Not Skinny But Not Fat - Healing Anxiety w/ The Anxiety Healer

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

In the midst of this insane, apocalyptic time in our lives, we all need relief from anxiety. Some more than others, some with pre-existing anxiety, and those that have been suffering for years. Some of us are feeling an immense sense of doom, and some have been preparing for the worst of all forever! I have been very open about my own anxiety, and was very happy to have Alison Seponara, the therapist behind the Instagram @theanxietyhealer, joins me to give tips to cope with anxiety at this heightened time, and answer all of our questions. It’s ok to feel whatever you are feeling! Love. A. This episode was brought to you by: Ritual Essentials have the nutrients most of us don't get enough of in our food. Make Ritual a part of your life – a subscription based service that adds up to only $1.00 per day. Right now Ritual is offering listeners 10% off during your first 3 months. Visit ritual.com/notskinny to start your Ritual today. Betterhelp is an online counseling platform for you. Listeners will receive 10% off their first month by heading to betterhelp.com/notskinny today. Get help on your own time and pace. The Not Skinny But Not Fat Podcast is produced by The Podglomerate.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Another thing that's, I think, awesome, is doing virtual, you know, happy hours. I mean, not with you, though. You need water now, right? Congrats, by the best. But my sister had to do it for work, and I felt so bad for her. Like, she was zooming with them all day, and then they fucking made her also happy hour. Oh, gosh. See?

It's like, let me live. It's too much. Right. And sometimes that's just too much. This is not skinny, but not fat. And I'm your host, Amanda, bringing you the latest in all celebrity gossip, reality TV recaps and anything happening in Hollywood right now that I just can't keep my mouth shut about. This is not skinny, but not fat. Hey guys. So obviously we love talking about

celebs and pop culture and keeping our mind off all this corona shit. But I also talk a lot about my anxiety and this is a really anxiety producing and provoking time for probably all of us, but also sufferers of anxiety from before. I have licensed counselor, Alison Sopanera, from the Instagram account, Anxiety Healer with me. Hey, Allison. Hi.

How are you? Good. How are you? I was just saying, first of all, thank you for coming on. And I talked to you about this months ago, how I want you to come on and for us to do some, like, an anxiety podcast. And then we kept on kind of having to reschedule. then you know this fucking corona shit happened and I'm like okay that we need to do this now like

the people need us the people need you I yes there is no better time as now and as you can imagine I'm you know my work has actually gotten busier and which which is a good thing because I'm able to spread my healing and help people from all over not just the US with what's going on right now so I'm so happy that we're able to do this. So thank you. Well, that's crazy. This is like one of the only professions that, you know, business is booming right now. No, I know. And I, you know, everything in all of our business right now is therapist has gone virtual. Right. And so I keep saying how thankful I am for our business that people have access to us right now because if it was like 20 years ago, you know, this wouldn't be happening. Right. So, yeah.

I feel very grateful. I did I did do just want to mention also my Instagram name is the anxiety healer just because there is another anxiety healer. So I just want to mention just that little disclaimer that it is the anxiety healer. Who came up with it first? I actually am not sure. I just found out I guess a couple months ago that there was another one. And we actually collaborate. So I am all about collaborating with other healers on Instagram. No competition there. Nope. No competition at all. Well, I found out about you. I think, you know, I think I actually remember. I think I was in Israel. And this was last year and my anxiety was spiking. And I was posting a lot about it. And I even remember that I posted, I think, a poll. And I was like how many of you suffer or have suffered from anxiety? And it was a whopping like 88% that voted yes. And I was shook by that number. And then, you know, I was posting tips. I did kind of like a questions thing where people. posted their tips. And I think that's where you from your, I think, personal account mentioned something about your account, the anxiety healer. And I saw it. And I really didn't follow any anxiety pages before that or any like self-help accounts or any like good quote of the day. But I just loved the stuff that you were posting, A, because a lot of them are just tips of how to deal. A, lot of them are explanations of if people don't get what anxiety.

is like it makes it breaks it down um it makes people understand that they're not alone it gives people you know hope that they can overcome even like like alison you can post the same shit every day and be like you know i think i've seen this a lot on your page where you talk about remembering that this will pass that this two shall pass like i can get that tattooed on me you know what i mean like that's such an important part of anxiety is remembering that and it's easier said than done and it sounds like, oh, dur, but like you need that reminder. So thank you for introducing me to your account and I love it. Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah. And that's what I hope for when I created this whole account. You know, I don't think that any of us expect that this is what can happen

when we start something like this. I'm sure you're, you didn't either with your account, which is awesome, right? Which I love, which can I just say has gotten me so much so many times outside of my own anxiety. I'm having your page literally grounds me because it gets me out of my head sometimes. That's great. Thank you. And so, and so I love that part of it. But, you know, it kind of just grew organically, which I love because if there's anything that I want out of the career that I'm in is to have people feel less alone. You know, whether, whether anyone listening believes this or not, I mean, there still is a huge stigma with mental health and talking about our feelings and recognizing that sometimes we need help. So being able to kind of have a

platform to be able to tell everyone that it's okay to actually do that and that we're not made of stone and that actually, you know, this is happening way more often than we might think. I just feel so grateful that I have that platform now. So it is. And you wouldn't, I mean, you know, when I started just, you know, even just talking more about my personal life and, and with that, about my anxiety. People are so thankful about it and are so, it really, not in the way that misery loves company, people need to understand the difference between like, oh, yay, like a gazillion other people suffer from anxiety. But in the way that it's like, like you said, I'm not alone. This is something that happens to so many people. It's common. I'm not a freak.

Nothing's wrong with me. And in that sense, you know, I, in my day to day life connect to people who can at least understand what anxiety is if you know it's just a thing that makes you connect to another person most of my friends if i have a friend that like has never had a symptom and then she can't really understand the shit that i go through you know what i mean which i'm jealous of those people by the way okay i'm jealous of people who are like and and that's another thing you post about which i did want to like spend a minute on that because you have posted about anxiety not just being worry and it's interchanged so much in our like slang that it can piss me off as a person that suffers from it when people are like oh like I was so anxious yesterday like

running late to a meeting and of course everyone's entitled to use that that word to describe how they're feeling but it's like but were you anxious like what was your heart beating on your chest like, did you feel like you were going to faint? So what do you, what is your like professional take on that? Yeah. So, yeah, it is a word that gets thrown out a lot now. I think mostly because, you know, I see this a lot in my private practice too, but it's mostly because I don't think many of us really know how we don't have language to describe how we're feeling in certain moments. So a lot of times with my clients, I actually go back to the basics. It doesn't even matter how old they are. giving them sort of like a little bit of homework in between our sessions and to identify

feeling words in different situations of how they're actual feeling like using feeling words saying I'm sad or how are you like I'm disappointed or I'm scared or I'm worried instead of just creating this sort of one statement is always I'm anxious you know it's they're actually feeling some type of feelings and that's when we can really get to the the issue that's that's happening And yes, anxiety is so much more. I mean, the diagnosis of anxiety. So in our diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, which is so thick, and it basically is our manual as clinicians that we use to diagnose people that we see,

I mean, the anxiety disorder section of it is huge because it also includes PTSD and OCD and panic disorder. And generalized anxiety disorder. So those are all like the diagnoses that can have. And there's so many criteria that fits all them that I can't, don't want to get into it all because it's just a lot. But I always say that the main thing that you want to look for for people when they're thinking, you know, oh, do I have anxiety? Is it, do I need to get help right? Or something like that is sort of is this affecting your daily life and daily functioning. So and it doesn't have to look like you're having panic attacks every couple minutes. That's not. what it means either. It could be ebbs and flows of it, right? There could be parts of your life where you feel very out of control and very much outside of your body, right? And it feels sort of like this stuff happens to your body, too. Our mind and our body are connected. So a majority of the people that experience highly high panic or times when they're highly anxious are going to feel physical symptoms too. That's my thing is for me, it's really because my anxiety is so based on physical symptoms for me i remember when i was in at a i'm i still am seeing a therapist but at a

certain point in our therapy she asked me like i don't remember how she phrased it but like kind of like what comes first because sometimes it's actually a physical symptom that isn't necessarily related to anxiety let's say you know example from this morning fucking order Chick-fil-A, okay? That doesn't make you feel so good after you eat it. Not the mental part of like, oh, I just ate like, you know, fried chicken and how many calories. But in the sense that it's not food that, like, makes you feel good. Like, my heart beats a little faster after I'm, you know, digesting it.

And it makes me a little more tired and a little more. And that, for me, Amanda, personally, and I'm sure for other people, can make me actually feel physical symptoms that can, that remind me of feelings of anxiety and I can really quickly in my head feel anxious, even though it was the other way around. I'm not anxious. I'm not worried. It's not, it doesn't have to do with, you know, a feeling. It actually is like a physical symptom that triggers my, my anxiety, that I have to remind

myself, you know, and this is why self-talk, I feel like is so important, is like, you know, telling myself, you just age. Chick-Villet. Yes. Maybe remember this next time and opt for a salad. But that's the other thing I think when, and I also talked about this in therapy, sometimes I even use the word anxious instead of saying, like I immediately want to correlate so I'm like, oh, this feeling must be anxiety then because, you know, my physical symptoms,

it kind of is the same instead of saying, I feel like shit because I am. ate this fast food. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, and the truth is, um, the reason why I really encourage and educate a lot of my clients to figure out feeling words and to use feeling words is because there's always some thoughts behind the way that we feel. And so I, I specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy. And so we look a lot into, um, the thoughts that influence the feelings we have and then how that ultimately creates different behaviors. Um, and so when we're able to identify certain feelings in certain moments when we are triggered, then there's always thoughts behind it. Now, the problem with that is that we have about 70,000 thoughts a day.

And so, you know, when someone's panicking or someone's really highly anxious, they feel like maybe there's not even any thoughts going on because there's so many. Like they can't pinpoint the one thought that is actually creating this type of worry or fear in them. And so that's actually creating even more anxiety because they don't know what is going. on. And that's why when you hear a lot of people say, yeah, I had this panic attack and it came out of nowhere. It just, you literally claim out of it. It can seem like that, but then when we do the work and we really like break down the layers, there's always a trigger and there's always a thought behind the trigger. And it's just hard to find that. My Israeli friend once she suffers

from anxiety and she has a lot of, you know, wisdom about it. And she said one day, because when I moved here from Israel in 2010. Sorry, that's not true, 15. Okay. I, we moved here. My husband and I, most of my followers, know this story already. And I was actually in an anxiety-free time in my life,

even though my first panic attack was at 17 in Barcelona. I had gotten years with feeling great. So when we decided to move to New York, I was like, yeah, like me, move a country. No big deal. I've done that, you know, thousands of times. that's fine get here you know fine whatever uh the week the day the night before i'm supposed to start my new job i'm like in the kitchen in my mom's house and um because we were staying with her still at the time and i had a panic attack and i remember being like whoa where is that going from you

know like that's random i'm here making a sandwich like what does that have to do with anything and that spiraled into a really bad bout for me of anxiety, you know, the next morning I had to start this new job, get on the subway, I could barely, I like left this. It was a horrible, horrible time. But my point is I then, at that moment, as much as now it seems like laughable to say, Amidulda, like you moved from Israel to New York, you were just going to start a new job, I literally couldn't correlate at that moment that that's what it was about. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And it's, when you're in the moment of kind of also going forward with life, right? You know, you have life responsibilities. A lot of us as adults, I mean, we just go along with the next thing. And we don't stop, especially here in America, right? I mean, actually, we'll get into this. But this is why this time in our life is very interesting the last two weeks, because people have literally been forced to sit still. Has it only been two weeks, Alison, I feel like it's my whole life.

Honestly, you know what? it's crazy. It's been 14 days because I'm keeping track of this on my Instagram. And if you follow me, I just posted something on my story is about day 14. So it's a day for me, which is the quarantine. But for you guys in New York, it's even, you guys haven't been quote unquote quarantined even as long as I have because we were ahead, like a week ahead of you guys. But yeah, it feels like how long. It feels no much longer. So we've been, you know, we've been forced to literally learn how to sit still and that's been very very hard for people which is probably why i've been very busy we all try to do our best to stay healthy add a bunch of good nutrients to our bodies

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Fill in the gaps in your diet with essential for women, a small step that helps support a healthy foundation for your body. Visit Ritual.com slash not skinny to start your ritual today. That's 10% off during your first three months at Ritual.com slash not skinny. just in general is anxiety something we're born with like fucked up day one you have no outs like you're a person with anxiety or can it happen to anyone randomly at any point in life or what yeah so like any type of mental health disorder or mental illness there is you can be predisposed to, there's a percentage of it that is related biologically. So, and, and this is all types of blame your parents. Right. I know. That's, well, there's, well, there's, and it's so funny, too,

because, you know, I mean, I'm going to go and say 100% of who I see in my practice is related or has, not even just parents, but or has grandparents, someone they know in their family that struggles with exactly what they do and have it has anxiety. So there definitely is a biological component. But is there a cause and effect for that? I mean, is it like that is what causes it? No. There are so many different factors that influence anxiety. One is biological. One is environmental. So depending on the environment that you grew up in and the type of household, the type of if you had any trauma in your childhood or any type of trauma, even in adulthood, anything that's happened. I mean, that can influence anxiety. If, you know, your family dynamic, again,

that's environment, right? So any type of family dynamics that you grew up in, that's another factor. So there is really no, and I say this so much too on my page, is you cannot just say like A plus B equals C, right? A plus B equal in anxiety. That is not how it works, just how some someone's anxiety treatment is going to look completely different from someone else's anxiety treatment. And also, correct me if I'm wrong, but anxiety symptoms also different for each person. It's hard because, you know, suffering from anxiety, like it's so hard for people to understand what you're feeling, describe it in words even to your therapist. And is it also normal? I'm asking for me personally, but I'm sure a lot of listeners would want to know. When I have to, if I

come to my therapist and I'm like so today my sister was so fucking annoying then I'm like cool I have the best time right if it's like I have to talk about my anxiety I can legit get really anxious trying to describe it like that's just how crazy like the mind and body connection is like I can literally sit there and be like let me describe this like panic attack and a legit feel not well in my body yeah and so that that's, that's, it's so crazy how much our brain plays tricks on us. I mean, literally, we can, we can sit, you know, right now and create something in our brain that will make us so scared that we will physically start literally think, feeling so bad and thinking that we're dying or

out of control or like something so bad is happening. I mean, we can create, our brain can create that. That's how I think I best explained it to someone that didn't get it at all, which again, jealous of those people. But I was just like, you know, the fight or flight thing, which is kind of where anxiety like stems from is like legit back to cavemen eras, right? Where like the cavemen would stand in front of the bear. And it's like he got so much adrenaline that he either would fight like a crazy person or flight like want to run. And that's such a thing about anxiety is like for me personally the first thing I want to do if I'm feeling anxious and like my husband's like I want to go like if I'm in my house and I have a panic attack I'm like out the door like once I was like legit with no shirt on and I was like bye and he's like what are you doing like a crazy person like legit was going to leave my apartment with no shirt on because it's legit how crazy it is and I think I also I'm open about you know my claustrophobia and my fear of elevators which great to be in New York right great to be in New York for that let me tell you right no i know right everywhere is an elevator so my fear from it and i said this many times and i

think discovered over the time like i'm not scared a cable's gonna break i'm not scared to like you know i don't want to say awful things but i'm scared to get stuck and have anxiety in the elevator and not be able to flight that's if i had to get to the root of it and i have it's it's that do you know what i mean. For me. Yeah. I mean, you just explained that in a great way because I was going to talk a little bit about our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight response and how, yes, since the dawn of time, we are given the sympathetic nervous system. It's part of our biology because we need to protect ourselves. And that's actually what helps us protect ourselves in situations that are actually dangerous. But what happens is that's activated when we have anxiety in situations that

aren't necessarily dangerous. Right. Right. And so when that happens, that's why there's a lot of restructuring of the way that we think and reframing a lot of our thoughts and diving deep into triggers and role-playing and identifying with cognitive behavioral way, right, with therapy, you know. And this doesn't happen just like in a week or two. You know, I mean, it can, but it takes a lot of work to learn how to first of all identify the thoughts that cause us, you know, to have these anxiety attacks or panic attacks and then to try and really dispute them and challenge them and recognize, you know, that we can be safe in moments that we think that we can't be because that's a huge thing

about not feeling safe and not feeling in control. That's so true. And that's another question. I know you said you do CBT, which is cognitive. behavioral therapy. Yes. So a lot of people think, and I did too, I actually haven't done CBT, which I probably should, but it's like, okay, I go to therapy because I'm anxious, let's say, and then the therapist is like, you know, your name, your family, oh, your parents got divorced, oh, you haven't seen your dad, whatever. And then you're like, but I don't want to talk about that.

Like I legit don't, didn't come here to talk about my dad or, do you know what I mean? So that's such a huge question. People are feeling these symptoms, are, why, to take care of X, but then they have to dive back into their childhood. Is that necessary? Or with CBT, is it let's tackle these symptoms and these triggers and coping mechanisms? So for me, in my practice, it's a little bit of both. Now, every practitioner is going to maybe do things a little differently. They might have different specialties in different areas. But for me, I'm a holistic practitioner. And so I incorporate CBT, but then I also incorporate mindfulness based, you know, different strategies and a little bit of psychodynamic therapy. So I do,

I do kind of go there a little bit because, you know, the way that the schooling that I've had, there, so much of what we think is based on what we believe. And so again, with CBT, there's more of this correlation between our thoughts and our core beliefs. And so what we really believe about ourselves and about our worldview. So what we believe about the world. And that comes a lot of times with experiences we've had in our life. And a lot of that comes from childhood because of sometimes different attachment issues and different experiences we might have socially or in a different type of family.

So I feel like all of that is sort of what shapes us. And so, again, there's no like A plus B equals C with this. all. It really is sort of a holistic modality for my perspective. And at this time with with your experience, are there, you know, is it mostly patients with anxiety that anxiety is, is, you know, worsening now in this time of the coronavirus. Is it people that never had anxiety before? Can they all of a sudden get horrible anxiety about, you know, the world ending? Yeah. I mean, it really is, it really is, it's all of that. And something that's actually surprising, too, some of the clients that I've been seeing, you know, for a little while, even before this,

they're actually feeling less anxious because. They're like, told you. Yeah. Yes. We've been preparing for this. That's the thing. Well, we've been preparing for this, okay? We got this. Exactly. And I mean, I did, I posted something the other day that was so well written. And I can't remember exactly what it said. You might have seen it, but it was someone that wrote a whole little blurb about how everyone, what you're feeling over the last, you know, week or two is literally what we feel every single second of the day. Oh my God. I need to find that. Oh my God. Yes. I mean, people have different types. Like I know you talk about having like health anxiety. I try to tell my husband he has that all the time because as Corona started, he was like measuring his fever every two

seconds. And for me, for example, like I explained to you, like, I'm very, I have physical symptoms of anxiety and it comes a lot from just my fear of fainting, my fear of dying, like things like that. For some reason, this, I'm obviously petrified for the world. I am feeling all types of feelings, but knock on wood, like I don't feel personally that my anxiety is worsened. due to it. And again, it's like, we have had, you know, anxious people have so many negative thoughts and what ifs all day that it almost seems, I mean, we can, and again, laughing about it. And I hope you would agree is such a important part of this because sometimes you can feel so helpless and, you know, at times where my anxiety was really bad, it's like you, you, like,

you want to, you feel like your body's betraying you. feel like, wait, I want to feel good and my body isn't letting me feel good. Or like you said, our brains can make us think things that aren't happening or happening. And it's like, why are you doing this to me? And it could be so, what's the word? Like, helpless. You can feel, it's so frustrating. I think it's, you know, frustrating is such a good word for anxiety. Like, I just want to feel good, but you're making me feel bad. Yeah. Well, and to be honest, you know, like life in of itself is unpredictable every single second of the day. Like we can't predict what's going to happen in five minutes, five hours, five days. We cannot predict that. I don't care if you're the best psychic

ever, you know, you cannot. And so in this, especially right now with where we are, we are forced to stay still in our body and also our mind. And so with someone that struggles with high anxiety right now, you know, so many things that you need to do to stay stable, right in your home is to do those things that actually make you feel less anxious, but more often, right? So any kind of mindfulness tools you've used, any meditations you've used, any, I mean, I talk about so many different strategies and resources that I love, like yoga and different calming apps and watching your favorite Bravo shows, anything that gets you out of your head, good books, you know, self-care. All of that stuff needs to be like, you know, up the Annie right

now because if you don't then you can turn on CNN and you can watch that stuff for the next eight hours and then literally go into a full blown panic and you know pretty you know what I mean yeah we need to find the balance between you know obviously not turning off the news and being ignorant to what's going on but really I've noticed that if I let myself not think about it just a little bit you know and and do my thing and you know like you said watch fucking summerhouse and seeing them get shit-faced when they had no idea, you know, the world was still normal, you know, in the summer and writing funny memes or putting on a face mask or walking outside when it's sunny out, you know, obviously keeping your distance, then you can take your mind off

of it for a little bit and be like, whoa, that feels so much better than watching the same thing on the news because that's a thing. When you watch the news, it's so repetitive. Like I was telling my husband the other day. We watch Israeli news too. And we sometimes listen to Israeli radio. So we were listening to Israeli music and then comes on this like one minute, you know, just like informative little news blurb. And I was like, that was enough. Like I could have just listened to that today. Like this is what's happening. This is how many people are sick. This is how many people is this. This is what the, you know, prime minister said. We don't need to be, you know, reading the articles. And I mentioned this. If you guys don't ask your friends not to send it to you.

If you don't want to, like, read every single article and how about, you know, someone young is, you know, dying or ask them not to send it to you. Yes. You don't need to be hyper aware of every, you know, thing that's going on. You should know what your country is doing, what your state's instructions are. You should listen, but it doesn't mean you need to be, you know, wrapped up in it. Totally. Can I also make another suggestion? If you're in like a million group chats, because I know there's people that are in a million group chats with different groups of friends and doing another thing that's, I think.

think awesome is doing virtual you know happy hours i mean not with you though you need water now right congrats by the but my sister had to do it for work and i felt so bad for her like she was zooming with them all day and then they fucking made her also happy hour oh gosh see it's like let me live right and sometimes that's just too much right so it's like as far as the news and stuff goes though i have told every single one of my groups of friends and family to that i actually have a dedicated at time every day where I actually watch the news, and it's for 20 minutes, and it's from 4 to 4.30. Really? Yes. And so sometimes it's a half hour, but I literally, that is in my schedule every day, which is another awesome thing right now, right, to keep a schedule and keep a routine.

Very, very calming to do that. I talk a lot about that on my Instagram, too, is keeping a routine, but also schedule in a time for the news every day. That's all you get, 20 minutes to 30 minutes. That's it. That is such a good idea. Can you share more ways that you have been, you know, recommending people deal with the anxiety, especially at this time with the coronavirus? Yes, for sure. So the thing I just said, which I think is probably such a great place to start, is to create a schedule for yourself. So, okay, so my life might look different than other people's.

I live alone right now and I don't have any kids. So I have a schedule where I can fill with like a lot of self-care things for myself, but there might be moms listening that are like, okay, I have to teach school now. I have to be a teacher, which, you know, is very frustrating. But, okay, that's going to be part of your schedule, right? So creating, still keeping your routines, right? You can still somewhat keep your morning and bedtime routines. One thing that I would add into both of those is when you wake up and before you go to bed

to write at least five to ten things you're grateful for for the day. At morning or at night? I would do both right now because remember right now we want to like up the annie with all of the, you know, mindfulness, the strategies. We want to kind of up them a little bit. And so I would say at least, you know, five things when you wake up that you're grateful for. And then before you go to bed, write down five things you're thankful for and maybe keep it in the same book. So it's just right next to your end table or something. And really because the best thing is too, I think in the morning definitely because it kind of starts your day off on a different mindset.

when you think up, you wake up, and that's what you're thinking of first, right? Is the thing that you're thankful for? And it kind of sets your day on like a different mindset, which I love. So the routine, really, really incorporating that. And something, whether you're teaching your kids or not, you need to make time every single day for some type of movement, whether it be a 10 to 15 minute yoga class on YouTube, which they have so many for free. One is yoga with Adrian is one of my favorites.

Oh, she's my favorite. Did we talk about this? Oh, I don't know. I love her now. Oh, my God. I discovered yoga through yoga with Adrian a few years. When I moved here and all that anxiety was happening, I remember I was like I should start doing yoga and, you know, put it in YouTube and look through a few and then saw yoga with

Adrian. And personally, I really connected to her because I need to like the instructor and I liked her as a person. Yes. And also she's very like, if you, I wanted like not let's get ripped yoga. And I didn't like let's like just meditate yoga. I wanted something in the middle. And she's kind of like that. And she makes it very simple. And I love her. I've done a lot of her 30 day challenges. So it's always if you guys want to do that, that's a way to really, you know, make sure you're doing it like every day. Because if you do like the challenge, you feel like you're in it to win it. But she has, you can literally, she has a video for like yoga for like your arms, yoga for your back, yoga for runners, yoga for swimmers, yoga for. I think she just came out with a yoga for Corona, like legit.

No, yeah, she did. So she's great. And she has a meditation too. I mean, she has, I've done her yoga with anxiety. She has a couple different ones for anxiety, which is awesome. And so she has like a yoga for sleep. So yes, she's like one of my favorites. Another one that I love is Boho Beautiful. It's this like couple, she's, they basically travel around the world. I think they're in like Bali right now. But I'm a very visual person. So all of her videos are like on a cliff side on the beach. Or I mean, they're beautiful. And she and they have music. I mean, it's kind of just aesthetically different. And I love those too. So Boho beautiful. Awesome. So do some type of movement. If it's not yoga, then go take a walk around the block for like 15 minutes or 20 minutes. And even if it's cold, where you are, bundle up and just get outside and breathe in the air. It is so important that we get outside right now. I agree. I need that like, like, I need that like air. Like I just feel like, especially, I don't know if it's with my pregnancy now or with what's going on in the world, but I yearn for fresh air. I yearn for like a ray of sunlight on my face. It makes me feel so much better. You know, I love being, I'm such a home person, but I also, love being outside, and it does allow you to, like, disconnect for a moment, breathe in some

air. So that's a really good one. So routine, gratefulness, movement. Yes. And then I probably, I mean, I think like one of the best things is too that I know it might be too much if you're, if you're doing a lot of work from home, but definitely still be social, even though you can't be near people if you can't or even with your family. If you have your family, there, like still be social somehow virtually with people that you don't live with. Right. Whether it's friends or family member or, you know, do something with connecting with other people. I agree.

I was just that my, Ariel, my sister told me yesterday she has a friend who lives alone. And, you know, it's probably the hardest when you're living alone, when this is going on. It's like, okay, live alone, but also don't go to work, but also don't see any of your friends. So if you're living alone, you haven't decided to quarantine with someone, then definitely that's important. Exactly. And I actually also just launched, so I have an online anxiety healing school that I have probably maybe about 10 or so now, health and wellness, anxiety healing courses that I offer,

one about healing your anxious thoughts. There's another one with mindfulness tools and another one, there's a journal, there's an anxiety Healing Journal with a lot of journal prompts that can help you start if you don't know where to start with journaling. But I actually just launched a healing pandemic anxiety course and it's totally free because I wanted to make sure if everybody had access to that. So the Anxietyhealing School.com, it literally just talks all about the things that I said, but also I created schedules for people to use. I created different also breathing videos and breathing exercises. to use if you're in a panic, different meditations and mindfulness movements. So go to that. And

it's, honestly, it's, I don't know, maybe five lessons or something, but it really gives you more education on what you can do. That's amazing. So is the link also in your bio? It is. Link and bio, guys. Link and try. I also just wanted to say that, you know, we hear a lot about like breathing and meditating and yoga and those seem like ugh duh like and and meditating might be something you don't want to try and and yoga you might not like it and just remember like a you can try anything I literally downloaded a tapping app I've done it a few times I think when I've tapped it actually did help me feel calmer at the moment did I continue with it no should I maybe I also downloaded a meditating app that um at the beginning of my pregnancy I was like having a bad week

of night sweats and like that caused me to get some panic attack. So I was doing meditate. Yeah, but I'm all good now. So that's good. I mean, I'm still, you know, my general anxious self, but that went away in like a week. But do what works for you. For example, that, like when when that happened to me, you know, my husband and I tackled it head on and we said, okay, you know, the sweating is causing you to panic. So what do we do? Okay, I put a fan in my room. I changed to cooling sheets. I, you know, you, you you try. So don't feel embarrassed to like try whatever can work for you. You know, if I'm going to live with a fan on my face through winter and summer, that's what I'm going to do. And fuck everyone. You know what I mean? 100%. There's actually a technique that I use that I actually don't hear a lot of

people talk about. And I want to talk about it more because for me, it's so helpful. And I don't know how many people, but it's called progressive muscle relaxation. Have you ever tried that one? No. it's amazing because my trigger with anxiety is my stomach. And so, of course, I have IBS. I have all these other issues. But with my stomach, then comes fear for me. Like, I think I'm sick. And then I get, like, I get a headache. And then I think, you know, automatically my brain goes like I have cancer sometimes. That's like my, that is my biggest thought that I've identified that for me is so scary. But, you know, still working on why that's so scary for me. But so when I feel all these things, the progressive muscle, my muscles tense up so much that eventually. what happens is during, and there are so many great videos on YouTube on how that people guide you through this progressive muscle relaxation. But essentially you clench your muscles real tight for like five seconds as you breathe through it and then you let go, different parts of your body. So like you punch your fists and then let go. And then you clench like your facial muscles and you let go. You clench your shoulder and let go. It's amazing. You know, I've said this. When I go to pee in the

morning okay and I'm still half asleep and I always wake up like with a with a with a with a splash of anxiety that's just how I wake up like that's how I wake up and I go to the bathroom and I sit in the toilet and I all of a sudden realize that my shoulders are up to my ears and then what I do and I've now because I've noticed this once I do it all the time is I shake them out and I like let them you know get loosey-goosey and what you just said is so true because when I first got my first panic attack in Barcelona, I remember like this is something like a physical symptom I experience only then and actually with anxiety down. So you know, symptoms are going to also change guys. You can get a whole cocktail of stuff. So then I had like chest

pains, like really bad chest pains. And I remember going to a doctor and I was like it physically like it hurts. Like if you touch it hurts. And he literally was like, you've been clenched up for five months or however long I was there, like, and you physically, like, were doing that. Like, and I remember then realizing it, and I'm super aware of my body either because I'm anxious and I'm aware of every heart beat and everything. So it's not, that's not the good part of me. Like, that's not the, the positive part of anxiety. But I've also begun to notice when I'm clenching or when I'm, and then it's like, you don't even have to do a whole yoga practice, right? You can just do like a stretch and kind of shake it out or something.

Well, and I love this progressive muscle relaxation because I do it anywhere. Like, no one knows that I'm clenching, like, I'm like, you know, clenching like this sometimes when I'm in, you know, a meeting or something and I'm just starting to feel a little bit dizzy or, you know, and dizziness makes me trigger because I'm like, oh, no, what's on? And- Wait, can I ask you, Allison, though? Yeah.

So you are a sufferer of anxiety. Oh, yeah. I talk about it a lot. Like you have anxiety. And then, so did that get you into wanting to heal anxiety? Like, how does that, because a lot of therapists, I feel like, treat it, but I'm not sure that they've ever felt it. So that gives you kind of like a plus, like, well, no, I actually get it.

Yeah. Well, full disclosure, I'm not going to speak for any other therapists, but people in our profession need to get more comfortable with disclosing things more. It's a very antiquated type of concept right now, which makes. Maybe therapists listening will not like that. So I'm sorry if you're season, but, you know, the way that our field is going, there's a lot of benefits now with therapists kind of disclosing more because they're connecting with people on a different level that's more human.

So that's, I talk about that a lot in my Instagram and about how I have struggle with anxiety for most my life, but I didn't really know it was anxiety until like probably 10, 15 years ago. I really didn't even know what it was. And as a child, you don't really have the language at all to express yourself. And so anxiety for children, a lot of times looks physical, right? Their tummy hurts or they're crying and stuff like that. So, you know, a lot of people don't really know until later in life that this is what it is. And so that's why the education piece is so important. And for me, I, so I was voted most likely to be a therapist in eighth grade. So whether I had anxiety or not, I knew I was a really great listener and I loved knowing about human behavior and I knew I just wanted to do something in this field. So I think it's probably all of that. Now, what I specialize in probably is because I've done a lot of work on myself and I know what's worked for me and might not work for everybody, but I know I've worked with so many people like myself and also in my practice, kids and adults that, it's just something I feel so passionate about so that's i agree that's really important because i feel like therapists um we're treating people should you know it's it would be a great addition to have a

therapist who knows you know has been through it um and that's why like i was telling you before i connect a lot with people that are fellow uh anxiety suffer is because they get it so even if they're not therapist then my friend can understand it and say you know i've had that too or how she dealt with that I did want to ask you some questions that are coming in from people. I put this on my Instagram. I never do this. Whenever I do a podcast, I never, I'm like, what do you want to ask my guests?

Because I'm like, do your fucking job and ask your guest what you want to ask them. But with this, I know how many people are feeling the feelings. And I wanted to make sure that I get some of their questions regarding anxiety answered. So we'll do a few. Always thinking the worst will happen to me and having a hard time letting it go. Any suggestions? Okay. So that's called catastrophizing in the CBT world.

And basically, again, that's just another example of our brain playing tricks on us, right? So our thoughts in that moment, whatever's happening when this person is going a million miles a minute, probably in their brain. And all they're thinking is, oh, my gosh, this is the worst thing. This is the worst thing. This is the worst thing. and that's kind of your anxiety basically trying to make you believe that it is the worst thing but the reality of it is most likely like there's a very very high chance that it's not right

right so again this isn't this my answer won't be like do this and then you're cured right that's not how it works right right right it's not but if if that person feels like they're really those types of thoughts are really debilitating and they're getting severe physical symptoms because of them and they're having trouble concentrating or focusing or in their relationships, then definitely seek help from a counselor and look deeper into that. But the important thing to do that we want to try and do when all these thoughts are going on in our brain is we want to quiet them down because we can't wave a magic wand and have the thoughts disappear. That's not how it works either. We have to figure out what we can do to turn the volume down on those thoughts and then turn the volume up on the rational thoughts. And sometimes, I mean, I don't know your thoughts on medication, but, and sometimes that's medication. Yes, totally.

I'm a total advocate, yeah. Okay, because I never know if holistic means, like, not. I mean, no, not at all. For me, I mean, I'm still a psychologist, so I, you know, I know that there's so many medicines that are amazing for people, but I'll, I'll, I'll sometimes work with people on what other ways might help. And then if it doesn't, then we'll go a different route. There are also times in your life, like from my experience alone, like, you know, that it's so acute that you can't just fucking go do yoga because you can't even go do yoga.

You know what I mean? Right. Like you actually physically can't do yoga because shit is so bad. So, you know, there's a spectrum of anxiety per person, but also for one person, it's like, oh, oh, is this is just a bad day? And if you stretch and breathe some air, will you feel better? And other people are like, dude, I'm fucking feeling like I'm dying all day. I can't, that breathing outside won't fucking help me.

Totally understandable. And like you said, Alison, then seek professional help and don't be ashamed of it. Like you said, like there was so much stigma and there might still be, but there's becoming less and fucking less. So, and again, I can talk about this all day, but this is another good question. and especially for you because you said it comes from your stomach, which I feel like for me that also happens, like I was saying about the Chick-fil-A. And even moments that I've noticed, like I said, I'm very in tune with my body. If I'm like bloated more than usual and it just so happens that my

chest is also feeling these feelings and causing me some anxiety, I can literally feel that it's coming up from my stomach up. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. You're like, yep. So and I'm like, I should just eat vegetables forever. So the question is, are there, is there any food diet that has an effect on anxiety? Is there some specific, are there specific foods that we should avoid or, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm sure anyone listening has seen something on Instagram or social media about saying how food is medicine, right? And how.

The gut is the brain of the body? 100%. Right. So the gut actually produces, I think, 90% of our sermons. which is the happy chemical in our brain. And so what we put into our body is going to affect our mental health. That's just... Wait, 90% from the gut and 10% is only from the brain? Yep. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy? I know. Very much. And all of this is like newer research too. So everyone's just learning about this. So I'm not a dietitian or a nutritionist. I have worked with

an integrative doctor and I've learned a lot about different supplements and foods. um, that, you know, cause irritation to the gut. But, you know, you're probably going to hear me say what your parents or someone has told you since, you know, you were young, like, vegetables are good for you. Um, fruits are good for you. You know, gluten's not great for you. And a lot of sugar, foods with sugars are not great for you. And so now I'm, so I can't really speak to exactly what it is, but I do know that what I've learned from my integrative doctor who I've worked with is that, you know, vitamin D is really good. And vitamin B12, that's something that I take every day. There's a supplement called collagen that is supposed to be really good for your gut. Now, I have to

say that please, if you're thinking of doing any of these, like talk to your doctor first, because for taking any supplements or anything. I know they're over the counter, but always still talk to a doctor or a nutritionist before taking any of these. And also, like I've been saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, like, paying attention to your body is such an important one. And if you don't remember, then write it down. Like, I need to remember that, you know, fast food, fried food doesn't always make me feel good.

Like, love Chipotle, don't feel so great after it. Love eating like a whole thing of chocolate. But like I said, the sugar spikes. And then, you know, my heart's racing. And then I get this, like, you know, the. feeling after, whatever. So your body reacts in certain ways to the food that you eat. So it's not only let's look hot for summer, but it's what makes you feel good. And it's hard when you're anxious or when whatever to care about that. You're like, but I want a bagel. Like that's what's

going to make me feel good. But we have to remember that it might not always make you feel good after you eat it. 100%. And I actually was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. So basically what that means is that's what doctors diagnose you with when they can't find anything else wrong with your stomach. I was going to say. So I've had endoscopies and colonoscopies. I mean, past 10, 15, I had like two of them. I mean, you know, you're not supposed to have them until you're 50. And I've had two already in my life. So basically, same thing came out. I mean, I have acid reflux. So again, there's foods that, you know, if you have that research, what foods are good for acid reflux and what foods aren't. And you're probably going to see fried or bad, all of the bad stuff

that you know are bad are bad um right but ibs is you know that's just a diagnosis they give you so for me i basically have been having this trial and error life for the past 10 years of like what foods agree with me and what foods don't and that's kind of i still am trying to figure it out right so that is actually it's frustrating that's frustrating you got i know but yeah okay another one and this is i didn't write this but uh would be good for me for you to answer that too how to deal with anxiety during pregnancy in the midst of all this coronavirus chaos. Oh, my gosh. I know. I can't imagine that that is probably everything so spiking, you know, with what's going on. Yeah. So, you know, of course, they say, you know, when you're pregnant, you're eating for two now. Well,

that goes with worrying now, right? You're worrying for two. So all of those thoughts that you were having before that. They're probably just, they're simulated. Your brain is all going to be over hyperactive with hormones and everything. That I think, again, it's just going to be more important than ever now to try and figure out what you can do to quiet your mind, to really quiet your brain. Trying not to read everything, just like with the virus, not to do that, but don't do everything with, you know, about pregnancy or about different with that. try and stay away from that just right now at least you know for the time you guys it's so much more detrimental than you think to read all this shit like i have tried to and i've tried not to and there's

such a huge difference and again if the information is important like it'll get to you you'll read it if it's another article someone's sending you that says you know and there's also you were saying about group chats and shit before like i i get the new york times like newsletter every morning i go through that and like I get it. I get what Trump said yesterday. I try to not like get too angry about it. I read it whatever. I get the news. I want to know from like official news sources. I don't want a message that you sent on WhatsApp that your aunt forwarded to you from her like group and it says that some Chinese doctors said this thing. No, you don't know. And I got sent something. One of my followers sent me today like a pregnancy article. You know, this is what they're one day they say that it's not,

you know, in a high risk group. The next day they say that. that it is and then it's like and then it's like the CDC well what can you do oh well you know stay home and keep your distance and watch your hands so it's the same shit so we know what we have to be doing and it's a stressful time for everyone especially not especially because you know for our parents we're worried um but also pregnant women like you said you're going to have a fucking baby you're like shit what's going to be when i need to go to doctor's appointment when i don't know need to give birth when they come into the world. But my personal non-therapist advice is take it day by day. Even with my pregnancy, the reason I've managed to stay calmer than I've expected in

general, but also with the virus going on, is just like I take it day by day. I take it appointment by appointment. I don't read on every single thing that can happen. I just take it day by day. Okay, tomorrow I'm doing this test. I'm doing this test. Wait for the results. Great. Everything's okay. Move on. I really try to take it day by day. with everything because who the fuck knows where we're going to like like you said one thing we can't do is predict so it's not going to help us to spin and we have to keep our precautions anyway if you're pregnant or if you're not pregnant this is a really good question when to seek help very simple to the point um yes so to be honest i am such an advocate of therapy that

I don't think that there's any moment or anything specific that needs to happen for you to just want to go see a therapist or to go make an appointment. I don't even, I think everyone personally, I think they should be set up for us when we're born that we get connected with a therapist, just like a physician. Honestly, I've said that my entire career. I think everyone should just be appointed to one. But, you know, if I will say that as far as feeling like maybe like I was saying before, that it's affecting your daily life. It's affecting your daily functioning. If you see that your relationships are in trouble and there's different patterns happening where you just feel loss of control and things really are debilitating, then you want to seek support. You definitely want to seek help. But also, if you're just feeling like you want someone to talk to in your day to day. And another thing about therapy, too, that a lot of people ask me is that when you go into, when you start therapy, it doesn't mean like what you see on TV. I have to go every single week. I have to do six an hour every week. And it can look like that for some people, but half my practice is either every other week or I see people for maintenance once a month and to check in. And that's what works for them. It's just nice that they know that they have it every month because life happens. And I love that you said take everything day by day because once you live your life and you live your life in a way that's really just taking being mindful

and taking things every day as it comes, it becomes like habit and you feel this sort of like you just, you know that there's things that could happen, but you're not scared of that anymore if that makes sense. Like yes, I know that there's these things now that I can see that could happen that used to just put me into a crying ball in the corner. And now I sort of acknowledge that they happen and I acknowledge the thoughts that I have about it and I don't judge them and they kind of just like float by and it's just a thought. You know, they don't really have any power. Ways for spouse to help. My anxiety gets bad and hubby wants to know how to help but she doesn't know how to tell them to help. Okay. So first of all, great for you that your hubby wants to help.

That's amazing. I know, right? Do you have support? Yeah. Sometimes it's so hard to know what to do in certain moments because it is, again, when we talk about a helpless feeling, depending on the severity of your anxiety at that moment, right? It could be full-blown panic attack or, you know, people's anxiety looks so different. But depending on what it is, it's such a helpless feeling for the person, whether it's a romantic partner or a mom or a dad or, you know, a sister-brother, you want to have the answer. You want to be able to know what you can do to fix it, right? Like quote-unquote fix it. So many people just want to take the pain away of someone that they love. But in those moments, you seriously just need to sit with that person with it and make them feel like they're safe.

Yeah. So just sitting with that person and literally telling them, you're safe with me. I'm here right now. The last thing anyone wants to be with that has high anxiety is someone else that has high anxiety, literally. No, but it's interesting because my husband also has had anxiety before, like he knows what it is. So that's helpful that he's not, you know, I have friends who have anxiety and their spouses or partners are like, what is that? And, you know, what, like, what's wrong with you? Should we go to the hospital? Because sometimes they don't know what to do. And they're like, well, you say you're

dying, you know, like, let's go to the hospital. Whereas my husband is like, you're fine, like put on a shirt, you know, or no, he's actually, I mean, he is my safe person. You know, I've called him from the ground so many times. Like, I feel like I'm going to faint him on the ground. and just having him on the phone helped me. But, and I'll give a totally different thing that I've been feeling lately is I feel lately like when my anxiety comes on, I need to deal with it by myself. Like, he'll come, he's very supportive. He tries to help.

He'll, like, bring me water. He'll, like, put water on my face. He'll do all these things. But in that moment, sometimes I just need to, like, give me a moment and I'm working through it right now. So that can also be what works for you. Yes. I think that's honestly one of the best parts of treatment is that it really can make people feel empowered

because a lot of times, you know, when I first start working with someone, that's like the only tool that they have is a person, is another person, right? But that other person is not always going to be there every single second that something might be happening. And so it's very empowering for people. to know that they do actually, they are actually in control in those moments. They don't, and there is a, there is so many different types of tools and strategies that we can put in their, um, you know, quote unquote toolbox, their healing toolbox. And it's just about figuring out what those are that works for that person. Right. There's so many other questions, Allison, but they can DM me. I try and answer all of my DM. Oh, that's so nice. That's so nice.

So you guys, Allison is, uh, the anxiety healer on Instagram. You're great. Thank you so much for all you do. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it. I think this will be really informative for people and hopefully answer some questions and help people. And also understand you're not alone. Like so many of us are dealing with this shit in the fucking world. And we're all in this together. And it makes us really sensitive, smart, beautiful humans. It makes us us us. Right. It makes us real. Yeah. That's the other thing is like, should have defined? you know is it part of you that maybe try to find you know the the good parts and it helps me

sometimes right exactly thank you so much this has been so great it was so nice to talk to you and I guess virtually meet you today but I hope that everyone I know another layer of virtual meeting I know all right you guys thank you so much stay safe stay healthy and stay calm we got this stay safe everyone stay fucking corona free stay home right now hashtag quarantine hashtag happy quarantine I love you guys so much you make my life complete now go rate me five fucking stars and love me the way I deserve okay all right love you guys thanks a potglomerate for producing the show love you guys too thank you The Podglomer

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