The Mindset Mentor - How to Change Your Anxiety

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Anxiety is at an all time high right now, but what if you could change your anxiety into excitement? In this episode, I will teach you a simple mental reframe to change your anxious days into exciting... days.Follow me on Instagram @RobDialJr https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/ Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dyle, and if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. Today we're going to be talking about how to take your anxiety that you might be feeling from the world, from everything that's happening, from your work, from your children, from your family, from everything that happens in your mind and how to turn your anxiety into excitement. Now you might be sitting there and thinking, how in the hell can I take the feeling of being anxious and turn it into excitement? That makes no sense.
Starting point is 00:00:42 And I'm actually going to tell you how to trick your brain into thinking you're excited when you're anxious. Now, let me explain. This is not me. I did not make this up. This is actually inside of scientific books of how to make somebody feel excited when they're anxious. And it's called anxiety reappraisal. And anxiety is a, you know, when you feel anxious, this is exactly what happens. Your heart, it'll beat faster. So you're, you're go from a slower resting state to thoughts, literally thoughts, because anxiety comes from thoughts. Thoughts make your heart start beating faster. What else happens? Cortisol, which is called the stress hormone. Cortisol surges throughout your
Starting point is 00:01:25 body and it goes into your heart and your heart bursts it out everywhere all over your body, all of your extremities. And then your body's like, oh yeah, I'm feeling really anxious right now. And the body prepares for action. So anxiety is the body's preparation by sending out cortisol and adrenaline for a fight. Fight or flight, you've got to run or you've got to fight for your life. And you're mentally thinking something that is literally putting your body into action of fight or flight. In other words, your body is ready to throw down. That's literally what your thoughts can do. That's what's crazy about your thoughts. And let me explain. It's not just anxiety. It's happiness. It's excitement. It's sexual desire.
Starting point is 00:02:06 Your thoughts can create a feeling and a change in your body. Let me take myself off of the anxiety side and let's go to the sexual side. Let's be real. We've all experienced some form of thought and your body kicks into gear, right? That's what's happening with yourself when you're anxious is a thought of, oh my God, how am I going to pay the bills this week? Comes in and now your body goes into fight or flight as if you're running from a lion. And then what happens is literally your body goes into this mode, your heart beats fast,
Starting point is 00:02:41 your cortisol surges, you have adrenaline that goes through your body, and your body's ready to really like go, run. You've got to do something. And there's another feeling inside of the body that is called arousal congruent. That's the phrase for it. And it's excitement. Anxiety and excitement are both aroused emotions. And they're almost exactly the same the way that your body reacts to it. Because when you are excited, your heart beats faster, your cortisol and adrenaline starts to surge, and your body is excited to go do something. So literally physically inside of the body, it is exactly the same. The only difference is what your brain, what feeling and thought your brain attaches to what's happening to your body. So they're called arousal congruent. So anxiety and excitement are both aroused emotions. And you can trick your
Starting point is 00:03:38 brain into actually thinking that you're excited when you're anxious. And so you sit there and this was a study that was done with psychologists and what people would go and they're about to go give a talk, which is considered the number one fear in the world to get up in front of a lot of people. They have to get up and give a two minute speech on camera in front of a bunch of people. Everybody started to feel anxious because they never give it. So they're sitting there and they're like, oh my God. And so they went up to half of the group and they said, Hey, what I want you to do is I want you to feel your body. I want you to feel the way that it's feeling. I want you to feel your, your race heartbeat.
Starting point is 00:04:10 And we want you to say to yourself, close your eyes and say, I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. And repeat that to yourself a hundred times before you go on stage. Here's what happened when they were asked to do the two-minute speech on camera and in front of people, the excited participants spoke longer and when they were graded were seen as more persuasive, more confident, and more persistent in their words. So literally, just by sitting there on the stage and saying to themselves a hundred times with their eyes closed, I'm excited, I'm excited. I'm excited. They were able to switch their anxious fear, their anxious feelings into excited feelings, which made them seem more excited. It made them more persuasive, more confident, and more persistent in the way that they spoke when they were graded.
Starting point is 00:04:58 When it came to a math test, everybody felt anxiety and they had to took half of the group. They're about to have this big math test. And they said, you're going to sit there and they didn't tell the other group, obviously. And they said, go say you're excited. I'm excited for this test. I'm excited for this test. I'm excited for this test. And feel your body and feel yourself going into that feeling of excitement. And what happened when it came to the math test?
Starting point is 00:05:20 The excited participants outperformed the other group on their test, on their scores, and how quickly they got the test done. So it's anxiety that is reframed into excitement. And in 2010, the University of Rochester, they had a similar thing that they did with reframing anxiety and turning it into a positive thing that could help people in their math when they were going through it. So this is multiple universities that have now done this. And so it's proven that they are exactly the same as far as they're congruent in the fact of what it does to your body, the way that it feels. The only difference is the thought that is attached to that. One of the people that I really love and I follow is a guy named Bruce
Starting point is 00:06:05 Lipton. And Bruce Lipton talks about how your body is 70 trillion cells. So there's 70 trillion cells inside of your body. And they collectively do what the central voice tells it to do. So your central voice is your thoughts, what you tell it to do. So if you are having this feeling, and he says, when you look in the mirror, you're not looking at yourself. You're looking at a community of 70 trillion cells. And so you have to realize that if you're sitting there and you feel anxious, and then the thought comes in of, oh my God, I'm anxious. I feel that I'll feel this anxiety. You're literally that central voice is telling your 70 trillion cells to go to the vibration of anxiety, to feel anxious. cells to go to the vibration of anxiety, to feel anxious. But that being said, is if that's the case, next time you feel the anxiety, can you turn that into excitement by changing your 70 trillion
Starting point is 00:06:54 cells to the vibration of I am excited? And so here's the best way to do it is you sit there and you think, oh my gosh, I'm anxious. Maybe you say you're anxious about paying the bills, right? It's been really hard to pay the bills right now. Oh my God, I can feel it. And so first off, when you're in the jar, you can't read the label. Take yourself out of the jar. Okay. You're in this feeling and you've got to become very self-aware. So become self-aware, get out of the jar and read the label. Okay. Let me close my eyes. Let me just put my hands on my chest. Let me just feel myself breathe. Okay. And I'm going to say to myself, I'm excited. I'm excited. I am excited. I am excited. And you do this over and over and over and over again.
Starting point is 00:07:41 And then what do you do? Very simple thing. As you say, what can I be excited about right now? Because you're taking this heightened state and you're literally taking the emotion of anxiety and you're changing it from the emotion of anxiety to, okay, my body feels this way, but let me actually change why it feels this way. What can I be excited about? Okay. Okay. So I was anxious about the bills. What can I be excited about? Okay. Okay. So I was anxious about the bills. What can I be excited about? You know what I can be excited about? I can be excited about the fact that I'm going to the gym later. I can be excited about the fact that I've got a job interview. I've got, can be excited about the fact that, you know, that I have people
Starting point is 00:08:17 to support me. I can be excited about that. You have unemployment coming in, whatever it is that you might be excited about something you can be grateful for. And what happens is if you do this, you take about five minutes, you can feel in a very anxious state and change the way that you feel based off of the central voice that is inside of your head that's telling your 70 trillion cells what to do with this feeling. So here's the best part about this. I've said this before and most people listen to this like, yeah, that sounds cool. I don't know if that would actually work though. Every time I talk about this, I get emails of, holy shit, Rob, that actually worked. Like I literally was really anxious
Starting point is 00:08:55 about this first date that I was going to go on to. And I was sitting there and I was anxious. Oh my God, she's really pretty. I don't know if I'm going to be able to hold myself together. I don't want to say, what if I say something wrong? What if I come off like an idiot? I've got a blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm anxious about this date. I'm anxious about the date. And then they go, okay, let me feel it. Let me calm my breath down. I'm excited about this date. I'm excited about this date. I'm excited about this date. And they do it a hundred times. Take a few minutes until you feel your body physically calm down. Take yourself out of the jar, read the label, calm down and go, what am I excited about on this date? I'm excited about new beginnings. I'm
Starting point is 00:09:32 excited about, she seems like a good match. I'm excited about this and this and this. And what happens is you open your eyes and the feelings of anxiety have died down. And the feelings, you know, when you're anxious, the thing that they say is when emotions are high, logic is low, is you're not thinking very well when you're also very anxious and you bring it all down and you go, okay, I'm going to be calm. I'm going to be cool. I'm going to be centered. And I'm going to ask myself, what can I be excited about? And you go into that even more calm, cool, collected, present than you would have been if you were anxious. And you feel the feeling of, oh my God, I'm actually excited to go do this. Oh my God, I'm actually excited to go on this date. Oh my God, I'm actually excited to go and give this speech on stage. Oh my God, I'm actually excited to take
Starting point is 00:10:11 this test. Oh my God, I'm actually excited to do all of these things. And what you're doing is you're literally tricking your brain into being excited in the moments that you feel anxious, but it requires extreme self-awareness. I always say, if I could give every person in the world a superpower, it would be extreme self-awareness because then you would be able to go, okay, oh God, I feel really anxious right now. Okay. What should I do? I'm going to go back and I'm going to, I'm going to do that breathing exercise Rob talked about. I'm going to feel myself. I'm going to close my eyes. I'm going to breathe. And I'm going to say, I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. And then I'm going to ask myself, what can I be excited about with X,
Starting point is 00:10:49 whatever it is. And that is how you take your excitement or how you take your anxiety and change it into excitement. It's called anxiety reappraisal because of the fact that they are arousal congruent is the phrase. So if you want to look it up, if you want to Google it, you'll find a lot there. I didn't make it up. I'm just the guy who's telling you the scientific proof of how to change your anxiety into some sort of excitement for what you have going on. So if you love this episode, please share with someone that you know and love. I know there's a lot of anxiety that's happening right now. It would be great if you guys would do me a favor and you would be able to go and share this on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L.
Starting point is 00:11:25 And if you're out there and you want to be one of those people that gets motivational text message from me throughout the week, it is me and only me. People always ask, is this Rob Dial? Is this actually Rob Dial? It is. It is actually me and I'm the one that sends it. So if you want to text me and get motivational text messages from me every single week, multiple times a week, a few times a week, whenever I send them out, whenever I get inspired, I just send them out. It's 512-580-9305. So 512-580-9305. Send me a text message right now and I will text you back with some beautiful, informational, motivational stuff. But I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have
Starting point is 00:12:04 an amazing day.

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