[Kathy Hebert]

What methods do you use to combat fear and anxiety when it arises? Do you have any practical solutions that can empower me to address anxiety/fear when it pops up? Please share documents, pictures, helpful links, social media posts, and words of wisdom!

[Mariia]

Here are the four of my favorite methods to reduce anxiety from Melissa Tiers’ Anti-anxiety Toolkit. They work so well!

“1. Bi-Lateral Stimulation
This technique involves stimulating both sides of the brain to stop anxiety. It is absurdly
simple yet amazingly effective.

Grab a ball (or apple or anything you can toss) and think
of something that is causing you some anxiety.
When you can feel that anxiety somewhere in your body, rate the level of it on a scale of
one to ten.
Now pass the ball back and forth, from one hand to the other, crossing the mid line, so
you are stimulating both hemispheres of the brain. It will have a more rapid effect if you
keep one hand in front of you as the other swings out to the side each time you pass the
ball,. Do this for a minute. Stop.

Take a deep breath, and check in. You might note that
the anxiety has dissipated.
This is because by activating both hemispheres, you are spreading blood and electrical
impulses throughout the brain and this floods that area of association and diffuses it.
That bully of an anxiety cluster just can’t keep itself together.
Now, think of the same situation again and see how much anxiety you can manage to
conjure up, and rate it once again on the ten- to-one scale. Pass the ball or other object
for a minute, and check in. Repeat till the anxiety has completely diffused.
This is something you can do anywhere. As soon as you start to feel that anxiety, simply
grab an object—keys, a bottle of water, anything will work as long as you are moving
both your arms, and crossing the mid-line of your body.

2. Heart Coherence
This technique is adapted from the work of the HeartMath Institute, which is a group of
doctors and psychologists who are studying heart rate coherence and its effect on
mental and physical health.
Start by bringing your awareness to your heart and as you do, imagine breathing
deeply, in and out, from your heart. You might want to hold your hand over your heart to
keep your awareness there as you breathe through it.
Imagine that as your heart is pumping healthy blood throughout your body, it is also
radiating energy through your whole system.
The heart is the strongest emitter of electromagnetic energy in the body.

By doing the
exercise you are beginning to entrain your brain into a coherent and more relaxed brainwave state.
The heart sends information to the brain in many ways: electromagnetically, which is
how EKGs work; through the pulse, which sends information through a blood pressure
wave; and biochemicaly, through releasing atrial peptide, a hormone that inhibits other
stress hormones.
You can find out more by going to the heartmathinstitute.com.

Practice heart breathing throughout the day, knowing that as soon as you feel that
anxiety you can drop immediately to your heart and breathe. Sometimes, as you focus
on your heart, you might want to think of someone or something that you love and allow
that feeling to flow through your breathing.
And as you’re feeling better, another thing that you might find interesting is to ask
yourself, “What can I learn from this?” You might be surprised by your answers.

3. A Jaw Dropping Moment
Another quick way to begin to take some of the power away from anxiety is to create a
jaw dropping experience. Take a moment to relax your jaw as much as you can. Loosen
it even more, and imagine it dropping to the floor.
Doing this stimulates the Vagus nerve which carries information from the nervous
system to the brain, keeping it informed about what the body is doing.

When you drop
your jaw you are stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system to counteract the fight
or flight response. And you are also encouraging the lungs to reach for a nice deep
breath, creating a flood of the bio-chemicals associated with the relaxation response.
So relax your jaw, take a deep breath in, and pause for three counts. Then exhale twice
as long through the nose.

When you inhale deeply, put your hand on your belly and feel
it rise. This ensures that you’re breathing from your diaphragm.

4. The Backward Spin

One of the consistent things about anxiety and fear is that it’s a physical feeling in the
body. It’s always moving, and usually it’s moving too fast.
Think of the last time you got startled. You might remember the feeling starting
somewhere in your body (for example, in your belly). It moves up (or down) and finally
out as the fear passes through you.
But with anxiety, the fear moves up or down, but it doesn’t move out. It keeps circulating
through the body. This is why we say that fear has a spin.
This technique is a way to interrupt that cycle. It comes from Richard Bandler, the co-creator of Neuro-Linguistic- Programming (NLP) and can be used for many different
uncomfortable emotional states.
Often I go through the exercise with my clients only once, and they are then able to use
it on their own as a rapid way out of anxiety and into a far more resourceful state.
Here’s how it works: locate where you feel the anxiety moving in your body, and notice
which way the feeling spins. (It is often helpful to use your hand to model the direction of
the spin.)
Next imagine that you can move the spin outside of your body. In other words, it’s still
spinning in the same way that you were feeling it before, but now it’s outside of you.
Once you can feel it outside of yourself, reverse the spin (and the movement of your
hand if you’re using it).
As you do this, imagine bringing the spin back inside your body, rotating in this opposite
direction. Notice how it feels different. Now, think of something funny and add some
laughter to the spin because this will start to change the chemicals and hormones
coursing through your body.
The next time you start to feel anxious, all you will have to do is notice the way it’s
spinning and reverse it.” (Melissa Tiers, Anti-anxiety Toolkit)

[Kathy Hebert]

Mariia, these are awesome, hands-on, practical practices that can make a real difference in how the day goes! Thank you for your expertise and for sharing these tools with us to practice!

[Ankit]

We all have some form of fear

Most of the time, it holds us back

From doing what we know we must be doing

It takes our limited attention, time, and resources

And turns them into inaction and worries

But.. What if the same fear could serve as a compass?

To lead us to our path

What if, we welcome fear as the necessary catalyst for action?

If this is true, how do we fully embrace fear?

Through a reframe.. That.. Fear is a mask for your DESIRE

Then, I ask you.. What do you truly desire?