Episode #141

How To Be Calm Using CBT

Calm is a seemingly elusive state that many people would love to achieve.

What does it mean to truly be calm?

How can you achieve that state?

And how can CBT tools help you get there?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I share with you some simple but powerful tools to help you achieve true inner zen.

Click to listen now!

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie from My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So thanks for being here with me and as always, your support. I wanted to talk to you guys today about what it means to be calm and why that can be really hard. I think there's so many things going on in our lives on a daily basis, and we'll talk about all those different things I'm thinking about that I know all of us have been in situations where somebody has said, you need to calm down or just be calm, go calm yourself down, whatever they may have said to you specifically, it's like, okay, I would like to be calm. I think most of us strive to be calm. But what does that even mean? And how do I even get there? And it's more than just taking a couple of deep breaths, right? So I thought, I want to talk about all the issues that are going on in our lives today that affect most of us.

And hopefully I can touch some soft spots for you that maybe you've been struggling with and be able to create some new tools for yourself so you can get calm when it's most important, when it might be even least important, but you just want to feel better. And so when someone says that to you, you're like, Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. I'm going to go use my tools that I have because I do need to calm down in this situation. So one of the first things to start off with, and I read a really great quote I wanted to share with you guys, is about all of the stress, especially in the United States right now, that a lot of people are feeling regarding politics. And I've had clients say, I don't even know how to respond to people. It's very uncomfortable. If they ask me specific questions, what do I even do? And so I read this quote again. It's in psychology today magazine. Just give it a little background here. And The author said, Just shooting facts at each other isn't going to bridge the divides. And not being able to bridge the divides is what creates a lot of anxiety for all of us, right?

And it's hard to become. And since polarization is fueled by increasing disdain for the other side, sadly enough, the author says, We first need to be a little vulnerable and connect with each other as people. And in a disagreement, he suggests that opponents in their life to share more about how they're feeling and why they feel the way they do, and trying to be genuinely curious about the answer from other people. Think of political discussions as opportunities to learn rather than to argue or convince. And that was from Devon Fry, just to give credit. So I think we're just like, Well, why do I believe this? Because this and this and this. And I'm guilty of that, too. I'll just give out facts. Versus being vulnerable and saying, Why are these things important to me? And why do I feel so passionate about certain things regarding the United States' political presidential run right now? Is because it does hit all of us emotionally really strong. And instead of feeling those emotions and sharing on that level, we tend to just throw things back at each other and nobody really connects, and it makes it really hard.

So it causes a lot of dysregulation, and it's really hard to be calm, right? So that's what gave me the first idea to talk about this today, is what does that mean to be calm? And again, the Psychology Today magazine that I'm going to be referring to today, which is their latest on the front, it says, high cost of calm and why relaxing is so much work, which sounds funny, right? Because you're like, Being calm shouldn't take a lot of work. I should just be able to go sit somewhere and be calm. But it does take a lot of work because most of us are not calm throughout the day, right? If we really think about it, we're always working to be relaxed and calm and present and centered. That is something we're always working on because that's just not where we are automatically. And that's okay. The point is we want to notice when we're not feeling calm and what we can do to make things better for ourselves. Because I know that when I'm calm, I can think more clearly, I can be more present, I'm not going to react off my feelings, I'm going to say, Okay, I am heated or riled or upset or scared.

What are my thoughts? My CBT tools. What are my thoughts that are making me feel this way? And use my CBT tools, my thought record and challenge. But then I also physically need to help my body calm down because I'm stressed and I'm frustrated and whatever might be going on. So that's what I want to talk to you guys about. I just wanted to share this quick little quote that he was saying, which I found helpful for myself, that is that what I'm doing? I'm just Oh, you shouldn't think this way, or this is why this is important, right? And throwing facts out. But when people come to me and share emotion where they're coming from or this experience they had and why this issue is important to them, I am much more open to that. And information, and that's how I want to communicate to others also. So if I do catch myself thrown out of fact, I'm being more mindful now and saying, Well, let me share with you why that fact is important. And you're going to see that people will listen to you more. And this isn't just about politics, it's about anything in our life, anything that upsets us, any needs we have for a relationship we're in or a work environment or our friendships.

We need to really be vulnerable and share our thoughts and our feelings about why it's important not just say, I need you to do this for me, and then expect that to happen, because it probably won't work. The environment that we all live in, I think wherever you live in the world is we are hyper stimulated, right? There's always something going on. We're on our phones. We got the TV on, we got the radio on. And we have our watches on that are letting us know, even if our phone's off, that we have a message coming through. Recently, I've had a client that I notice when she comes in, we'll start the session, and then I see her take her Apple Watch off and just put it in her purse because I don't hear anything, but she's getting a little zing on her wrist like, Oh, notification, notification. And it's hard to be present, and she's working on herself. So I really give her kudos for taking her watch off and being like, I need to be present and not hyper stimulated by other things going on. I think that's something we all need to really look at.

How much time are we on our devices? How much TV we're watching? Do we allow ourselves to just be quiet and decrease all the stimulation? When you think about it out loud, how is my brain going to be calm, right? Kind of feel like, This is good, right? When there's all this information coming in, and especially when it comes to our devices, if it's not maybe your favorite song, the news is just so negative, and it's one story after another, after another, after another, just really sad things that are happening in the world, things that may be happening that scare us on every different level. And I know I've said this before in my podcast, but I really talk to my clients, and I take this advice from after myself. How much news do I watch? Because it's just way too depressing. And I've noticed, too, when I have watched, that a really sad story, they'll give it 10 seconds, and then they're on the next sad story. Tell me more about that one. Oh, no, we're going to give your brain more horrible news to take in. And it's just that over stimulating, and I'm just like, Okay, time to turn off.

You know what? That's why I don't watch. It's not good for me. I need to get the information in other ways and stay on top of things because it's important to know what's going on in the world. But I don't need to listen to every story over and over again, and especially if I notice that it's not really serving me, but just making me feel more upset and disconnected from being present in my day. So that's really important. Are you feeling hyper stimulated in your world and being interrupted all the time? Again, through your watches, through your phones, all that stuff. And your nervous system is constantly being affected by all of this hyper stimulation, getting aroused. So being calm isn't something that is actively sought out. What you're actively seeking out is all this other stuff. I need to be always doing it, be on top and be connected. I don't want to miss a call because then maybe I'll I miss being invited to go do something. I don't want to be alone. These are all the thoughts I'm sharing with you that are probably going through your head, even if you're not aware, which is why it's hard to disconnect.

I think there's a fear now to disconnect from these things because we think we're going to miss out, which is your hot thought. So instead, we're just over stimulated all the time. All the time. So I want you to first start with this podcast by taking an inventory of yourself and saying, Am I over stimulated? How much time am I spending? I know on our phone somewhere or on your watch or whatever you got, you can see how much time you actually spend on your phone. And I know some people are just like, Holy mackereel. I didn't know I was spending so much time just cruising through Facebook or Instagram or whatever you follow. And hours can go by. It's just the reality. And it's not that you have bad intentions, but it just happens. So you really want to be mindful of that. So again, I'd like you to first take an inventory and see where am I regarding all of this an ability to be able to calm myself down because I'm allowing too much stimulation to come into my brain. And again, it doesn't just come natural, even though we wish it would.

We have to work on it And you can do that by being mindful of your breathing. Meditation is super helpful. Recognizing what are some things that maybe I need to even avoid that just caused me so much anxiety and I don't have to have them in my life. You don't have to have everything in your life that you have, probably. You probably could eliminate some things or really have some healthier boundaries with them. So being calm is both psychological and It's physiological, right? So resetting between your body and your mind can be really helpful. And it's different for each person. So you want to decide and first decide What am I willing to do? And figure out what am I willing to do as well, right? To be more calm and create a better daily routine for myself. So your nervous system requires that you just do some simple things on a daily basis. Being calm doesn't have to be that difficult. But when you are calm, your body feels safe. And when you feel safe, you feel calm, right? Back and forth, back and forth. When we don't feel When we feel safe, when we feel scared or we feel worried, we're not going to be in a calm state, right?

So that's why it's important to understand that being calm is part of your basic human need, right? Feeling safe is a human need. And when you don't feel that you are safe, we're on the defense instead. And we're looking around all the time as everything, Okay, am I safe? Looking behind ourselves, that thing. We're just not staying calm. And we're on high alert. And I think the world and media and TV really feeds all of that to us. And although they may have good intentions and wanting us to be careful and safe and take care of ourselves, It really just feeds that hypervigilance that we end up creating where it's hard to just be calm and sit still. So of course, I've said to you guys before, sometimes being aroused, being anxious is important. I don't want you to go through life with your eyes closed either, because being anxious sometimes allows us to be safe and make sure that we don't put ourselves in dangerous situations, but not on a continuum where it's there all the time. We have to find ways to be calm for our own well-being. And giving yourself that space each day to create some practices that will work for you is really, really important and really essential.

And when your nervous system can be calmer, other resources that you have will also work better. So you can be more mindful and you can be more present in your day. You're going to be a better listener when you're with other people. You can engage better socially and do all of those things that you need to do to be really well. And your body can also repair. When you're sleeping, your body is repairing. It's healing from the day. That's why sleep is so important. So when we're on our phones before we go to sleep, we're watching the news, and then we turn on the lights, we're like, Okay, now it's time for all sleep, and then our heads start running. We have to create that calmness in our world to feel calm. So again, these are just a lot of different things going on that I want to talk about so you can start recognizing in yourself because a lot of things we just don't recognize. Most of us don't know how stress free are. I've had people leave jobs and then they're like, Oh, my God, that was the worst environment I've ever been in.

I didn't know how bad it was until I actually left. So that's because we're just going, going. We feel like we have to stay there. We got to figure it out. And we minimize what we're going through, and we just don't know how stress-free are. We want to be more mindful of that. Again, being calm is definitely a skill that you can learn, and you can find it all different ways. Let me talk about deep breathing because you hear that a lot. So when you are doing deep breathing, it activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which is counteracting the nerve signals in your brain that says, alert, alert. It might be the fastest and most universal approach that you can use because when you take deep breaths in, your body will just calm down. I tell people all the time, when you have enough oxygen going on in your system and you're breathing well and calm, your heartbeat is not going to pound at the same time. They It just can't both happen at the same time. But most of us are not even breathing correctly. Most of us breathe or it stops at our chest, does not even go down to our belly.

So we have to be aware that just breathing... I know some people get frustrated like, Oh, I've tried that breathing, it doesn't really work. Well, There's different exercises. You want to find out which works for you. But trust me, breathing works, right? And if you learn how to breathe well, it can really make a huge difference for you. And then you have something you can always just go to, right? And again, a single approach won't work for everyone, right? But there's so many ways to calm down your thoughts, right? Especially when they feel like you got some racing thoughts going on and your physical reactions, right? And it's good to have a few things. I always say, I have a few... That's what a toolbox is about that I talk about with CBT, that I have a toolbox. I'm teaching you to have a toolbox, that it's like in one moment, if this isn't working, I can try something else. So I'm not like, Oh, my God, oh, my God, my one thing isn't working, what am I going to do now? So let's start talking about some cognitive emotional skills that can help you cope and help you stay calm.

And these are all part of CBT. I might be saying them a little differently than I have in other podcasts, but they're all part of CBT for sure. And that's why I wanted to share this with you. So our goal here today is staying calm even when you're feeling overwhelmed. So the first thing that we can talk about is not jumping to conclusions. You want to gather more information about a situation before you allow it to just throw you off the deep end and you start to freak out. I can tell you my experience. I think I shared this in my podcast where I talked about having a tough week in CBT. I talked about I had to get a new computer and there were some services on there, and I freaking down. I thought I was getting hacked and I reacted too quickly. I think I almost let myself get hacked. Thank God I did not. But that was a perfect... I needed to stop and get more information instead of just react, react, react. And in my moment, I was able to recognize, thank goodness, that there was something not kosher, as I would say, going on.

There was something off. So I just hung up the phone from that person I was talking to, and then I calmed myself down. I took some breaths. I found the correct phone number, and I had the people help me. Everything was okay. But that's where I was guilty see that I jumped to conclusions before I had all the information that I needed. So that's one thing you want to do. If you're someone that just hears a little tidbit of something and goes crazy, right? Running off, making decisions, thinking the sky's falling, you just need to calm down, right? That's where people say, calm down, meaning take a moment and let's just think about what's really happening. Step away, bring someone else into the situation, maybe. If you know I'm making conclusions, I'm making assumptions because I don't have all the information. So that's one thing to do. You also, which I think is really important, is that you want to figure out, is it important? Is it urgent? Is it an emergency? Lots of us think everything's urgent, everything's an emergency. I got to do it right now. I got to do it right now.

I got to do it right now. Which keeps you in this constant state of, again, being overwhelmed and overstimulated. So I ask people, in the moment, just say, Is it important? And if it's important, but I have other stuff going on, I can come back to it. If it's urgent or an emergency, I will deal with it. But if it isn't urgent, then I don't have to deal with it right now and I can put it aside. I think that's super important because otherwise, we're running back and forth, running back and forth. We feel like we get never done and we're just frazzled at the end of the day. You're going to have bumps in the road that get in the way. Like I had a bump in the road with my computer, and it caused a lot of stress for me, but it didn't have to prevent me from reaching my goal in the long run, which was to get everything set up and be able to use my computer for my work. So it's not like, Oh, my God, this is never going to work out. That's my half thought. There's always going to be a problem.

That's my half thought. I'm never going to figure this out. That's my half thought. I needed to stop and be like, Okay, I'm overwhelming myself. I'm trying to do too much right now. I'm going to figure this out, but I just have to be a little more patient. So I have to stop and say, What do I need to really focus on right now and what can wait? And that's what I mean when I say, Is it important? Is it urgent? Is it like an emergency? And distinguish between those before you just react and overwhelm yourselves. Also, which I talk about a lot, is instead of looking at things as stressful situations, to use the word opportunity. This is an opportunity for me to learn This is an opportunity for me to do better. You need to ask yourself, What did I learn from the situation? What do I need to learn from this situation? Some situations can be really emotionally challenging. And I normally believe that there is a lesson in it for you. Not everything. There's an example here in the magazine I'm looking at today, and the article talks about you getting a parking ticket, right?

So you might realize, Oh, I got to be more mindful about where I can park, the hours I need to park. But that's not a priority in your life that you're going to do this over and over again and make mistakes. It's just like, Okay, I learned from it. I need to move on. I'm not going to do that again. When you have excessive worry and excessive hypervigilance, it really can ramp up your stress, and you really don't get much for it. You might get super frustrated with, say, getting a parking ticket, and you can ruminate all day about that, but you need to learn to move on from that. It's super frustrating. What can I learn next time I won't do that? But if you can say, Okay, that's obvious. I'm not going to do that again. You want to recognize it, but then you want to be able to move on. So this can really help decrease your anxiety and stress level and get back to a calmer state. So that's just one example. But there's other situations where maybe you said the wrong thing or you thought you were going to get to work on time by taking a shortcut and you didn't and you ended up late.

Okay, I learned from that. But now ruminate and thinking about it and making it catastrophic. This is an opportunity that I just got to take my original plan and not deter from that and everything will work out. So you want to ask yourself, Okay, what did I learn from this issue, and how can I do better next time? Also, you want to consider that sometimes venting can be really helpful, but how much am I going to vent? Some people just perseverate on the same situation and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. And if you do that, it just feeds and feeds the stress versus like, I got to tell you what I went through. I was so upset this morning, and then I'm moving on. Sometimes just getting some understanding, some empathy from talking to somebody can help you get past that and not do that excessive rumination and worry about the situation and then look forward and that you're going to better next time and that whoever you're loading on can be the person to say, It's okay, we've all been there. But don't talk about it over and over and over again.

There's lots of people that do that. They don't let go. And they don't understand it's just increasing the stress that they're feeling, and it's going to be less time that they can be calm in their life. So overall, you want to be more mindful that rehashing really isn't helpful and it doesn't really change anything. Or if somebody isn't there to listen to you, you can write it in your journal and then you close your book. Or you can do a thought record on it, and then you come up with a better thought, and then you move on. So all the tools you have are that sometimes we really do need to vent and share and cry what's going on. So I'm not saying to ignore it whatsoever, but you want to keep it in a shorter view than maybe what you're doing now. So it's not something that's repeated over and over. And you're like, Why am I still so upset about this? Why am I still thinking about this days later? Some other tools, because there's a lot here I'm going to go through, so you guys can always come back and listen I'll come back in to this again if you're not able to take some notes.

But you really want to be able to get through that anxiety and get more to your calm state quicker than not. And it's not always easy to learn how you can get to that other side, right? But with some guidance and being creative and committing to yourself that I'm going to get better and I'm going to practice acts of calmness, you will definitely get there, right? Everything's easier said than done. I tell my clients on a daily basis because people always say to me, Well, that's really hard. And I said, Yes, it is because it's important. But if you start to practice this on a daily basis, it will get easier. So one thing that can be really helpful is how can you look at your situation differently? So what I tell people, that's the first thing, that's the same thing as the hot thought. Because once we identify our hot thoughts, we're looking at finding a different way to look at your situation. What's the evidence for the hot thought and against it? And then coming up with a good balance to alternative thought. So I tell you, every When you start feeling any negative moods, ask yourself, What am I thinking about?

Is there anything about the situation that I can look at differently? And getting into the habit of doing this with your CBT tools, it will happen much quicker and you can get to the other side. Another thing, which is just the physical part, because remember, the physical reaction is part of your CBT. You want to take a walk. I walk with my dog every day, or go out by yourself take a walk for maybe a half an hour, going on a hike, taking a bike ride. Just moving your body can get you out of that ruminating habit that maybe you have created for yourself. You're getting out of your house, you're getting out of the office, you're getting out of your hot thoughts, getting out of your head, right? And you want to have a nice distraction sometimes. That's all you need to just feel calmer. So if you already have some things that work you, keep working on them and keep using them. Maybe you have enough already or you want to add some stuff. Taking care of our bodies by staying hydrated is a really good way for you to feel better, and it does affect your mental health, right?

So water just, again, keeps you hydrated, improves your cognitive function, helps remove toxins and bad chemicals. There's all this good stuff. So make sure you're staying hydrated, drinking a lot of water. I know there's so many different drinks out there. We want a little flavor here and there, which is all fine. But water, water, water is what you want to be taking in the most. That's really important. Another thing you can do if you start feeling panicky, you start feeling your heart racing, Start doing some jumping jacks. I know I've had people say, What? When I'm feeling like I'm having a panic attack? And I go, Yeah, jumping jacks. And you do them until you start to giggle. It really does work because I know that most of us think that we're having a heart attack, we're having a panic attack, and you're not. And when you start doing jumping jacks or any other exercise that really gets your heart going, you're going to see like, I'm actually okay, and the panic just goes away. So when you're stressed, you want to do some physical activity to get rid of that energy that you're feeling.

Another tool you can use is what I call a double standard technique, where you say, What would this other person in my life I admire, maybe be thinking right now, how would they be reacting to this? What have I seen them do that I really admire and has really made a difference for them? Having that double standard technique, meaning what would someone else be thinking or doing? We usually have the answer right away, and it's usually the best answer for us as well. Another thing which I used to laugh about is when I first started in my practice, I had a lot of people say, When I'm going through this or this was happening, I said to myself, What would Dr. Julie say? And at first I was like, What? You're thinking about me in your head? But now I'm comfortable with it. And now people say, I think about, What would you tell me? And I say, Beautiful, because you know me well enough now of what I would tell you. I would probably say, What's your hot thought? Where's the evidence for that? So that's something you guys can do is just say, Hey, what would Dr. Julie say to do right now?

What CB tools would she recommend? That's the way about thinking outside of yourself and going with whatever That advice, you come up with yourself, really, and go with it. You also want to break things down. When you're stressed, when you're overwhelmed, when you're not motivated to do things, you want to break things down into small little tasks. That is the number one way to get past being overwhelmed. When we're overwhelmed, we look at things like the whole project, and you want to just say, What do I need to do in the next hour? A suggestion some people have given, which I thought was really cool, was they have a Timer and they'll set it for so much time and then they'll take a break. So maybe they're going to study for 30 minutes and then they're going to take a 10-minute break and then go back and study for 30 minutes again. And then you might take a longer break if you want. But if you do this and you break things down, you can really get through that barrier of feeling overwhelmed and stressed. And that's another good practice to get back to a calm place.

You also want to find some activity to get you through the times when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, and it's really hard to just do some breathing and make it work. So here, a good suggestion is doing the gratitude list that I talked to you guys about. If you already have one, just open it up and start to read it. If you don't have one, start one or add to the one you have. But it's a nice way to get you through what I call in the meantime, taking some breaths, writing down something you're grateful for. And that can really be a nice way to calm your brain down. You want to also be somewhat organized. We're not talking about being perfect, right? Just progress, not perfection. If you have a lot of clutter on your desk, in your room, in your space, wherever that is that you are. I know sometimes people think they know where everything is, but it really isn't good for your brain. And so an example that would be, say, you're going to go to the office tomorrow. I can tell you. So I work from home three days a week, and then I go to office to see clients in person two days a week.

So I go in the office on Wednesday. So Tuesday night, I get everything ready and pack up my office at home. So I'm ready to walk out the door on Wednesday instead of like, Oh, did I remember my charger for my computer? And all that stuff. So getting ready for tomorrow, packing your lunch, figuring out what you're going to wear, looking at your schedule, whatever you can do to be ready for tomorrow cleans the clutter from your head, right? Because clutter can be in your brain, too, when you lay down at night and think, I got to remember to do this. I got to remember to do that. So just getting ready for tomorrow can be really helpful as well. That's just a really good tool. Another one I read about was someone was saying to read a newspaper rather than tracking all the news online. You can pick what you want. It doesn't take as much time. And it's just a different way of getting more information versus all these quick little blurbs. This happened, this happened, this happened. Newspaper, you're going to read an article. So if you like to read, that's just an option.

Another tool is just focus on your reality. Doing that gratitude list helps you focus on your reality, helps you come up with more balanced and alternative thoughts. I always talk about how positive thinking doesn't work because if it did, we'd all be doing it, we'd be good. Just being positive isn't the answer. But when we really look at more balanced and alternative thoughts, we're going to believe what we're thinking and we're going to approach maybe what problems are going on instead of avoiding it and causing more anxiety for ourselves. We really need to look at what's really going on in our lives and what things we really need to change so we can feel more calm. And then, of course, go have some fun, make some plans with people in your life that have good mental health, people you admire, people you like being around, people that just make you feel loved and fill you up. I definitely have people like that in my life that I just get a lot of oxytocin from when I'm hanging out with them and I want to be with them. And then there's sometimes other people you're with, they just drain you.

So make some plans with people who are going to have fun and not talk about your problems or all the things going maybe on in the world, but just fun and that they're healthy and can really to fill you up and really improve your mood, that can really help you be more calm. And if anxiety is a big part of why you aren't calm, that you have to accept, maybe this is something that I struggle with more than others. There definitely are some people that are more anxious than others. That's just true. If that's you, you got to really dig in and really use your CBT tools and also have acceptance. Yeah, I do struggle with anxiety, but I don't have to let it manage me. I'm going to manage it. I can figure out what can I let go, what can't I let go? What things do I need to work on more? And always being mindful about how well you are doing and what you are accomplishing. I always ask people if you're like, Oh, I had a better week. I say, Great. What worked this week? Why are you feeling better? I'm just not like, Oh, yay, let's go to the next thing.

It's important to reflect and say, What am I doing? Yeah, maybe I am taking more time to breathe. Maybe I'm doing more meditation. What am What am I doing that helped me feel calmer? Maybe I stopped their relationship. Maybe I left a job. Maybe I stopped shopping online every day because that was causing me stress. Whatever it might be, what did I do differently? And I'm going to continue doing that because I'm making changes that are benefiting me. And I really want you to see that because it's important that you give yourself the credit for you moving forward and doing better. So the one last thing I wanted to talk about, which I mentioned a little bit ago, was your breathing, right? Because it really does work, and I want you guys to find something that's going to work for you. So you want to remember, when you start having your thoughts, the ruminating thoughts, excessive worry, your thoughts are going faster and faster and faster, and your bodies go faster and faster and faster, right? When our thoughts create more anxiety, our bodies react to it. And that's when you feel the symptoms of your heart beating faster, your breath shorter, feeling shaky, feeling sweaty, whatever it might look for you.

Our breathing is definitely tied to how we feel. And when you're anxious, it really will be more shallow and rapid. Because even when you're excited, that When it happens or when you're anxious and we need to take some time when it's the anxiety, and figure out what breathing techniques are really going to bring things down for us. Because when we can breathe in a certain way, We can engage what they call the calming branch of the autonomic nervous system and soothe our minds and our bodies. So this is definitely something you can do. You want to first focus on your breath, not the anxiety, right? So it is the first thing everyone will tell you, the number one tool to start with is just to breathe. When people are sometimes crying in session and they can't really even speak, I just say, just breathe. Just take a minute. Don't feel like you got to talk. You got to talk. Just breathe. Pause and breathe. Pause and breathe. Pause. You don't have to react to everything right away. And it'll work if you give yourself some time and train yourself to get to that place of being relaxed.

You want to really feel your lungs, and like I said, you want to get down to your belly. So a couple breathing exercise, or you may have heard where you inhale for four through your nose. I like doing my nose because it gets it more down to my diaphragm. Hold it for four seconds and then release for four seconds. So doing that. And this isn't like three deep breaths, you guys. I know everybody says, Oh, go take three deep breaths. I'm talking at least a couple of minutes. Maybe put a Timer on. I don't want you to be looking at the clock, but something that you'll be to see that two, three minutes, you will be shocked how long that is when you're just doing breathing. But that's what you need to really bring your body to a calmer state. You can do longer, of course, if you want, but at least do the two minutes and see how that feels. Another one that I'm really in favor of is the 4, 7, 8 breathing. This is by Dr. Andrew Weil. You can find them on YouTube. I've talked about this one before, too. This one, you want to be sitting down.

You're going to put your tongue where your teeth and your gum meet. You're going to inhale for four. You're going to hold for a quick seven, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six, seven, and then you're going to exhale for eight. So this one really engages your vaginal nerve, which really calms you down pretty quick. So they do suggest, and this is true, when you first do it, to be sitting down or lying down, sometimes people get a little dizzy until they do it enough times and it goes away. That one, all my clients, to be honest, say that that one comes them down the quickest. You can also do a mantra. When you're breathing, in with my breath, Out with my breath, in with my breath, out with my breath. There's lots of apps out there you can use with calm, head space. There's many other ones out there that someone can guide you through that. So it doesn't matter which one you're doing, find what's going to work for you. Don't get too frustrated. Be patient. And you will definitely find like, yes, I am feeling more calm. And doing some counting or mantra also is a really good way to stay focused.

Because if I'm just breathing in and out, I'm not doing any counting or anything, my mind is going to start to wander to the chores I need to do or who I need to make a phone call to or what I didn't get done for the day. And then I start all over again. So there's principles to help you calm your nervous system, right? And you really want to take your time and honor yourself enough to say, I need to work this because I need to find that state of calmness in my life. There's always going to be things thrown at me. There's reasons to be upset. There's reasons to have all the feelings you're having. But I don't want you to go through your whole day like that because it's not good for you. It's not good for your mental health. It's not good for your physical health. So that's why we talk about being calm isn't an easy state to get to, but it's an important state. And I hope I've said some new things that you haven't heard before. I hope I've said some things that maybe reminded you of things that work that you stopped doing because you got busy or you forgot about.

And if anything, I hope I've shared enough to have you think about Am I practicing calmness enough in my day? Not my life, my day. And if I'm not, not how can I fit in, but where am I going to fit it in? Five minutes in the morning, five minutes at night. I'm not talking hours a day. Taking a walk at lunch, get out of the office, get out of the house, change up your environment, right? Watch a funny show on TV. There's lots of ideas. I'm sure you guys can call me, say, Hey, I do this, I do that. It really works. I love it. Some people crochet, some people do knitting that they find super relaxing. Some people go in their garden. So there's lots and lots of things. I don't need to list all of them for you, but I hope I gave you some other ideas and how you can use your tools to definitely calm yourself down. So again, I hope this was helpful. Please share this with anyone you may think would benefit from it.

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