Breaking the Loop: Your Guide to a Calmer, More Resilient You
Our brain, the prediction machine, takes in all kinds of information, including our thoughts, and responds based on the determined impact to our safety. When our brain perceives a threat, it triggers reactions like an increased heart rate, shallow breathing, and more, all geared toward preparing your body for action. Everything else takes a back seat until the perceived threat diminishes, allowing you to return to a more relaxed state. However, if the feeling of danger persists, hormonal reactions, including the release of cortisol, keep you on high alert in the mid to long term.
Now, here's the catch – our brain treats all incoming information as if it's actually happening. A mere thought is treated like a real threat. When stuck in negative thinking loops, our brain reacts as if there's a genuine danger, releasing stress hormones continuously. Left unattended, this can lead to various issues such as exhaustion, sickness, inflammation, hypervigilance, depression, all of which impacts our experience of the world, ourselves and others.
Living in today's world, it's inevitable that we'll encounter situations that can trigger anxious responses. The good news is, there are strategies we can use to change our relationship with anxiety.
Reframing Anxiety
The first step in helping our body cope is to change how we speak and think about anxiety. Consider the following statements and notice how your body responds:
"I’m so overwhelmed. There’s no way I’m going to finish this project on time."
"I feel overwhelmed in this moment, and that’s because my body’s trying to figure out something new. I’ve stuck with hard things before and I can do it again."
Did you notice a change in how your body responded? Perhaps the first sentence led to increased tension, while the second brought about a sense of calm amidst the anxiety.
When you view anxiety as an opportunity for personal growth, your body responds positively, enhancing your resilience. Over time, consistently engaging in this mindset can retrain your brain, shifting from the loop of anxiety to the loop of resilience.
Practical Way to Reframe Anxiety
If anxious thoughts or negative beliefs often fill your mind, here's a practical approach:
List your common negative beliefs and responses on paper.
Next to each belief, jot down a positive and realistic counter statement. For example:
Nobody likes me" becomes "The right people like me and accept me."
"I mess everything up" transforms into "Everyone makes mistakes. I choose to learn and grow from mine."
To retrain your brain, practice and consistency is key. Try out the 5-second rule by Mel Robbins. Whenever you catch yourself in a negative thought loop, count backward 5-4-3-2-1, then state or think the new positive statement. When you first start doing this, you may need to catch and reframe your focus 100+ times a day. With consistency, though, you'll notice positive changes. You will catch yourself faster and adjust more quickly. The number of times these negative statements pop up will decrease. Remember, the power to change your reality lies within you, even when everything around you stays the same.