Ep #56: How to Turn Anxiety into Calm This Holiday Season

We’re going to be talking about it today on the podcast. We’re going to be talking about what they look like and some tips and some questions you can ask yourself to help move you from anxiety maybe into excitement and maybe even more into calm. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Hello, friends. It is coming up on holiday season by my house. And this tends to be a time of a lot of stuff, a lot of things going on, lots of lists, lots of maybe visitors and company and performances and activities. And the calendar is just full and there’s lists to do and all the things. And so it tends to be a time of, I think, a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. And so today we’re going to talk a little bit about that. And I heard a quote probably within the last year or two that just had such an impact on me that just has blown my mind and I think about this one a lot.

So I want to share it with you and then talk through it a little bit. So it was this idea that she said that stress or anxiety is contagious. It’s contagious. Think about that. So in a time of germs, like in winter time. It can be contagious. It spreads. When we’re feeling all this anxiety and stress and it’s in us and it’s coming out of us and around the people around us in our home, with our children and we’re creating that unintentionally. It’s leaking out of us.

So she says anxiety is contagious but so is calm. And I loved that because I was like, “Okay, alright, I can be contagious. I can let some stuff come out of me but what I want it to be is maybe less of the stress and anxiety and more of the calm because it’s contagious.” And so what of that I’m letting out around me, it’s going to spread. And so I want to create a space of more calm and less, maybe, of the stress and anxiety in my home, particularly around the holidays. So cool. We know this, but what do we do about it? How do you just not be stressed because the stuff is all still there?

I wanted to share a book with you that I found recently that is just, okay, I’m a big Brené Brown fan, those of you have maybe heard me talk a little bit, know that I love her work. And she put out a book recently called Atlas of The Heart. And it is basically like an encyclopedia of emotions. It’s the most amazing thing ever. When we talk about naming emotions and how valuable that is, she goes through and talks about each of the different emotions. And they’ve identified all these different ones and the nuances and differences between them.

And so I just wanted to share a little bit from her book about how she talks about stress and anxiety, what that looks like and maybe some ideas to work through that and then also calm because I think it’s really valuable. And as we’re getting into this, I just want to put this out there for the very beginning, can we just take a moment for compassion for ourselves? I think self-compassion is so critical. And so we are stressed and it’s because there’s so much. We’re trying to do so much and there’s so much required of us.

And so have compassion for yourself but then also I like the phrase, that’s my new favorite phrase lately, it’s compassion and action. So when I’m talking to my kids, and I’m like, “Have compassion for yourself right now.” That just sounds so hard, so miserable, so stressful, whatever. We can have compassion. And then when we’ve had some time for just sitting in it and feeling it and having some compassion for how we’re feeling, let’s talk about action. What do we do about that? What are our options? Where is our power? So what is stress? What does Bennie Brown say stress is in her book?

And she says we feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as beyond our ability to cope successfully. She said this includes elements of unpredictability, uncontrollability and feeling overloaded. So our brains do not like unpredictability or uncontrollability, that’s very uncomfortable for them. That doesn’t feel safe. And then also just feeling overloaded, which gosh, don’t we all get there sometimes and maybe particularly over the holidays? But not only does it kind of put a damper on your joy over the holidays. Increased levels of stress can increase the speed at which you age.

They decrease immune function, so we get sick. Less sleep and it just really negatively impacts our health. And then she talks about anxiety. And anxiety is kind of like that but totally, next level. This is when it really starts, there’s a lot of tension and worried thoughts and actual physical changes in our body, increased blood pressure. So this was interesting that I read in her book. And she said that a third of US adults will be affected by an anxiety disorder in their lifetime. That’s a lot. So if you’ve been just feeling like, oh, my word, this is just me and what’s wrong with me? You are not alone, one-third, a lot of people, this is happening to.

And she said it’s estimated that fewer than half of the people with a diagnosable anxiety disorder seek any type of professional treatment. And so it’s really difficult to kind of work through those without professional help. But even if it’s not a diagnosable disorder level of anxiety, I think all of us, every single adult and probably a lot of children struggle with anxiety. And so I’m going to just walk through a little bit of what that can look like and then maybe some things we can do about it.

Okay, so she says that anxiety leads us to one of two coping mechanisms, worry or avoidance. And worry is described as this chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future. Where avoidance is kind of not showing up as often or spending lots of energy. And we’re kind of zigzagging around and away from the thing that already feels like it’s consuming us, which kind of makes it just stay there and not get done and just continues to add pressure in our lives.

So we’re not going to go deep into all the ways to fix anxiety again. I think if you have an actual disorder, professional help is super, super wonderful at helping you work through that. And then on another level, I think there is one tip that I’ve learned recently that just really kind of blew my mind and has been so helpful for me. So I’m going to share it with you and then we’re going to go talk about calm because I love calm and I want that, more of that. So let’s talk about how we can do more of that and make that contagious.

So anxiety, we’ve been talking about, has a very similar physiological response in our bodies to excitement. The two emotions are very similar. Our body’s kind of doing the same thing. And it’s a little bit of just the thought that’s happening in our brain that’s different. That’s the difference between anxiety and excitement, because our body is already heightened, it’s already doing all of the same physiological responses. So here is this really powerful thing.

And I was learning that if we’re in anxiety, trying to just be calm is not going to work because our blood pressure’s already up and we’re already in a heightened state. We’re already stressed. Our body’s already responding. So we can’t just be like, “Oh, fine, it’s okay, be calm.” So instead what we could do, an emotion that’s much easier to get to from that already heightened state is excitement because our body is doing the exact same thing in anxiety and excitement. The only thing that changes is then the thought.

And then getting from excitement to an emotion that we want to spend more time in is much easier. So I thought this was really cool and a really fun idea, especially around the holidays. So we’re starting to feel really, really stressed about the family party. I host a really large family party at my house every year for Christmas and this year we might have as many as 60 people here in my house. It’s kind of big and it’s a lot and there’s so much going on. So there can be stress and anxiety and whatever around preparing for that.

So if I’m starting to get into that anxiety mode, then maybe I take a breath for a minute and I notice it and I can have some compassion for myself. And then I can say, “Oh my gosh. I think I’m so excited for this party.” And think about the parts I’m really excited about. And I think it needs to be really genuine and real because if we’re just trying to fake it, it’s probably not going to work. But what am I excited about for this party? I am so excited to have my family here. I have an enormous family. That’s why there’s 60 people coming, but it’s my favorite. It’s my favorite to see them.

And we get out a chocolate fountain and we dip all kinds of weird things in the chocolate fountain. And we do a live play of the nativity and whatever. And it’s part of our family tradition. And so it’s just a thing we’ve done every year for all of my children’s lives. And it’s this big deal. And so I get excited. What can I be excited about? So trying to shift from all the things that there’s to have anxiety about because there is stuff. But that’s not the emotion I want to experience right now. So can I switch over to excitement?

And by taking a moment to just say, “What part of this am I excited about?” And finding one little thing or maybe two little things or three little things in that, that I’m excited about. And then as I’m doing that and I’m switching over from that already heightened state. Now I’m in a heightened state but I’m in an excited state. I am so excited to be able to do this and get to try this fun new thing to dip in the chocolate fountain. Or I’m so excited to see my family and give them a hug and maybe this person I haven’t seen or there’s a new baby that someone had that I get to meet for the first time. And get excited about a piece of it.

And then guess what? Then the emotion that we’re having is excited. So then as my children are helping me prep for this party, they’re doing it from a place, the contagious emotion that’s leaking out of me now is excitement instead of anxiety. Do you see how powerful that can be? And that jump is so much easier than just saying, “I’m stressed. I’m stressed. I’m stressed. I’m stressed. I need to be calm now. Well, I don’t feel very calm and I can’t do that.” But I can feel excited. That’s an easy jump.

Okay, I hope that little tip was helpful. But I don’t want to spend all of our time talking about anxiety because I sometimes feel like talking about anxiety increases it. So hopefully that little tip helps. But I really want to talk about something we want to have more of and we want to be just leaking out of us and be contagious to all the people around us and that is calm. And I love what I’m learning about being calm.

And in Brené Brown’s book, she says that she defines calm as creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity. So all the things are still going on. There’s still all the same stressors and all the same excitements and all the things going on. And it’s about allowing, I think, those things to come into our body and allowing them to be there and maybe not panicking because they’re there. Just letting them happen and then creating perspective. This day, it is, it’s big and it’s exciting. We only do it once a year, but also it’s just a party and it’s just a few hours of this one day.

And it doesn’t define my life and it’s going to be what it is and people are going to have the memories, they’re going to have it and it’s probably going to be just fine. And it probably doesn’t matter if there’s a mark on the floor here, or if this garbage can didn’t get unloaded properly or whatever. That’s probably what people are paying attention to, probably if they come into this space and it’s warm and calm and happy. That’s what people are going to take away from it. So perspective, I think perspective is everything.

So trying to step back and just go into the control room of our brain for a minute and be like, “Wpo, I’m having a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts going on right now and I’m just going to take a breath and be like, this is cool and it’s also just this one day and it’s going to be okay. It’s just a moment of my life. It’s just a little blip. And it’s going to be what it is and hopefully, hopefully it’ll be amazing and I’ll get something good out of it, no matter what happens.” So mindfulness being in that moment.

And then that’s helping us manage this emotional reactivity that’s happening. When Brené Brown talks about this, she says that calm is an intention and it’s a practice, something that we can work on cultivating and maintaining. And she says we do this through self-questioning. And so she talks about two questions and I’ll just give you these and then we’re going to go. Two questions to ask yourself. So she says she asks herself, do I have enough information to freak out? So we start freaking out and we don’t even know all the things yet.

We’re just going to worst case scenario because our brains do that, because fight or flight, we’ve got to protect ourselves and we’re watching out for all the things. But she kind of pulls it back and says, do I have enough information to freak out yet? And I think if we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t have all the information yet. We’re just going to worst case scenario and jumping there automatically. So bring it back and say, “Do I have enough information?” If not and the answer is usually no, then maybe we can just sit with that for a minute.

Second question she asked is, will freaking out help? Isn’t that a good question? So ask yourself that one. Is freaking out going to help? Probably not. It’s probably not going to help. So what could help maybe? And then how do we just approach it from there? And maybe sometimes that means just letting what happens happen and having to let go of the results, the things we don’t control.

I think just one last thing I want to say is that she talks about how calm is healing. Do you remember how we talked about how anxiety is so negative on your health, how it leads to so many of the conditions that we have? I mean, even if you have a predisposition for having heart problems or different things. Stress and anxiety can make those come and manifest in your life. And so it is so damaging to our health. The calm, she says, is healing and I love that.

So that’s what we want to infect people with. We want to infect them with the healing calmness that we want to feel in ourselves. It might just be one of the best gifts you can give your kids this holiday season is that infection of calm. And as we can to kind of continue to curate and make it be a thing, a practice, it can go on and on through their lives and just be something that’s gifted to them on and on in their lives and modeled for them so they can figure out how to do it themselves, which is incredible.

So this is me just wishing you some calm this holiday season and some calm in the new year. And encouraging you to ask yourself those questions when calmness tends to be going away and we want to bring it back a little bit. And letting you know I’m right there with you and we can just work on this together and we don’t have to be perfect at it because we’re just not. We can just try and we just get better and better and hopefully we improve a little bit at a time. And every little bit of that healing that we can offer ourselves and spread to our children and those around us, even better.

I hope you have the most amazing rest of your day. And I will catch you here next week on the next episode of this podcast.

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Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.