ANXIETY: Interrupting the Mind Chatter & How Audiobooks Can Help
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| Anxious? Who's anxious? I'm not anxious. No sir, not me... Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash |
In those moments, alone with my unhelpful thoughts, my mind would spin tall tales as it convinced me the world was out to get me, caused me to question people's motives, told me I was unlovable and that I was doomed to fail.
Perhaps you can relate?
I mean, I really, really hope you can't.
I hope your head-space is friendly most of the time, or neutral at the very least.
But in case it's not, let me share one of my favourite tips for dealing with anxiety, one that consistently stops me from getting on the rumination train.
Occupy the BODY while occupying the MIND.
That right there is a magical formula that can nip a whole lot of anxiety in its negative little bud. (Just POW! Right in the kisser!!)
Dealing with anxiety is about interrupting your thoughts, and by occupying the body while you occupy the mind, you create a double-whammy interruption - both your subconscious and conscious mind are occupied.
Alright, so what does this mean?
What does it look like for you?
OCCUPY THE BODY
Dealing with the Subconscious
When anxiety is knocking at the door, instead of answering, get up and go do something.
Sitting still and allowing your mind to get on the rumination train is the worst thing you can do because that's when anxious thoughts really pick-up steam.
You need to get up and move your body in some way, preferably to perform a task that your subconscious mind needs to focus on - aka something you're already in the habit of doing.
Why?
If your subconscious mind is focused on a familiar task, it goes through the necessary steps in, well, your subconscious.
Although you're not consciously thinking about whatever you're doing, your subconscious is engaged in that moment; this is good, you want this.
Because familiar body movements engage the subconscious, they create an interruption to any negative soundtrack playing on infinite loop in the back of your mind.
You want to pick a familiar movement - any movement - so that it's the subconscious which is engaged (this is where household chores come in very handy):
- Cleaning: Vacuuming, shining mirrors or windows, folding laundry, scrubbing the grout from in-between the bathroom tiles (come on, you know it's there...).
- Cooking or Baking (using a recipe you've made a bunch of times - remember subconscious): Stirring, chopping, measuring, weighing, mixing.
- Exercise: Walking, running, lifting weights, stretching, yoga, axe-throwing or parkour (if that happens to be familiar to you…).
- Self-Care: Styling your hair, giving yourself a manicure or pedicure, plucking your eyebrows (or nose hairs, whatever...).
Engage the body in some manner; don't sit still, because sitting still allows for continued rumination.
And again, engage the body in a familiar activity so that your subconscious mind is busy going over the steps of your familiar movement, instead of running that negative soundtrack.
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| Sigh... I'm on the rumination train again... Photo by Ernst Theimer on Unsplash |
OCCUPY THE MIND
Dealing with the Conscious
Great! Now that the body (subconscious) is occupied because you're moving your body in some familiar way, you have to occupy your conscious mind.
An anxious mind is in catastrophizing mode so you have to find a way to change the direction of the rumination train; get it running on a different track, if you will.
See, you gotta think of your mind as if it were a dog - you either give it a bone to chew on, or it will find something (your favourite pair of shoes?) to gnaw at.
This is where audiobooks are heaven sent. (Or maybe podcasts are your thing, also fine.)
Instead of allowing the mind to focus on whatever anxious thought it's chosen to snack on that day, YOU decide what your mind will focus on, YOU choose the tasty mental morsel.
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| I'm listenin'. Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash |
WHY I LOVE AUDIOBOOKS
A tangent
I keep telling one of my friends about the benefits of audiobooks, but she says she feels like she misses too much of the content while simply listening, and that she gets more information from reading.
I totally agree, 100%.
I retain far more of the content I read than the content I listen to.
But...but...I rarely read anymore.
I don't have multiple stretches of time throughout the week when I can just sit down and focus on a book (without falling asleep...).
If and when I do pick-up a book, it takes me about a month to finish.
But I get through about two or three audiobooks per week. That's up to a dozen books per month that, if I had to read, I wouldn't.
So even though I might miss some of the information (because I generally listen to non-fiction), I still get *some* of it that I otherwise would not have.
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| My Audible stats for last year; that's 571 hours or 23 days of listening. Image Credit: Author |
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| You choose what you feed your mind, just the way you decide what to feed your body. Image Credit: Author |
OCCUPY THE MIND
(continued)
Listening to an audiobook for the anxious mind is like waving a colourful toy in front of a toddler who's having a tantrum; all of a sudden, he forgets why he was crying because he's too distracted by the shiny new thing.
Basically, audiobooks give your mind something to focus on when you otherwise might be ruminating.
Now, as someone who's been through therapy, I'm familiar with and understand the benefits of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) techniques that encourage you to question your thoughts in anxious moments. (If you'd like an example, Byron Katie's four questions in The Work are quite similar to a lot of the CBT tools I've come across.)
Those are great exercises to go through in rational moments.
What bothers me about them though - and CBT in general - is that is assumes a certain kind of lucidity that just isn't there when you're busy catastrophizing.
In those moments, when your sitting on the rumination train and it's about to leave the station, sitting down to question your thoughts just isn't going to happen.
Effectively dealing with anxiety is a matter of interrupting the chatter of subconscious and the conscious mind.
Therefore...
Occupy the BODY while occupying the MIND.
Pick a familiar activity and have an audiobook ready to go, so that when anxiety hits, you're ready for it - POW! Right in the kisser!!
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| Ready to give anxiety the one-two punch. Photo by Waranya Mooldee on Unsplash |
You might be asking yourself "How does this topic relate to recovery from binge-eating?" What I found is that - for me - finding new ways of thinking about life and its challenges helped me to stop stress-eating, and has been a very big part of my ability to stop binge-eating.
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