Dr. Alok 'Dr. K' Kanojia

That's what my brain learns, right?

That's the way we deal with our anxiety all day long.

Stay busy, stay busy, stay busy.

Don't think about it.

Distract yourself, distract yourself, distract yourself.

So if distraction is my method of regulating anxiety and I go to sleep, there is a problem because when I sleep, there is a sensory deprivation.

There isn't external stimuli.

right?

The external stimuli goes away.

That's the whole point.

I close my eyes.

So what I've actually done is I've conditioned myself to use distractions to control my anxiety.

If you put me in a non-distractable state, then the anxiety will come roaring back and will oftentimes come back even harder because you've been suppressing it this whole time, right?

It's been piling up

It's been piling up, right?

It started down here and you're distracting, distracting, distracting, distracting, distracting.

It's building up.

And then there's so much of it that it doesn't just end up in your arm.

It ends up in your head.

And sometimes if you're not careful, it'll fill up all of the head and it'll only be one arm that is not full of anxiety.