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The technique which cured my anxiety

“It’s all in your head.” Words everyone who has suffered with anxiety knows well! The thing is… that’s a lie. And it pisses me off. Let me explain

Just about everyone who has anxiety and has sought out help from friends and family has heard the “It’s all in your head” explanation. Your friends and family are trying their best to help but just don’t understand what anxiety is and what it feels like physically. They don’t understand that you aren’t able to control what happens in your head. After all, if it was as simple as changing your thoughts and you were able to change them at will too then you wouldn’t be asking for help right?

Anxiety attacks (or even just severe generalized anxiety disorders) are visceral! They are mental and physical experiences and definitely not limited to just your thinking. An anxiety attack can give you headaches, throw you into a cold sweat, or make even breathing a challenge.

So why do so many people try to control symptoms like these by positive thinking alone???

It seems crazy when you think about it that people still try to control extreme and acute symptoms like the ones above with positive thinking.

My Journey

I’ll let you in on a little known fact about me. I used to have generalized anxiety. I felt a low (and sometimes not so low!) level of anxiety around the clock. Sometimes it would be totally manageable but out of the blue it would rear its ugly head and make socializing or even leaving the house next to impossible!

I am a bookworm, so the first place I went for help was self help books like  “ Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude” by Napoleon Hill and “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” By Dale Carnegie. (yes, those are affiliate links) Not to bash these books as classic guides to positive thinking but by themselves they are not good remedies to anxiety.

I tried self medicating by taking massive doses of 5-HTP and Dopa Mucuna beans (They helped the acute symptoms of anxiety but did little to stop the causes.)

I even tried to systematically desensitize myself to my anxiety triggers by being around people and situations which would make me anxious more often.

All of these things worked temporarily but I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle which I couldn’t win. And after talking to other people who suffered from anxiety I knew that this was not an uncommon feeling at all.

This problem was actually what ignited my passion for understanding body language as a tool for personal transformation. I saw a TED talk entitled “Your body language shapes who you are” by Amy Cuddy.

In this talk she describes how our body language shapes who we are and how we feel, not just the other way around. Go take a look at it after you finish this article, you won’t be disappointed!

How This insight cured my anxiety and how it can cure yours

Knowing that our body language literally changes our physiology and our mood, I set out to figure out how to use this knowledge to solve my anxiety.

I learned two more things which let me do this, the first is an idea called anchoring. Anchoring is the idea that when you have a certain posture, or gesture and you associate it over time to a particular emotion or feeling then what you end up doing is building a trigger, when you do the gesture you feel the emotion.

In an article entitled Neuro-linguistic programming treatment for anxiety: Magic or myth? Martin Krugman describes a technique called “anchoring” Which is when you associate a kinesthetic (touch or feeling) sensation with a particular emotion. Although it has been shown to be ineffective in 1 hour therapies, Anchoring is effective when done on a more long term basis.

The second Idea I learned  was a military thought process which is used to help soldiers feel less discomfort in the face of uncertainty. This process is imagining the best, worst, and most likely scenarios. In the words of the stoic philosopher Seneca, “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.”

My life changed when I brought these three ideas together

Here is the power of these three ideas together you can anchor the best, worst, and most likely case scenarios to different body language, and use your powerful body language not only to change your body chemistry, but also to arouse the emotions and thoughts that everything will be all right! Here is an example…

What I did is this, when I was about to enter a situation which I knew would trigger my anxiety, like going to a hectic night at work, I would ask myself what the worst thing that could happen was. As I imagined all the worst things which could happen to me at work I would focus on maintaining the body language of discomfort, rolling my shoulders forward, looking down, breathing shallow, etc…

Next, I would ask myself what the best thing that could happen was. I would imagine getting compliments from customers, a pat on the back from the boss, and having a good time joking with my co-workers. As I did this I would straighten up my posture, push my chin ever so slightly up, focus on breathing deeply, and hold my hands in an open position.

And finally I would visualize the most likely scenario, going to work and skating by with a few good moments of appreciation and one or two disgruntled customers. When I was visualizing this average situation, I would hold my body in a neutral posture and breathe moderately deeply.

Then while I was at work I would focus on maintaining my posture as close as possible to the best case posture. When I did this I noticed I would feel more confident, and expect things to go well at work (and it became a self-fulfilling prophesy)

Why this technique works.

The thinking process of Best, worst, most likely helps bring your mind into a state where it is most prepared for what could happen.

Simultaneously, the visualization and body language anchoring end up creating a powerful trigger for different emotional states. Your mind learns to follow your body and you have a tool which not only addresses the way you are thinking but also the physiological and hormonal basis of that feeling!

This tool has been invaluable for me and a few people who I’ve taught it to, I hope it will be for you as well!

What I need you to do now are two things.

First, let me know how this technique worked for you in the comments below

Second, If you enjoyed this post share it using the buttons on the side of the page

Sources:

William, I.B. (2009). A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

Krugman, Martin, et al., (1985): “Neuro-linguistic programming treatment for anxiety: Magic or myth?.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Aug, Vol. 53(4) pp. 526-530.

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Is your body language ruining your elevator pitch?

When I used to work in a startup accelerator I heard TONS of elevator pitches. The trend I started to notice was that although the message of the speech was put together well I was bored or even worse I didn’t believe or trust the speaker!

Mistake 1. Frozen hands

The best speakers use their hands frequently but what most entrepreneurs who haven’t been trained in public speaking do is keep their hands by their sides almost the entire time. In his book Winning Body Language Mark Bowden says”Dropping your hands and standing still in front of an audience causes your unconcious mind to wonder why you have made yourself a static target.” (P. 30) 

So while most people who hold their hands to their sides think that it is helping to avoid distracting the audience what it is actually doing is initiating a freeze response in your body and wasting one of your biggest nonverbal assets.

So, what is the solution? 

Use you hands to punctuate and demonstrate your main pointsTurn your palms up and raise your forearms in front of you to convey openness and trustworthinessMake a flat hand and do a single or double ‘karate chop’ to emphasize your belief in a point (really useful for statistics.)Steeple your hands when you want to appear credible and confidentMistake 2. Nervous rocking.

The second mistake many entrepreneurs new to public speaking make is that they sway left and right during their speech. This nervous gesture is a way to expend energy and shows the audience non-verbally that the speaker wants to get out of there as soon as possible!

Solution: plant your feet facing your audience, and if you get nervous take a few slow steps and re-plant.

Mistake 3. Staring into the ether.

staringintospace

I call this mistake staring into the ether because many new speakers will look at the wall at the back of the room in order to seem like they are looking at the audience while still avoiding eye contact. It doesn’t fool anyone though. I’ll admit, when I first started public speaking I was a HUGE offender in this area.

Solution, “Square gazing”

I call the solution circular gazing. Here is how you do it. Look at one person in the front left of your audience, and speak directly to them for 10-20 seconds. After that, move to the rear left, rear right, and front right. Keep moving slowly through this imaginary square looking at new people each time and you are sure to keep your audience engaged.

Mistake 4. The question inflection.

This one is for all you valley girl entrepreneurs out there

 

Speaking in uptalk undermines your message and makes you sound like you are questioning if what you are saying is true. In order to overcome this nonverbal nightmare work on giving your speech with the tone of instructing your audience to do something.

So now I want you to:

Leave a comment on this post. What body language tips are you going to implement into your elevator pitch

Share this article to someone you know who makes these mistakes, you can either share this link or if you are lazy (like me) Just click on one of the sharing buttons to your left.

 

3 small tweaks to look and feel more confident

Don’t break eye contact  

No, I don’t mean never break eye contact… That would make you look like a lunatic. This tip only applies to when you are doing the talking. Studies show that the Visual Dominance Ratio (VDR) is a reliable indication of who is more dominant in an interaction. So what in the heck is the VDR anyway?? The VDR is the time you spend looking at someone while speaking/ time looking while you are listening. a high VDR means you are in charge. A VDR of 1.00 means that the power is balanced. A VDR of less than 1.00 means that you are the less dominant person in the conversation. So, if you want to feel and be percieved as higher status, always look at who you are talking to, and don’t be afraid to look away occasionally while they are speaking.

Speak 20% slower

Most of us are over caffeinated and in a hurry. It is natural that in a fast paced world we all tend to walk, talk and work faster than ever before. 

But did you know that speaking quickly doesn’t make you appear smarter and more driven? It has the effect of making you seem hurried, disorganized, and even un-confident (people with low confidence often speak quickly to avoid being interrupted)

Barak Obama in his 2015 state of the union address speaks at between 100 and 130 words per minute. 

If you want to learn to speak more slowly and powerfully here is a good exercise, find a paperback, count off 120 words, and by speaking slowly and pausing often make those 100 words last a whole minute. Do this again and again until you have found a way of speaking slowly which feels natural to you.

Keep your hands visible (and calm)

People feel at eases when they can see your hands. It seems that as humans evolved, it became a good idea to check a persons hands for weapons as we met them. 

But more than just making sure we set the other persons mind at ease, using your hands well is important because hands which are making low confidence gestures are more off putting than hands which are making high confidence gestures. 

Here is your action tip to make your hands convey confidence when you start a conversation, set your hands in a steeple and make sure to come back to that as your default listening position.

Until next time…