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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Anxiety seems to be everywhere right now. More people are talking about it and feeling it. And yet, the way most of us try to deal with anxiety often makes it worse. We ignore it, try to power through it, distract ourselves. or hope it'll just fade away. But anxiety isn't something you simply must endure. What if there was a more practical way to approach it?
A way to understand what your brain is actually doing and then use that knowledge to calm anxiety when it shows up. That's why today's SYSK Trending Topic is a practical way to approach anxiety.
Chapter 2: Why do traditional methods of dealing with anxiety often fail?
In my conversation with mental health and wellness expert Dr. John Deloney, we explore what anxiety really is, why your brain produces it in the first place, and a few surprisingly simple techniques grounded in psychology and neuroscience that you can use in the moment. And we'll get to that right after this.
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Anxiety is a hot topic right now. People are anxious. Kids are anxious. The whole world is anxious about so many things that might happen. And not in a good way. I mean, we don't usually worry about great things happening. We worry about the disaster around the corner. Why is there so much anxiety? How can we be less anxious? Well, the person to discuss that is John Deloney.
He is a mental health and wellness expert and host of his own podcast called The John Deloney Show, and he's author of a book called Building a Non-Anxious Life. Hi, John. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Excellent. So first, tell me what anxiety is exactly.
I think in the simplest terms, anxiety is just an alarm system. And outside of the bell curve medical issues, it's really all it is. And we've got a culture that tells us if you feel bad or if you feel uncomfortable, then that in and of itself is a problem and should be fixed. Everybody should be comfortable all the time.
And so when our bodies feel anxious, when it sounds those alarms, we immediately try to fix the anxiety or stop the anxiety. And really, that's like taking a magic marker and coloring over your gas gauge on your dashboard. Like, I don't want to see that light. Like, okay, but your car is going to run out of gas, right?
So I think we have over-pathologized, to sound like a nerd, I think we've made anxiety the enemy, and it's really not. We've created a very, very anxious life for ourselves. And so I think the question we should all be asking is not why is everybody so anxious and how do we stop? I think the question is what are, what if our bodies are right? What if the anxiety is right?
What kind of world have we built and what do we need to do now?
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Chapter 3: How does Dr. John Delony define anxiety?
Don't you find that there are people, though, who just... Anxiety is their fuel. And it always has been. That that's kind of... that if you were to take that away from them, if they were to change their life so there was no anxiety, like they almost wouldn't know what to do because that's always been their fuel.
Yeah, me and you nailed it. It's not only a fuel, it's an identity. can't go to that party because I have social anxiety as though it's like a cancer it's it's something that is upon you like a blanket or a jacket I have this I can't I just do I've got five toes and I have anxiety instead of looking at it through a lens of And other people sounds my body's alarms. Hey, I wonder why that is.
Oh, maybe it's because of some childhood abuse or maybe it's because I got made fun of as a kid or I got left out as a kid. Who knows why? But for some reason, my body's identified groups of people as unsafe. Whew. So when I head in, I'm going to put my hand on my chest and say, I know you feel unsafe, but I'm good here. I'm good here.
Or maybe I need to not tell that joke because it's not that funny. But yes, countless, millions of people have taken anxiety as an identity. It's a way to operate through the world. And yes, when you go deal with it, I remember my therapist asked me an amazing question. She said, how are you feeling? This is after we've done some really intense work over a long period of time.
And I said, I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling. The only word that keeps coming to mind is depressed, but I'm not depressed. Things are great. I feel fine. I just feel low. And she smiled really big. And she said, this, John, is what normal feels like. And I had just been spun up for so long. It became, quote unquote, who I was. I was the energy guy.
I was always the, oh, yeah, but it could all come down. And the, oh, yeah, what about this? I was always that guy. And so what I've had to do is practice not being that guy. Because that guy has heart attacks and strokes and dies young and eventually burns out all the people around him. I don't want to be that guy.
We're talking about anxiety, and my guest is John Deloney. He is author of a book called Building a Non-Anxious Life.
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Chapter 4: What underlying issues contribute to anxiety?
And if you fail them, you're probably not going to this school. And I laughed like that. And I said, and there's not a test you can take where I won't hug you when you walk out the door, period. Do I love you? Yes, sir. Am I going to love you regardless of the scores? Yes, sir. Do I believe in you? Yes, sir. Am I going to laugh at you if you fail this? And he cracked up and he goes, yes, sir.
Right. But it was me just reiterating. This is huge and it's got big implications. It's got big real world implications. And you ain't going to lose me over it. And so now he can focus just on the task part of it. Does that make sense? Does that ring true with you?
Yeah, I think so. I get it. And I understand your advice about dealing with the things in life that cause the anxiety rather than dealing with the anxiety. But you can't deal with everything that causes anxiety because things happen. Things come up in life that you can't plan for. Things happen.
always it's always yeah it but it always happens and if you're not ready for it we just got hit with oh you need a new roof oh man you know how expensive a new roof is oh i just got one yeah i just got one so i grew up in a home where money was um my dad was a policeman
And there were some harrowing years financially. Three kids. And we didn't have a lot. We shared a family car. He had a police cruiser. And we all wore hand-me-downs. It was tough sledding. I remember when I was married in the first five or ten years of my life when I'd racked up so much freaking student loan debt and house debt and all that.
Walking around the house at night with my hands in my hair. My wife was dead asleep. She didn't know how bad it was financially. The roof repair is coming. I can prepare for it. So it's annoying or I can not prepare for it. And it costs me everything. But yeah, life's always going to be throwing punches, man. That's just that's the state of things. Here's the example I wrote about in the book.
It was out of nowhere. My cousin died. He's about 10 years older than me. And man, it was devastating for the whole family. It was out of nowhere. Because 15 years ago, my wife and I put a stake in the ground and said, no more. We had money to go to the funeral and to get some flights and to grab a hotel room. And so here's what that non-anxious life, here's what it bought us.
It bought us the ability to be really, really sad and to grieve without other worries and And that's the gift we're looking for here. Not that people aren't going to pass away. The thing is, is that when life comes, can you exhale and go, here we go?
Because you're good to go. It sounds though, like as wonderful as it is to be where you are, that getting there is a monumental task. And where would you even suggest I begin?
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Chapter 5: How can we change our perspective on anxiety?
I have to look and say, what if what we're doing is not working? What now? And maybe it's these people were never quote unquote broken or pathological or malfunctioning to begin with. Maybe their bodies are working perfectly. And the real question we have to ask is, what kind of world have we created that the human body can't live in?
That to me seems like a much more instructive question than continually telling people, well, you're broken. Well, something wrong with you. I'll fix it. I'll fix it. I'll fix it. Just give me $175 plus $50 copay. Just keep taking this pill the rest of your life and we'll manage it. Right. And we'll keep having to increase the dose.
At some point we have to say, whoa, this isn't solving the issue. We need to take a 30,000 foot view of this thing. And that to me is a scarier question. It's a harder question. And man, it's a way more empowering question.
Well, you certainly have a different take on anxiety and what to do about it that I think everybody needs to hear. I've been speaking with John Deloney. He is a mental health and wellness expert. He's the host of his own podcast called The John Deloney Show. And he's author of a book called Building a Non-Anxious Life. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, John.
Thanks for coming on and talking about this. And that wraps up this SYSK Trending episode. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening.
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