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how to reduce stress and anxiety

Nearly all of us suffer from stress and anxiety at some point in our lives (myself included), and this impacts our daily lives and overall well-being. In this episode, I’m joined in the studio by members of my team for a rapid-fire Q&A on all things stress and anxiety-related. During this lively, yet candid conversation, I share my advice for finding relief from stress and anxiety, including easy steps to incorporate into your daily routine.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How to recognize the physical cues of stress and anxiety
  • Simple and effective techniques to begin to shift your mental and physical state when stress and anxiety take hold
  • Practices to integrate into your daily routine to help you feel calmer and more at ease
  • The #1 habit to avoid in the morning that induces stress and anxiety
  • How to stop anxiety from blocking your manifestations
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This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from any psychological or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

dear gabby #198 Mar 22, 2024 emotional wellbeing

breaking the cycle of anxiety: simple techniques to set you on a path towards serenity

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Hi there, Gabby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

Hello, my friends. There is no question that we are living in quite stressful times and it's global. It's personal. It's all of us, including myself. We're all experiencing our own personal levels of anxiety. And I personally went through a journey of really uncovering all of the tools and the methods. For finding serenity and peace inside.

It was really a life mission, I believe. And the [00:01:00] commitment that I've undergone to relieve anxiety has changed me forever. It changed me on a cellular level. And so I put together this really, really, really beautiful 14 day journey. Where I want to take you through my best methods for releasing anxiety, and it's the 14 day anxiety relief challenge.

The beauty of this challenge is that it's very simple practices, 10 minutes or less a day, and they're practices that I want you to take with you, carry with you, have for the rest of your life. And these methods will give you instant relief from meditations to EFT tapping to releasing anxiety through your breath, through mindful practices, sleeping meditations, walking meditations.

It's all there. It's all inside here. It's 14 days. So if you're struggling with anxiety, I welcome you to join me on the 14 Day Anxiety Relief Challenge. Go to Deargabby.com/anxietychallenge. Join me [00:02:00] today. That's Deargabby.com/anxietychallenge. Let me support you on your journey to finding that genuine, long lasting serenity, peace, inner safety.

I promise that Deargabby.com/anxietychallenge

Gabby. Gabby. Gabby.

Gabby. Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I'm your host, Gabby Bernstein. And if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you're ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let's get started.

We are in the house. Dear Gabby in the house, we got Alex in the house, we got [00:03:00] Ria in the house, we got Joshie in the house. What's up guys? Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. How you doing? Hi. I'm good. I'm good. Hey, how you doing? I'm good. I'm here for a rapid fire Q& A. on anxiety. We are here in the season of celebrating our serenity.

My anxiety relief challenge starts on April 1st, and I want to address the topic. I want to make sure every single person listening finds their way to this anxiety relief challenge. Deargabby.com/anxietychallenge. And this is a 14 day challenge that's going to really help people completely transform their nervous system, give you tools that you can use for a lifetime, help you activate a presence of peace inside and just make you want more of that.

And when we feel that even slightly, guys, it starts to multiply inside of us. So let's take some questions from the Instagram. People sent me some questions about anxiety and we'll just tee it up right now. [00:04:00] What are the physical symptoms of anxiety? Oh, physical symptoms of anxiety. I would probably say some physical symptoms of anxiety would be your stomach.

It goes into knots. I noticed this morning when I picked up my phone and I started looking at my. feed or my emails or my slack, and I was just getting into it, which is not a common thing I do and not something I would recommend in my anxiety relief challenge. I did it by accident. I fell into the phone and I noticed my stomach just tighten up, go right, and then I noticed my jaw start grinding and then my heart started just beating really fast.

And those symptoms for me are cues. cues that I've made a choice or have hooked into a feeling or that anxiety is present. What does it feel like for you, Alex? I actually have a question. Okay, good. Like, are there different levels of anxiety? For instance, something that happened to me recently was I was in an [00:05:00] airplane and I went into the bathroom and I thought I locked myself in the bathroom.

Like I couldn't figure out how to get out. Full panic mode. So after I got out, I sat down and I was like doing my box breathing on the plane and I was like, am I experiencing anxiety or am I experiencing a panic attack or is it the same thing and what methods can help me calm down? So I think they can coexist.

I think that anxiety is a precursor to a panic attack or you could go into those moments where you feel like I'm so out of control or I'm. I'm stuck. Right? Or I'm locked in. And that can be a trigger response into a panic attack, which was the extreme reaction to the core belief that I am unsafe.

Anxiety is also a response to not feeling safe. So, so much of the antidote to those extreme moments is reminding ourselves of returning to safety. And so, you went to your box breath, which is breathing in for four. Holding your breath for four, out for four, hold [00:06:00] for four, and then recycle, rinse and repeat.

Yeah. But another one that I love, and this is a practice that I share in the Gabby Coaching app, is the tapping on the gamut point. And this is beautiful for those moments of panic because it's a really beautiful practice of bringing yourself back to safety. So this point is a EFT, emotional freedom technique point, and it's right between your pinky finger and your ring finger.

It's That little skin right there and you tap and you would say to yourself, I am safe, I am safe, I am safe. And if you remind yourself that you're safe while tapping on this point that's stimulating your nervous system to settle and you start breathing as you say it, you start to remind your whole system that safety is possible and you start to settle.

So the extreme reactions to anxiety or those moments of panic when we have a fear or we have a trigger are. responses to feelings of being unsafe. So coming back to safety through breath, through [00:07:00] mindfulness practices, through meditation, talking back to ourselves. Right. Having that kind of communication to ourselves.

All these practices that we start to develop and the ones that I'm going to give in my challenge are tools that you can dip into in any moment that anxiety takes over and you can just go into your toolbox of methods, practices, meditations, heart holds. There's just so many of them. You can dive right in, people, dive right in.

And those methods. We'll give you this moment of remembering that safety is inside. And as you start to practice these methods and practice these principles, then that remembrance of safety becomes stronger and stronger and the anxiety becomes farther and farther away or the anxiety becomes, there's less anxiety about getting anxiety.

Right. This is a big one. Okay guys. So much of our anxiety happens. Because we're fearing the anxiety coming on. You got me? Mm [00:08:00] hmm. You got me? And that fear of not knowing how it can stop. Right. And that's the power of this anxiety relief challenge. Because I'm going to give you 14 days of practices that will show you in real time how you can soothe your system and calm that energy and return to safety.

And as you now have the spiritual proof of, I can get back to safety, then you no longer have to fear the anxiety. That's actually what happened to me when I was 16 and I was struggling with anxiety and depression. And my mom gave me a mantra and she taught me how to soothe my system and calm my energy through this mantra, this mantra based meditation.

And as soon as I knew that I could feel that relief, Through the first meditation, I felt relief. Just knowing that was like having a Xanax in my pocket because I knew that in those moments of anxiety, I had a tool I could turn to. And so. That's my intention for this challenge is to give [00:09:00] people multiple tools, 14 days of tools that they can practice, rely on, return to, and then have that spiritual proof that I can return to safety.

Safety is inside. I can have anxiety right now, but I can know that safety is also inside. Totally.
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Mine is more like. Asking your advice on something as somebody who struggles with anxiety, oftentimes I feel like I lean on the anxiety to propel me forward. Like if I'm not feeling anxious about it or I'm not like in that sort of stressed out mode, I'm not going to succeed. How do I get rid of that and just into the flow?

So listen, sometimes anxiety can serve us. Sometimes anxiety can serve us because it actually helps us get s done, it reminds us that we have a to do list, it gets us to work on time, it wakes us up in the morning. There's the light side and the dark side of all emotional states and all, and extreme behaviors can also be useful when they're not in those extreme ways.

And so I wouldn't want you, Josh, to lose the urgency or the accountability or the desire to keep moving forward, but it's about helping it become less [00:12:00] extreme. And so if you can witness that anxiety inside of you and notice it, and in the moment say, okay, thank you for what you want me to know right now.

Thank you for revealing to me that there's a task at hand. And even just speaking to the anxiety and saying, how can we do this with more ease? That would be fab, man. Like to witness it, acknowledge that it has a service and then just say, is there a way we could do this with more ease? And then you can say next, Oh yes, I work with Gabby Bernstein and she is my BFF and on speed dial and Oh yes, I can go and.

Listen to every single one of the podcasts that I edit personally, and I can practice every principle and I have the Gabby app in my pocket and I don't even need the Gabby app because I have Gabby on speed dial. So you just can really be in communication with that anxiety and it's a beautiful way of thinking your way out of that belief that if I'm not in an anxious triggered state that I'm going to [00:13:00] not going to get anything done.

It's like, no, you can use it and you can also help soothe it in the moment so that it can be less extreme because these, these patterns and behaviors and experiences, they have the light side on the dark side. And so if we can start to work with our anxiety and befriend our anxiety, it doesn't actually have to be something that's bad.

It can be an emotional state that we work with. To create, to get things done, to stay on top of things, to be successful, but not in an extreme way. I'm literally going to edit this part out, this little section, and it's going to be my own private get gap. There you go. You have your own private, you have your own private get gap.

Because that's, that, just listening to you say that, suddenly I completely was like, oh. There is an answer. Right. Yes. And that's actually what I'm trying to get at, which is that once you start to know that there's an answer, that there's a, or that even just letting Josh know that he could witness his anxiety with compassion and he can speak to it, gave him relief.

And so [00:14:00] that slight sense of, that sensation of relief was, was there. spiritual proof that he can return to safety because he felt for a sense of safety inside. And then he'll return to that now. He's going to put it in the app. It's going to be a GetGabby. You're going to press it whenever you need it.

And I'll remind you that you can check in with your anxiety and have a conversation with it. And so it's a very different way because sometimes so much of the, the anxiety to panic attack happens when We don't know how to let it go. We don't know how to release it. We don't think there's a way out. And that's when we get into panic attack.

Totally. So I will not panic going to the bathroom on the Delta flight. No, it's not that. You have to remember also that these are biochemical responses that keep us safe, right? Like if you don't have anxiety, you'll run into the middle of the road. Right? Right. If you don't have anxiety, then you can just be like, Oh, I'm just stuck in the bathroom and just stay there the whole time.

Like you need these emotional states because that fight flight response is actually a good thing because it keeps us safe. Right. It's what kept us [00:15:00] away from tigers that were going to come and eat us. But the problem is, is that now we're living in the world and we think that we're always under attack from a tiger.

And so it's useful in those moments when you're like, Oh, I'm stuck in the bathroom or I'm going to cross the street and there's a car coming or there's a fire in my house, but it's. not useful when you're just like getting a phone call from your boss and you're like, no, I think a tiger's going to eat me.

Totally. Well, I feel like it's similar to inflammation, right? Like inflammation when you have a cut is actually good, right? Because now it's like healing your wound. But if you have chronic inflammation all the time, like it's not okay. And I feel like if you have, a panic attack like that where it's keeping you safe.

That's great. But if you have anxiety all the time, you got a problem. And then that chronic anxiety creates inflammation. We got a cycle here. Wolfie, do you have a question for me about anxiety or a comment? Because you are the guru. I agree with everything you said about anxiety so far. You're really spot on about it.

All right. That's the words of wisdom from Wolf. We love you. So Riri, what else? Okay, a lot of people on Instagram were asking the same [00:16:00] question as you, Josh. Can anxiety help guide you? And that leads into a bigger question that people are asking about. Is anxiety different than intuition? And how do you tell the difference?

Well, I actually would say that when you're in your intuition, you are not feeling anxious. Intuition can also have excitement behind it and it can feel buzzy and it can feel like a movement happening and inward, but it's the opposite of anxiety. Anxiety is intuition comes through us when we're in a flow state and when we're free of the anxiety, when we're not in that constricted way.

And intuition can flow through us naturally when we are rested at ease and in a place of safety. And so the anxiety feeling is a sign that you're actually out of alignment with your intuition. Now you could argue that having a anxious feeling can be a guide, an intuitive hit. Like if [00:17:00] you're, you know, walking in a dark alley and you feel like there might be somebody behind you and that anxiety, that is an intuition.

So those two can coexist and it can guide you. It can be almost like the anxious feeling is an intuitive guide, but. When you're in a full blown experience of intuition from the standpoint of what we talk about here on the show, of like, being, being, receiving guidance, receiving divine inspiration and moving forward with that intuitive sensation, that might be quite different than a feeling of anxiety.

So, I, I think the answer is yes to both, really, and a feeling of anxiety could be an intuition that you need to do something different, that you need to get the f out, that you need to, to walk across the street in a different way. To also recognize that the greatest access to our intuition doesn't come from an anxious state.

Any last questions? Yeah, I'm going to ask you, we talked a little bit about this earlier, how do I Keep the anxiety at bay when I first wake up in the morning. Okay. Well [00:18:00] numero uno people just don't look at your phone as I was sharing earlier I I had a brain fart this morning and I and I picked up the phone and it was a terrible idea Because it will screw you up for the rest of your day It's just so obvious and you know one of the things I learned from my friend Jim quick was Just make it hard to do the thing that doesn't work for you.

So if you have a habit of picking up the phone early in the morning and just going straight to the phone and looking at the news and getting all sucked into your work or whatever it is, then put the phone to bed in the bathroom. Mm. Put it somewhere else. That'd be number one. I would also say, start your day with the, with our practice of our heart hold and then really design your day.

It's all inside the Gabby coaching membership app. It's right there. It's the heart hold. And then you say to yourself, I want to design my day. Who do I want to be today? What do I want to feel today? What do I want to give today and what do I want to receive today? And in that message to ourself, we are setting ourselves up [00:19:00] to choose a day of freedom, joy, inspiration and design our day.

And that intention setting from the onset of your day actually can redirect the rest of your day. And in that redirection, you now are choosing a path of. serenity and relief instead of choosing that path of waking up and rolling over and looking at the news and then feeling like your boss is emailing you and then freaking out because they're on Asana tasking you things at 7am and my team are laughing at the moment.

And in that moment you would say, what was that? Asana or die. Asana or die. Like I have stressed out my team a little bit. If you're not in Asana, Asana is like a tool that we use for organizing things. And if you didn't get the memo, Asana or die. Okay, any last questions? A lot of people are asking how anxiety affects your manifesting abilities.

So when we're, our super attractor power is a power that's within all of us. It's an energy that we have. It's a presence within us that [00:20:00] is. free, that is at ease, that is trusting and faithful, that is safe. The opposite of that safety is anxiety. Now, once again, we're not trying to shame the anxiety or override the anxiety or be mad at the anxiety, but the more tools we practice and develop to soothe ourselves and to find relief, allows us to really return to our super attractor power.

So if you just went through the manifesting challenge with me, and you're like, well, I want to up level my manifesting, then you definitely want to do the anxiety relief challenge, because this would be the next step to manifesting. The more you calm that nervous system, and the more tools you have to get back to center fast, the easier it is to manifest.

to cultivate that super attractor power within you and to live in that state more easily and more effortlessly and experience more flow. So addressing your anxiety indeed will be a tool that will absolutely support your manifesting power [00:21:00] because when you're in that calm, serene state, you are a super attractor.

So on that note. Let's all do the anxiety relief challenge. It starts April 1st. It's all inside the Gabby Coaching app. It is so easy to access. It's in there. Plus you get a month inside the app. It's just an epic experience. So from the 1st to the 14th, you're going to have me guiding you through this challenge.

You're going to have streaks. You're going to have push notifications. You're going to have affirmations, meditations, meditations, affirmations, Beautiful practices, mindfulness practices, easy to apply practices, and every single one of them are designed to give you that experience of knowing that relief is available right in that moment.

The more you add up that relief, the more faith you have that you are safe. And in that place of safety, anxiety can subside. So, go over to DearGabby.com/anxietychallenge and join me, join us, join the team for the anxiety relief challenge. You will thank me later, you will start manifesting, most importantly, [00:22:00] you will feel good.

That, that's what it's all about. Let's feel good. If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you're truly committed to miracles. I'm really proud of you. If you want to get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience at this show means a lot to me, so I really want to welcome you to leave an honest review.

And you can follow me on social media at Gabby Bernstein. And if you want to get in on the action, sign up for a chance to be Dear Gabby'd live at DearGabby.com. See you next week. Gabby. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this [00:23:00] episode.