The 5-Minute Method To Stop Your Spiral

So you're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.

Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

Due to circumstances that were completely in my control and actually pretty predictable based on my past behavior, I will be spiraling for the next week yourself, anyone needs anything, I'm God.

For mother Miya, I'm your host as Shany Dante. Welcome to But are you happy? Because no, another personality quiz won't fix you?

And I'm doctor Anastagia hernis a clinical psychologist passionate about happiness and mental health. Now do you ever get stuck thinking about a hypothetical situation that isn't really happening and asking yourself a bunch of questions that make you more and more stressed, You've probably found yourself in a stress spiral.

If you've listened to the show before, my voice may not be familiar. I'm a mental wellbeing and self development leader. I'm Australians fore Lunkan, and I'm constantly on a journey of learning more about my culture and my passion. And you could say purpose in life right now is all around empowering teenage girls and young women.

And I'm an academic and author. Most recently i published a book called The Dopamine Brain. So my whole career focus really is about how to help people develop new habits.

To optimize their mental health.

We're going to be shifting gears to bring you what you told us you wanted, conversations with an expert about the things that you are thinking about, working on, struggling through, or really.

Just curious about.

And that's where you, Doctor Anastasia Heronis, you come into the equation.

We're going to be covering so many relevant topics like how to stop dating the wrong person, how to say no to the people we love, and how to actually quieten down that voice in our head when it's been really mean to us.

In each episode, you'll be getting all of doctor Anastasia's wisdom and knowledge, along with her clear takeaways specific guidance for how you can apply this information to your lives.

Right now, as you may.

Have guessed, we're kicking this season off with a topic that we know so many of us can struggle with, including myself, anxiety, worry, and getting calling those stress spirals.

Now, this is something so many of my clients have been dealing with lately and you might be two.

All right, let's jump.

In, okay, on the stagia. How do we actually know if we're anxious? How does it show up?

Anxiety is a massive topic.

There's so much for us to talk about here, and it really does exist on a spectrum of experiences. It's one of the most common things actually that a lot of my clients are facing at the moment. And if we put this kind of in the context of Aussies around the country, about three million Australians actually live with anxiety. It's about one in four of us will experience problematic anxiety at some point in our lives.

That's a wild stat and just goes to show how common it is. And we'd love to kind of unpack anxiety because I feel like it does get a really bad rap.

Yeah, it's so common.

Yes, anxiety gets a bad rap.

It doesn't feel good, right, And none of us like to feel anxious, and so it's sort of classified broadly as one of these bad emotions, an emotion that we want to get rid of. We don't want to feel anxious, so how do we get rid of it? But actually, anxiety, along with every other emotion serves a really important function all emotions. It's important for us to think about them as sources of information. They're like data points. They give us information about ourselves, about the world, about.

The environment around us.

So I think it's crucial for us to be able to lean into the information that an emotion actually gives us. Now, if we circle back to anxiety specifically, the function of anxiety is to essentially be the body's smoke detector and smoke alarm, right, So anxiety is giving us the message that there might be some sort of danger or threat in the environment that we need to be aware of and perhaps then do something to protect ourselves.

It's really great that you're unpacking this because I feel like what I'm hearing is anxiety can actually be helpful as well at times, which is very different to I would say what we naturally have our definition of anxiety. We want to shame it, there's a stigma around it, we don't want to talk about it, we want to push it away. Yet what I'm hearing is it's actually giving us more information about, you know, the context of

Anxiety will always show up in all of us throughout our life, so we can't get rid of it completely. So I think this question about helpful versus unhelpful anxiety is really important. Unhelpful anxiety is when we experience anxiety that's out of context. So let me explain what I mean by that. If we experience anxiety in a situation that doesn't warrant us to be anxious, that's going to

Feel anxious, Right, normal natural emotion.

We want to feel anxious in that situation because anxiety is going to prompt us to get up and run out of this place. Right helpful anxiety so unhelpful anxiety sends us a message which makes us overestimate the likelihood things are going to go wrong. So I think this is a great episode for us to be starting with and talking about. But to answer your question, how does

She had to do a lot of public speaking for her work and in her role.

But would get this crippling, overwhelming fear of getting on stage and making a full of herself and saying the wrong thing. Now, there was no history of her ever really doing that. She was generally pretty fine with her public speaking, and even if she did kind of get on stage and say something a little wrong, it wasn't kind of the end of the world. So anxiety makes us overestimate that things will go wrong, but it does

So there is a chance.

It's probably a small chance, but there is a chance. But anxiety makes us underestimate our ability to cope if that happens. So if Catherine got on stage and completely forgot what she was meant to be saying in her presentation, it would feel pretty crappy, like it wouldn't be a nice experience for her. The crowd would probably be like, Oh, she's forgot what she's meant to say.

But in reality, it's a situation she could cope with.

She'd just walk off, take a breath, grab her notes, come back on the stage, keep going.

Probably no one ever thinks about it again.

So that's an example of where anxiety can be unhelpful for us, because all it was doing was making Catherine feel completely overwhelmed and stressed when she didn't really need to.

I really love this too, because it kind of ties back to your statistic that you' named before and how common it is. But also what I'm hearing is that even though it's common, anxiety can show up in different ways. So I like that you're kind of giving us the listeners different ideas of what that could potentially look like.

Yes, And the reason it is so common is because from a biological prehistoric perspective, anxiety was crucial for the survival of the species. If we remember, it serves evolutionary art function to protect us. It's just that nowadays we live in a world, in a society, especially if you live in here in Australia.

Where we don't need to.

Be as alert for threats and dangers, but emotions exist in a very primal part of the brain, so we feel those emotional experiences much more on the anxiety, much more than actually we need to, given how our life and society functions these days.

So what about a stress spiral? Like, what exactly is a stress spiral? And how can you tell if you're courting one?

I love this because a stress spiral is not necessarily a clinical technical term that I would use, but it is definitely a term that many of my clients will use right in sort of culture. And when people colloquially talk about anxiety, they will talk about being in a stress spiral. And so I guess what people are getting at is this idea of getting deeper and deeper in

With some sort of pressure. But what can happen is we can get caught further and further in that experience, which ultimately makes it more and more intense.

So does that mean in a way with stress virals? Because you mentioned and I hear it all the time. It is thrown around a lot in pop culture. So what isn't a stress viral?

Then that's a good alternative question. What isn't a stress viral?

What isn't a stress viral is when we experience stress in a way that meets the expectation of a situation. So if I have an impending deadline for work on Friday and it's now Thursday and I haven't got it almost done, stress is going to naturally come about. And stress can actually be a really useful thing in that situation. Because I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but a little bit of healthy stress helps us get things done.

Very true can confirm.

So healthy stress actually motivates us to meet the deadline, to get done what we need to do.

Unhealthy stress debilitates us.

It's really interesting because I'm hearing some common themes. Even with anxiety, what we're hearing is it's helpful and unhelpful. But also with stress, it's helpful and also unhelpful.

So and that goes with all emotions. All emotions can be helpful when they fit the context and when we experience them in a way that feels manageable, but if we experience them too intensely or too much or for too long, they can become really debilitating in our lives.

So is there a difference between anxiety in the body as we feel it versus thinking anxious thoughts.

Yes, absolutely, they're absolutely related.

They're connected. So our thoughts, our thoughts are very powerful. They certainly influence how we feel. So if I'm worrying, if I'm going through that anxious thinking process, I'm more likely to feel anxiety in the body. But one of the things I interestly find in the work that I do with clients is that people tend to fall into one of two categories. Some people will come into the therapy room and they'll be able to describe to me in great detail the physical.

Experience of anxiety.

So they'll tell me that they get anxious, and they'll say, I feel my heart racing, I get sweaty, I feel dizzy, I feel like I'm going to faint, my legs feel wobbly, and I feel like I can't stand up anymore. So they can give me all the details about what it physically feels like in their body. Other people can come in the room and tell me great details about what they're thinking, their thought processes, and the things that they're worrying about.

And ultimately, what we want to help.

People do is have an awareness of both the thought processes that can be quite anxious in nature and the physical experience of anxiety in the body.

So what about a panic attack?

What exactly is that a panic attack is different to anxiety. We could sort of summarize it as a much more

Yeah, I feel like panic attacks. It's something I feel. I hear all the time with people who've experienced personally or observed someone else that they love going through one, and it can be quite confronting in a way.

And the thing is, often these panic attacks can feel like they come out of nowhere. There isn't always a clear trigger, So it's not necessarily like, you know, Catherine about to go on stage worrying about is she going to make a fall out of herself Pete. Someone might literally just be sitting in the office and all of a sudden they get this onslaught of anxious symptoms and they have a panic attack. Sometimes the trigger can be outside in the environment, but actually sometimes it can be

So does that mean, because what I'm hearing panic attacks, it's definitely a really big it's a body sensation, it's quite sounds quite severe. So then what's the difference between just feeling anxiety in your body versus I'm having a panic attack.

I think it comes back to the usefulness of the experience. So when someone has a panic attack, it's for those ten or so minutes, it's debilitating. It feels like they cannot function. People might often have to actually, you know, leave the room and excuse themselves, whereas anxiety in and of itself might be uncomfortable, but we can still function in the world. It can motivate us to take an action that's helpful for us.

So it's a bit like there's a bit of a spectrum, but if it's anxiety in the body, there's somewhat more control around how you can move through it.

Yes.

Yeah, So you've told us a bit about Catherine with her fear of public speaking. What are some of the other themes you're noticing in your clinical work.

Anxiety shows up in so many different ways for people. But actually, interestingly, one of the recent themes I've seen is this anxiousness and worry about big picture kind of global events, So things like worrying about wars, worrying about climate change, worrying about politics and how politics are going to influence the future. And often in these cases they're issues that are so big that one person, you know,

I mean, the cost of living example is so relatable and I think even for me personally, once I left high school, I went straight into you know, university and then went down that traditional path. But then I decided to get into the startup world, so I started the

By thirty and that weighs on me.

I feel like I feel like I am behind, even though it's so easy to look at the highlight reels on Instagram and know that it is the highlight reels, but you still get sucked into it. So it's definitely something that weighs on me. I'm not sure if that's something you can relate to as well.

Absolutely, this idea of kind of financially where we should be at any point in our life and how much we should have saved or what we should have done with that money is, you know, something I can relate to as well.

But as I said, like a lot of people, a lot of younger people are kind of thinking about this and worrying about it as well.

Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of shame around talking about money, right, and so often we feel like we're alone in it, or we feel like we're we're the poorest friend out of everyone.

And the stats speak to the opposite, right, So so many people are actually struggling financially. And I was actually looking at a report that came out last year from Mission Australia and it surveyed almost twenty thousand people and a particularly young cohort, right, So these were fifteen to nineteen year old, and what they found is that fifty five percent, so more than half, were significantly worried about

After this short break, duck down a stage is going to teach you the five minute method to help you break out of an anxiety spiral and stop an anxiety attack in its tracks. At Asasia, I want to ask you for two techniques today. First, I want you to tell us what we can do for ourselves when we find ourselves spirally and what should we do for someone else.

Let's start with ourselves.

So the technique and the strategies that I'm going to give you today are based on a type of therapy called cognitive behavior therapy or CBT for short, and it has the evidence behind it. It's sort of the gold standard therapeutic approach that we would use for someone who is experiencing anxiety.

It's what I used with Catherine when.

She was worried about getting on stage and doing her public speaking. So what I first recommends to people, and this.

Is going to sound really basic, but.

Bear with me, is stop as a first step. Just stop, take a moment, take a breath, take a pause. For us to be able to do kind of anything effective for ourselves, we first need to be able to just stop and take.

A breath and ground ourselves in the moment.

It's really interesting because it can sound really basic, but also it can be really hard when you're in it so deeply.

It's hard to stop.

Yes, absolutely, and so I say to people, just like physically, stop, don't take another step, don't say another word, you know, metaphorically, even if you're sort of in a situation where you are in a meeting at work or something, imagine yourself stopping, but just kind of take that moment, take that pause, take that breath, because once we've done that, we're in a better position to help ourselves through the next few steps.

So once we've stopped, we want.

To take a moment to think about our thinking, reflect on our thoughts, actually notice what our brain and our mind is telling us. We were saying earlier that the mind is so powerful, our thoughts are so powerful, and they certainly influence us to feel particular ways. But not everything that we think, well, not everything that we tell ourselves is actually true.

We all engage in unhelpful patterns of thinking.

We might catastrophize, we might be quite black and white now thinking, we might just jump to conclusions. We do all these sort of thought patterns quite naturally, but they

For the next two weeks at work. So she was telling herself all these unhelpful things that probably weren't actually going to happen, and weren't very true, and weren't based on any kind of history of that actually happening to her.

So it's really important for us to be able to identify what is my brain actually telling me, so that I can then examine A is it true and.

B is it helpful?

I really like that moment of pause, and essentially we're kind of zooming out to see what are we thinking and if it is helpful or not helpful.

And I find even journaling.

Journaling is such a great way to actually put it down on paper and then getting to the bottom of it. I know, for me, there's been times where I just look at the things that I'm actually thinking about and I can't help but kind of giggle to myself, being like, this is actually ridiculous. I would never say this to anyone else, but you know, we're all our own worst in a critic.

So I love the journaling because actually seeing those words that we're internally saying to ourselves on paper, we put that distance between ourselves and the thoughts and so we can see it with a bit more clarity. So once we've stopped, we've reflected on our thoughts, we've identified that maybe they're not that true or that helpful for the situation that we're in. I then encourage people to ask themselves, what about this situation is in your control and what's

So if we can focus.

On what's in our control, we can take steps to action that and create some change for ourselves.

So what happens if you're too deep in the spiral, and you know the strategies you've just mentioned doesn't actually work.

What do we do?

Then?

This is great because it's all well and good for us to be able to think about our thinking, But if we're in a state of panic and distress and complete overwhelm, that's actually a really hard thing to do. So if we're at that eight, nine, ten out of ten level of anxiety, I actually recommend that people instead utilize the senses.

Right, So there's two different ways we can do this. One is going.

Down a pathway of what we call self soothing. So this is using the sensors in a way that's really comforting and nice and kind to help bring down that level of stress and anxiety to a level that feels more manageable. So if we think across the sensors, these might be things like lighting a scented candle, smelling some incense, eating something that tastes really lovely or nostalgic, you know, sipping on a hot cup of tea or oha. So utilizing the senses in a way that's calming for the body.

And people tend to have sensory preferences, so for.

Me, I love touch. If I don't feel good. My go to is it doesn't matter how hot it is, put on a jumper. I find it, like, you know, having a bit of a hug. Put on the jumper, it's really comforting. Get under the douna, anything that sort of is touching my skin is really calming and soothing for me.

I don't know a shanny. If you've got sensory preferences.

I feel like, I mean outside of the matcha as well, like food taste is really good, but also the senses so dim lighting.

It's just so calming.

It feels like I'm in a spa, but I'm at home with my fairy lights on.

So yes, So the self soothing can be really effective when we can't think our way out of anxiety, but we want to physically do something to help regulate our anxiety.

Self soothing is great.

The other option that utilizes the sensors is a more intense version of using the sensors, and this provides a bit of a shock to the system. So if there is one strategy I could give someone to help manage their anxiety when it's at that ten out of ten peak, it's utilizing cold cold water, really frozen ice packs from the freezer, a bag of frozen peas, whatever you've got that's cold. It is incredibly effective on a physiological level

And we can mimic this to our advantage.

So I encourage people if they're feeling really overwhelmed, jump in a cold shower.

It doesn't feel pleasant, it takes a.

Bit, it gots to get in there sometimes unless you're someone who regularly does cold plunges. But it can be hard but incredibly effective. If you imagine yourself ten out of ten anxiety, you know, hot, flush, heart racing, sweating, dizzy, and you jumped in a cold swimming pool or a cold shower, you would pretty quickly physically feel a fair

But also if you're out and about and you don't.

Have a freezer bag or a cold shower handy, get into woolies, go into the freezer aisle, open that door and feel the blast of the colds.

If you're in the.

Car, turn on the air con, blast it into your face your face.

Is really effective for trying to regulate with the cold. So it's my go to tip.

Wow, you know, I'm so surprised that cold actually helps because I know how much it can make me stress, Like I assumed that it would spike my cortisol levels. And yeah, I'm just glad that there's two options here. I'm going to take the soothing route. Not sure, I don't know, I'm not sure.

About the cold therapy, but.

The stress is probably more before you're actually, yeah, my thoughts, that's the anxiety.

Okay, cool, it's all clear.

We're getting the breakthroughs here.

This is great.

So what if none of the techniques that you've talked about still isn't working and someone stealing really deep emotional pain. Is that when they should seek a psychologist or a professional to get medication.

Potentially, if people feel like therapy and these kinds of strategies aren't working for them, that's definitely a situation where we would encourage someone to go talk to either a GP or a psychiatrist. Both can prescribe medications to be able to talk through what the different options are. There are so many different medications when it comes to managing anxiety and our mental health that it is really important to see a professional to talk through what the different

Go back to feeling anxious.

So the therapy and the medication hand in hand can be a fantastic combination for people.

So you've just shared with us some really great techniques around how to manage anxiety and panic attacks for ourselves, But what about someone else?

If we're trying to help someone else who is feeling anxious and overwhelmed, the first thing I would recommend is don't panic yourself. Don't take on that other person's anxiety and panic and feel anxious or panicky yourself.

Stay calm and stay with them.

What I mean by stay with them is yes, physically stay with them, but emotionally stay with them.

Attune to what they're feeling, Listen to them, hear them, validate them.

Everyone wants to feel heard in life, and so often it's the case that if someone's worried about something, want to jump in with a fix totally.

We want to say.

Don't worry, everything will be fine, and probably never in the history of someone feeling anxious as that actually helps. Like if you say don't worry, everything's going to be okay, the person doesn't walk away being like, uh, okay, great, Right, if we feel overwhelmed and anxious, we want to feel heard, we want.

To feel understood.

So that's sometimes the biggest thing that we can give people, being there with them physically, but emotionally, being with them.

Yeah, it's so it's so hard to do sometimes, I feel, especially with women, we're so empathetic and when someone we love that is struggling, it's easy to just subconsciously.

Take that on.

And I really like that you're helping us to separate ourselves being like it has nothing to do about you or how you showed up. It's purely what does that person need right now? Really focusing on that person and being there for them, attuning to them. So once we've done that, the next thing is moving into helping them through it. Right, But we don't want to assume that we know what that person wants or needs, right Ask them, Ask them if there's anything that they know that's helpful

That's where we can jump in and help give that to them.

If, however, someone doesn't know what they need in that moment, if we ask them and they're not able to tell us, that's where we can offer some suggestions and some solutions. And sometimes the simplest one is actually us helping someone get out of the space that they're in and just going outside, taking a break, grabbing a cup of coffee, moving, moving the body, and moving out of their physical surroundings and space in that moment.

Okay, Anastasia, Because I'm someone that is always about having to growth by It's so next time I'm going to woolies or calls, I've got to go into the freezer aisle, grab those frozen peas and stuck up by freezer just for you.

I'll report back on how it goes.

After this short break, Anastasia is going to solve the personal problem that one of you, our listeners sent us.

Stay with us, Bib hereb Bib.

I'm having a serious Cristis BRB having a crisis.

Okay, I am really excited to debut this segment, which will be bringing you in every episode of But Are You Happy? This is where we respond to the dilemmas or questions that you our listeners have sent us, and Anastasia will provide her best advice. Our first dilemma comes from Sydney.

So I'm in my late twenties and I feel like every conversation I have with my friends lately is honestly is such a drainer, because all they ever want to talk about is whether I'm wan they're going to buy property, whether or not to pro create, or whether or not to get married, And honestly, I just don't really care

You are not alone in this.

I've heard many people share similar stories about things that they're worrying about.

This idea of how do I have the life I want now?

How do I have the fun that I want now and set myself up for the future as well? And I wish I could waive the magic wand and give a really short, simple solution to this, but unfortunately it's not that simple. It's all about balance, right, And as humans, we have a tendency to want to fund find a single answer to a problem.

But in reality, I don't think there is a simple answer here. Life is complex.

We are complex, and so it's always about how do we find balance between the fun and the enjoyment in the short term with balancing those long term goals that.

We might have now.

If you're worried about making decisions that you might regret in the future, i'd encourage you to reflect.

On what your values are. So we all have values. We might not always be aware.

Of them, so it's important to take some time out to actually reflect on what our values are. But essentially, values are the things that are most important to us in life. We can think of them as like a compass, a compass that directs us down a particular path in life, and from those values, we can set goals and tasks and activities for ourselves that feel really meaningful and values aligned.

Is it that society has told.

Me that owning a home, or having kids or being at this point in my career.

Should be important to me? Or is that actually what my values are?

I really love it because it's essentially doing your values is getting to know yourself even more, which is important and for.

Any of the listeners out there, if you haven't ever done this values reflection, have a go, get out a pen and a paper, sit down at a desk and just write out a list of the things that are important to you. Write single words, right, So values are things like family, health, adventure, creativity, honesty. Right, so there's single words. It's not like I value having a coffee in the morning. What is it that the coffee in the morning gives me? It's my moment of peace? I

Write them out.

I really love that process because it's helping us to look at Okay, what are the things that I essentially love doing and what are the things that.

I hate doing?

And then underneath that is where we'll discover our values.

Absolutely, And then for any of the listeners who want to take it one step further, I'm giving a lot of homework here, but reflect on am I actually living my life aligned with these values? So, for example, if I have the value of creativity, Okay, it's all well and good to know that I value creativity, But am I doing anything creative in my life? Because having the value doesn't necessarily mean that we're living out the value.

So if we have clarity around our values, would that reduce our anxiety?

It absolutely can. If we know what our values are, we feel better equipped to make decisions in life.

And so often, you know, anxiety can come from that feeling of being overwhelmed like Courtney was, with what she should do in life and how she should live life. So knowing our values can absolutely help us reduce anxiety and feel more kind of satisfaction and can in life.

All right, everyone, let's get into our homework. Let's get our values done.

Atastasia.

We have covered a lot of ground in today's episode.

Can you give us a recap?

We want the post it note on the bathroom mirror reminders please absolutely?

Okay.

First up, anxiety serves a necessary function in the brain and body. Second, sometimes anxiety can get a bit too intense, or a situation doesn't warrant us to be anxious. Third, if that's the case, we can mentally talk ourselves through the situation by challenging those catastrophic thoughts. And finally, if it feels too physically overwhelming, soothe yourself using the sensors or jump in that cold shower.

Thank you, Anastasia.

Guys, Next week we will be tackling the right way to say no to people you love and really dig into the ways that we can help ourselves deal with toxic family dynamics and relationships.

In the meantime, if you have any burnie.

Questions or want to share your story with us, please get in contact with us.

We would love to hear from you.

There are a few ways to get in touch, follow the links in the show.

Notes, and remember, while I am a psychologist, this podcast isn't a diagnostic tool, and the advice and ideas we present here should always take into account your personal medical history. The executive producer of But Are You Happy is Naima Brown.

Tarlie Blackman is our senior producer.

Sound design and editing by Jacob Brown.

I'm a Shany Dante and I'm.

Doctor Anatheja Hornus.

If this conversation brought up any difficult feelings for you, we have links for more resources in the show notes. Around the topics we discussed today, you can also reach out to organizations Beyond Blue or Lifeline if you're wanting more immediate support.

Thanks for listening.