Are you visited by periods of anxiety? Or maybe you suffer from anxiety most of the time? Here is a little psychological trick that may just help. It’s a way of fooling those negative emotions into separating themselves from the rest of you.
Winston Churchill’s Story
Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister who led the United Kingdom through most of the second World War, had mental health issues. What those issues were is the subject of debate among historians. Views range from mild depression and anxiety to bi-polar disorder. What we do know is that there were times when it affected him more than others.
Churchill developed ways of coping with these mental health issues. One of these was to tell himself, “We must just keep buggering on.” Another way of dealing with it was to name the dark moods he had. He called them the “Black Dog”. His daughter explained that the Black Dog was usually kenneled – but came out to visit sometimes.
Naming the dark emotions he had was one way that Churchill had of coping with them.
How to Name a Negative Emotion
When anxiety strikes or depression overwhelms you, ask yourself, “If this emotion were to have a name, what would it be?” I am not talking about the clinical name, like “Generalised Anxiety Disorder” or “Emetophobia”. Give it your own personal nickname, like “The Worry Monster” or “The Blue Meanie”.
Having got a name for it, use that name when you talk to others about your mood, or for you own self-talk. Remind yourself that what that you have just named is not you – it is just visiting.
How Does Naming a Negative Emotion Help?
Naming a negative emotion is a psychological trick that you can play on the primitive part of your brain that is generating all those negative emotions. By naming an emotion, it externalises it. That is, it helps you start to think of that emotion, not as part of you, but as a separate entity.
For some people, naming the emotion might not get rid of it, but it makes it easier to cope with. For others, they may find that it visits less and less frequently and with less power each time it visits.
And Finally …
If you are struggling to cope with anxiety or anything related, you might want to give hypnotherapy a try. It is not the only solution, but if you want to give it a go, you are welcome to see me in my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire or online. Contact Me if you would like a chat.
It’s a tough ask, but plunging your face, your head or maybe your whole body into cold water may help relieve anxiety.
Tim’s Story
Tim suffered from severe anxiety, which included panic attacks every week – sometimes even every day. That was until he met Mark Harper, who had been involved in some research into the use of cold water immersion as a potential treatment for depression. As anxiety and depression often go hand-in-hand, Tim decided to have a go.
Of the many forms of cold water immersion that are possible, Tim chose wild swimming, and so one autumn day he found himself in the River Wensum in Norfolk, UK. I imagine that lowering himself into a river on a cold autumn day must have taken some nerve.
“After a minute of my first swim, my feet felt as if I’d crushed them with a breeze block. This was not some glorious communion with Gaia. I was an idiot in a very cold river.”
Nevertheless, despite the pain of the cold water, Tim persisted. And the result … the panic attacks stopped completely.
Cold Water and Anxiety
There is something about immersing ourselves in cold water that appears to have a positive impact on our mental health. The shock of the cold water on our skin, our face or our whole body somehow seems to relieve the anxiety.
The science behind this appears sketchy at the moment. Some small trials have taken place that give us positive hope that cold water can be used as a treatment for anxiety and/or depression. Hopefully, larger scale studies will be conducted in the future, studies that will give a clearer scientific understanding of this phenomenon.
Of course, the lack of large scale studies shouldn’t stop us trying it for ourselves. If it works for you – it works for you … and if it doesn’t – it doesn’t. If you are brave enough to give it a try, then you can discover for yourself if it is a valuable tool to combat anxiety that you can keep in your toolkit.
Different Methods You Can Use
We do not all have to be as brave as Tim, plunging ourselves into icy rivers. There are less dramatic means.
Before you read on, remember to be sensible about this. Here are the obvious caveats:
Suddenly finding yourself in cold water will slow down your heart rate, so if you have any concerns over your heart health, you should consult your doctor before trying.
If you want to try jumping into a river, a lake or the sea – gets some information about how clean the water is first. You don’t want to be going into water where sewerage or industrial waste has been dumped.
Don’t stay in the cold water for such a long time that your body starts to loose its core temperature.
So, bearing in mind the above caveats, here are a few ideas:
Fill up a sink with cold water, hold your breath and place your whole face or head in the water for as long as you are safely able to do so.
Either before or after you nice warm shower, turn the temperature right down and stand in the cold shower for a minute or so.
Fill a bath with cold water, and get in as much of your body as you can.
After a sauna, go into the shower and turn it on cold.
Book yourself a session (or series of sessions) in a cryotherapy chamber – this isn’t water immersion, but it may have the same positive impact.
Find a clean river, lake or beach and go for a quick swim.
One-Off or Long Term?
Is cold water immersion a one-off benefit when you are having a particularly anxiety-ridden period or a panic attack, or does it have long-term benefits? It is not possible (yet) to answer this question. There has been insufficient research to determine the optimal methods. So you need to try and see what works for you.
Some people suggest putting your face into cold water when you are particularly anxious, just to help you calm down in the moment. Others suggest you should have a cold shower on a regular basis.
What you need to do is experiment on yourself to find what works best for you. Pick out one or more of the ideas listed and try them. Note what happens if you are in a highly anxious state. Does the anxiety change immediately, or over time – indeed, does it work for you at all? The important thing is to have a go.
Why Does Cold Water Immersion Work?
Again, the jury is out on this one. Different sources suggest different reasons for how cold water immersion impacts anxiety. Those ideas include:
A change in the chemicals in the brain brought on by the shock of the cold water – endorphins in particular;
Slowing of the heart rate, which is usually high when you are anxious, so slowing it down reverses the anxiety;
Your mind will focus on the impact of the cold on your body and so will put aside any worries for a while;
The cold forces the parasympathetic nervous system (associated with calm and rest) to come into play.
Worth a Go if You’re Brave Enough?
It is a tough ask. Plunging your face, your head or your whole body into cold, even icy water is not the sort of thing that you do lightly. What is more, there is only a little scientific evidence that it works. But if you are brave enough to face it, I think it must be worth trying.
And Finally …
If you want help with your anxiety you might want to have a go at hypnotherapy. I help people with all sorts of anxiety-related issues, using hypnotherapy to help them get back in control of their lives. I work from my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire, as well as online, and would be happy to have a chat if you want to Contact Me.
The “What If” worry cycle is an anxiety-related problem that most people will have experienced at sometime in their lives. It starts with worrying about something going wrong, and the consequences of what happens next. It is a constant cycle of asking ourselves, “… and then what if …”. This is known as “catastrophising”.
Alison’s Story
Alison arrived home from work one day, sat down, and tried to calm down the stream of thoughts going through her head. As she had left work, her boss had looked towards her in a strange way, and he had not said, “See you tomorrow” as he usually did …
Maybe she had done something wrong … She’d soon know if he asked her to see him tomorrow … Or maybe he was just noting it down to confront her with it at a later date … She tried to think of what she had done that day that might have been wrong … What if she was sacked? … What if she couldn’t find another job? … The rent would go overdue and she’d be kicked out … Maybe Joan would let her sleep on her sofa … But she couldn’t stay there forever …
After a sleepless night, Alison arrived at work the next day, only to find that her boss had been so preoccupied with something else, he had not even see her leave work.
Other Examples of the Worry Cycle
If I fail my exams, I won’t get the job I want, then my life will be ruined.
This spot on my arm could turn out to be cancer – I might die and what would my kids do then?
My teenager is not back from the party she went to. What if she has had her drink spiked? Maybe she is lying unconscious on the street somewhere.
My partner’s not answering his phone. What if he’s with another woman? Maybe it’s my sister.
Why have a got an ache in my chest? Is there something wrong with my heart? Could this be the build up to a heart attack?
Catastrophising
The pattern of thinking where we anticipate something bad happening to us, and then anticipate something worse that could happen as a consequence, and then something worse that that, and so on – this is called “catastrophising”. Some people seem to learn how to think catastrophically and catastrophise about something almost every day.
Catastrophising is a threat to our mental health. Every time we go through the process of catastrophic thinking, we add more stress to our lives, which in turn increases the activity of the amygdala – the fight or flight centre of our brain. This is like pouring fuel on the fire of other problems we might have:
People who already have poor mental health – such as anxiety, OCD or depression – may find their symptoms becoming worse when they catastrophise.
Some people live with chronic pain, caused by arthritis, fibromyalgia and the like. If they catastrophise they will often find that their pain become worse.
When is Worrying a Problem?
Most people have worries about the future, at least on occasions. Worrying about the future is not an issue, provided that it is kept under control. If we anticipate what might go wrong, we might be able to do something about it, or prepare for it.
If you worry about failing your exams – you can study for them.
If you worry about the spot on your arm or the pain in your chest – you can get a doctor to check you out.
If you worry about your daughter not coming home on time – you can phone up and check what’s going on.
If you are worried that your partner is not answering the phone, you can ask them why they didn’t answer when you see them next.
Of course, there are some things that people worry about that they can’t do anything about. They might worry about the dreadful things reported on the news. They might worry about the results of a medical test that they are not going to hear about until next week. These are wasted worries. If you cannot do anything about it, then worrying about it will not change the outcome.
Worrying only becomes a problem when it becomes our default way of thinking. If we are constantly worrying or catastrophising, then it impacts our mental and physical health. This is when we need to do something about it.
What Can We Do About It?
The last step is to turn it around. Ask yourself what will happen if everything goes right – what if you do pass the exam? What if that spot just turns out to be a benign mole? What if your partner simply forgot to turn their phone on?
The first step is to recognise that we are catastrophising. Ask yourself if these sort of “what if … what if” worry-cycle thoughts go through your head quite often.
Next, see how good you are at catching yourself doing it. You might start by just noting that you have had some catastrophising thoughts – but only after you have had them. Eventually, you will find that you can spot them mid-flow; you will realise that the same cycle of thinking of worse and worse scenarios is actually happening while you are doing it.
Once you can spot the cycle, while it is happening, don’t beat yourself up about it, just tell yourself, “That’s interesting, I am doing it again.”
Gradually, over a period of time, the cycle of catastrophising will lessen. Don’t be disappointed if it takes a while. You need patience. You are retraining your brain to think in a different way. If you are the worrying kind, your brain will be very experienced and very quick to worry. So practice, practice practice. Eventually, it will calm down and you will be able to get on with life as normal without the constant cycle of worry in your mind.
Getting Therapy
If you find you cannot manage to calm down the worry cycle on your own, you may want to seek help from a therapist. There are a lot of types of therapy available to help, among which are CBT and hypnotherapy.
I help worriers as well as those with other forms of anxiety. I use hypnotherapy to help them get back to their normal, calmer selves. I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire and also online. Do Contact Me if you want to have a chat.
References
Other articles that may be of interest include:
Catastrophising: How toxic thinking leads you down dark paths
When anxiety strikes, it is sometimes difficult to imagine a positive future, and yet that is what I ask my clients to consider. It is hard to have a smile, have a laugh, and enjoy each moment. And yet it is possible to get there.
Anxiety is a natural response to threats. In a dangerous world, our survival instinct clocks in. If there is potential danger nearby, that instinct makes us anxious, and the anxiety makes us look out for the danger. When anxiety strikes, we start focusing on all the things that might go wrong.
Focusing on things that can go wrong in times of danger is part of our survival instinct. It is this instinct that kept our ancestors safe when the world was a more dangerous place. In most of the world, there are few life-threatening dangers these days, and yet our survival instinct still activates.
Our survival instinct is only concerned with keeping us alive; it does not care how we feel. It does not care that being filled with anxiety is not a nice place to be. It does not understand that, in this modern world, being filled with anxiety severely hampers what we are able to achieve.
So I ask my clients not to focus on the things that could go wrong in their lives; I ask them to focus on what life will be like when it all goes right. I ask them to focus on enjoying life. If you suffer from anxiety, you will realise how hard this is to do. That is why hypnotherapy is so useful in helping to break the vicious cycle of anxiety and worry.
If you can, when anxiety strikes, focus your mind on what you can enjoy in that very moment, and also what a successful future would look like.
And Finally …
If you have difficulty in managing your anxiety by yourself, you might like to Contact Me. I help people with anxiety by using hypnotherapy to break the anxiety vicious cycle. I work from my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire and also online.
Photo courtesy of Nicola Crichton at the Mental Health Foundation
There is an old saying: “You are what you eat” – and there is a lot of truth in that saying when it comes to mental health. In my ongoing, and seemingly never-ending, efforts to keep on top of anxiety-related research, yesterday I attended a short course on the impact of food on the brain.
One of the topics we covered was the impact of ultra-processed foods on anxiety and depression. There is a growing body of research that a diet high in ultra processed foods increases the chances of someone developing anxiety and depression.
What Are Ultra Processed Foods?
Go to your kitchen and look at the ingredients list on some of the foods you typically buy. You may find words like “antioxidants”, “food colouring”, “emulsifier”, “preservative” or “sweetener”. These are indications that the foods are ultra-processed. Put simply, if you find ingredients in a product that you could not buy yourself, it is likely to be ultra-processed.
Ultra processing food is what food manufacturers do to make the food look better, taste better or last longer on the supermarket shelves.
What is the Impact of Eating Ultra Processed Foods?
There is growing evidence that a diet high in ultra processed foods is linked to a wide variety of poor health outcomes. We might expect someone who eats a lot of takeaway pizza, burgers and fries to become overweight and have heart disease or diabetes. What is less commonly recognised is that such a diet could impact people’s mental health – in particular, depression.
Depression and anxiety go hand in hand. Most studies have focused on the impact of ultra processed foods on depression, but there are some that also link them with anxiety.
What Should We Do?
No one is saying that we should completely stop eating ultra processed foods. However, we should be aware of the impact on our mental health, and maybe consider cutting down on amount of ultra processed foods in our diet.
This is a difficult ask in this busy modern-day world. Taking time to identify what we eat and cooking more foods from scratch is not easy. However, if you do suffer from anxiety or depression, it may be worth considering.
And Finally …
I am not a nutritionist. I cannot give medical advice on your nutritional needs. All I can do is point you in the direction of some up-to-date research that I am aware of.
However, I do help people with anxiety and depression. I use hypnotherapy to help them get their lives back together again. I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire as well as online. So if you want to Contact Me, I am very happy to talk to you about your anxiety issues.
In 1944, Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters released a recording of “Accentuate the Positive” – a jazzy number with a nice feel-good factor. As well as being an upbeat tune, its words to exactly what it says on the title – encouraging us to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative”.
So what has this to do with anxiety, depression and hypnotherapy?
So many of my clients come to me with a string of problems that they want help with. If I let them, they will talk endlessly about the problems, because that is what their subconscious is directing them to pay attention to.
When you have a lot of stress, the primitive part of your brain starts to trigger the survival instinct. It thinks that if you are stressed, there must be danger about, so it gets you to think about all the things that are going wrong or might go wrong so that you can protect yourself against them. (I say it “thinks” – but it is too primitive to “think” in the sense that we understand it – it is simply an automatic reaction.)
If our ancestors from thousands of years ago went out to look for food, they would be anxious – because it would have been a dangerous world. Anxiety makes you focus on the possibility of things going wrong. In a dangerous world, that focus will get you back to your cave before the predatory animals get you.
In most parts of the world today, the life-threatening dangers that our ancestors faced are largely gone. The primitive part of our brain does not understand that, so when we are stressed, it gets us to focus on the negative in order to protect us from the wolves and tigers, and that focus on the negative leads to a miserable life.
Fortunately, we can (with effort) turn our minds to the positive. We can stop and smell the roses. We can notice the smile on someone’s face. We can take a moment to really enjoy our cup of coffee in the morning. We can, as the song says, “Accentuate the positive”.
And finally …
If you are struggling to cope with anxiety on your own and you need some help, you might like to consider hypnotherapy. I work from my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire, as well as online, and would be pleased if you want to Contact Me.
Accentuate the Positive: Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters
Photo courtesy of Kerry at the Mental Health Foundation
