop
area one two three four five six seven okay now that the activity is over write down your
anxiety level again on a scale from zero to ten now for most people their
anxiety goes down a little bit now here's the thing about this technique
there is no scientific evidence to back this up proponents of tapping say that you're doing work
with your energy or your meridians or your chi but there's really no research to back this up
what we do know is that it tends to take the anxiety level down a notch for most people in my
opinion almost anything we can do to get grounded in the body can help the body remind the brain
that you are safe right now so that's why i think this works for some people just look around your
room right now open your eyes look beyond to the screen you're looking at right now and just notice
you're safe in this room you're okay right now this is how we calm the brain and the body
okay number two is a lot more fun laughter triggers that parasympathetic response have you
ever noticed how when someone has a near miss like they nearly get hit by a car or something
they have this instinctive laugh that's the body's way of relieving that pressure that built
up fear response so when you can take the time to laugh throughout your day another way to do this
is getting upside down getting inverted right so you could do a headstand or you could use
an inversion table what this does is this sends blood to the heart it slows down its beats and
that can trigger a relaxation response another way to trigger that parasympathetic response is
washing your face in cold water this triggers the dive response which slows heart rate and breathing
there's a couple of other really good ways to um foster that balanced nervous system one of them
isn't monotasking right i mean just do one thing at a time the reason this is important is because
your brain perceives multitasking as a threat so whenever possible just do one thing at a time
another thing that's helpful is mindfulness this is a big word for saying be where you're at
be present doing what you're doing and that's because 99.9 of the time we're actually safe we're
physically safe we're going to talk more about this in the next video but we have the perception
of danger when we don't notice where we're at something else that's helpful in triggering
that parasympathetic response is just doing one slow thing a day so stop to pet a dog sit and
drink cold water without doing anything else just one slow thing a day you know what else
is good for the parasympathetic response sex sex takes you through these natural cycles
of the parasympathetic response and then the sympathetic response for orgasm and then the
parasympathetic system rebounds afterwards so sex can take you through these healthy cycles
of nervous system activation and relaxation if you want to foster a healthy nervous system
it's also important to pay attention to your biorhythms that means eat when you're hungry sleep
when you're tired you know exercise when you feel that need inside of your body here's another
really great way to trigger that parasympathetic response hug someone you care about so hugs
send a sense of safety to the brain which then releases oxytocin which lowers blood pressure
and heart rate and turns down that stress response and stretching can also turn down that stress
response so when we release muscle tension it sends a message to our brain to calm down
so go ahead and try one of these right now um i'm gonna just do a quick stretch my shoulders
get really tight and if i do this little let's do the other arm ah now i hope you're
feeling a little bit better please remember from skill number five that if we if we try to
force control suppress or avoid our emotions these attempts tend to backfire if you're feeling
anxious and you try to force yourself to calm down it can make you feel more anxious so instead
practice willingness allow yourself to feel your emotions and then expand your awareness to the
calm and content areas that are already in your body gently lean into these sensations of calmness
instead of trying to force your anxiety to go away you should have plenty of opportunities
throughout your day to feel a little tense notice it and actively work to soften while still
doing your activity your work or whatever it is practice this act of self-regulation every day
it takes almost no extra time just a little bit of awareness we should be doing self-regulation
every couple of minutes throughout the day so this practice of checking in regulating your muscles
and your response it just takes a second or two to do but if you can if you do it consistently
throughout your day this can completely change your nervous system to be dominated by calm in
the next video you're going to learn how to soothe your mind and create that felt sense of safety
you're going to learn about perceived danger and actual safety thank you for watching and take
care this video is one skill from my 30 skill course how to process your emotions where i teach
30 of the most essential skills for resolving depression anxiety and improving mental health
emotion processing is an essential skill for working through intense emotions but most people
have never been taught how to do it i'm putting every single main video lesson on youtube for the
world to access for free you watching these videos sharing them contributing to my patreon
and my sponsors make this possible if you would like to access the entire
course in one place ad free with its workbook exercises downloads extra videos live q
as additional short readings and links to extended resources the link to buy the
course is in the description below [Music] you
#Calming #Anxiety #Bodys #Builtin #AntiAnxiety #Response
source
Improve your mental health with the free course, https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grounding-skills-for-anxiety-stress-and-ptsd
I just want to come see you.. talk to you.. I love all that your videos are teaching me.. I’m such a mess right now!!
I hate feeling this way! I want to feel better.. I’m trying to!!😢
2:11 it’s not a free service. 15 day free trial
You are a blessing so many of us!!!!! Your help is greatly appreciated
Thank you!!! ❤❤❤
I have no fear but crippling anxiety …..explain
Haven't a hope of laughing
pls translate this prog in urdu
Ive heard that box (4 seconds each way) breathing is also a good way to calm down
Anxiety is so bad, not a hope of being able to laugh
I've seen people do that tapping but never knew how to do it, now I know how and where and everything and it did help me.
Sometimes anxiety feels overwhelming because we try to control every thought. I found it more helpful to let thoughts pass, almost like clouds in the sky, instead of wrestling with them. That shift alone can be calming.❤
This is exactly what I needed simple, science-backed tools to actually calm anxiety instead of just coping. 🧠💆♀ Love how practical this is!
tks maam
tks maam
I'm not safe I'm losing a girl I'm in love with
Thank you Emma!
I’m really enjoying your videos. Thank you for creating such uplifting and insightful content. I’m currently in my fourth year of a psychology degree, and I am volunteering as a crisis supporter, which has been keeping me extremely busy. It’s definitely hard work, and at one point, the stress started to take a toll on my sleep and overall well-being. That’s when I made the decision to take back control and work with the stress and anxiety I was experiencing, rather than against it. I began paying attention to the early signs, like when my body tensed up or when my mind started spinning stories of danger that weren’t actually there. Developing awareness of my emotions and gently challenging those automatic thoughts helped me realise that much of what I was feeling came down to perceived threats, not real ones. Now, I make a conscious effort to take frequent breaks, do things I enjoy, and carve out time for gratitude and spirituality. This shift has brought more balance into my life and significantly reduced my stress and anxiety. I’ve come a long way, and while it’s still a work in progress, your videos have been a meaningful part of that journey. Thank you again.
10:35 important for me
Hi thanks any specific video on somatic anxiety
wow
I really never have a fear of not being safe. I’m just anxiety most of the time . Same w/ go to bed to sleep. I feel safe most of time. Just real anxiety most of time from what? I don’t know.
Just a little tip, don't practice the calming exercises while watching a movie at night. I did the deep belly breathing while watching my favorite show and I fell asleep in the middle of the episode, woke up at the end of the episode…
Can you pls do something for health anxiety
Omg, this was such an amazing video. It was freaky how fast tapping helped my anxiety fade away. And you doing stretching made me do it too, even though I felt quite lazy when you said it as a point. Thank you for the work you do ❤ much love!
Thank you ❣️
How can people in high continuous stress jobs apply these? Sometimes the only break they get is a toilet break.
Thank you so much for your work, for years, thank you so much
Yessssss. This is what I needed to hear right now.
❤
Thank you ❤
Music is distracting. Thank you though.
Angelina jolie said live it feel it be in the moment dont be afraid of it..its how you walk through the fire that counts..you are not afraid..i liked that.
I am very much on the way to buying the course because I believe you deserve my chip in for the great work and knowledge that you are spreading.
I just wanted to ask if you think my 8yo would be able to grasp and benefit from it? He is a very intense and probably very anxious and I just want him to be relaxed and happy – now and in the future 😣🙈
God sent! Praise jesus
Telling myself I am safe in a room doesn't seem to help. The stressor is not a tiger in an imaginary jungle, its inside. I can still be safe in a room and have a heart attack.
Most anxiety techniques just make me kind of giggle because i think they are so silly and probably not really doing anything. Which is good I guess unless you are in the middle of having real anxiety and then you just feel like its stupid and futile.
Thank you! You are a beautiful being, a gift ! 🥰
I am safe. My baby is safe. ❤
Planet Ayurveda's Neurogenie Capsules help in anxiety. This also helps in practicing meditation.
Rhetoric and demenaor of Yours are soothing already 🙂
my anxiety spirals to extreme fear and discomfort to the extend that i couldnt sleep. its really bad. i am learning your lessons to keep myself calm
I am physically safe!! That will now sit with me forever, it’s so simple yet so powerful. Thank you. ❤