Dr. Alok Kanojia (Dr. K)

I'm going to fail out of college.

If I fail out of college, I won't be able to find a job.

If I can't find a job, I won't be able to find a partner.

If I can't find a partner, I'll be alone for the rest of my life.

I'll be a loser.

So you see there's this cascading chain of thoughts.

So here's the problem with anxiety is with this cascading chain of thoughts, our anxiety actually intensifies with each step.

And as the anxiety intensifies, more thoughts will come.

So distress tolerance when you are engaging in anxiety means literally shifting your attention away to something else.

So my favorite example of this or my favorite, like my kind of go-to is breathing, right?

So what we want to do is focus our attention on breathing.

Take 60 seconds to breathe three times.

So we're going to count to 10 as we breathe in and count to 10 as we breathe out.

What do y'all notice about my affect, my emotion?

What has happened to me?

What has happened to you?

60 seconds.

That's all it takes.

Now, here's the reason why it's important to do 10 seconds in and 10 seconds out.

If I tell you to breathe in and breathe out, just deep breathe.