Episode 50 - Reclaiming Mind: Escaping Anxiety

Preston and Michael discuss how they've dealt with anxiety and panic attacks - how to turn anxiety into fuel for change and steps to get out of crippling anxiety.

Transcript

Preston: 0:08

I just think of chopping wood. My mind is I feel like I'm just chopping some wood. Yeah. I went and collected a bunch about I don't know, a couple of weeks ago and it's just been sitting. So I just figured I'd use that as a workout today. Go chop some of it down and that's the best. I don't plan on stacking it today, but that's not as fun as chopping it.

Michael: 0:31

I agree. I just like to keep on chopping it and then it's in this pile of wood all around you and there's wood chips everywhere and you look around and you're like, dang, I've done some work here.

Preston: 0:41

Damn that's what I'm talking about. Anyway, so yeah, welcome to episode 50 with Preston and Michael. Killing it today. We are just going to do a quick unedited I don't know, Michael's probably going to edit some stuff out, but With AI. We're just going to do some Sunday fun day, hanging around, talking about What are we going to talk about today, Michael, you had a brought up a good one to me or texts about an hour ago. Yeah,

Michael: 1:11

we were on the reclaiming mind rotation this week. And I was thinking about what have I been going through mentally and what might be relevant and relatable, so to speak. And so I thought I'd chat a little bit about something that I don't have a ton of expertise on per se, but I do have experience with to a limited degree with anxiety and wanted to chat with that. Probably just in the past week or two, some of its impacts on me and how I've been navigating through that and then press and see what, some of your experiences have been with it and just possible ways you've been dealing with it or ways that you overcome it in many cases, et cetera. So anxiety.

Preston: 1:58

Yeah. It's something that I think. We can very easily just brush off as oh, come on we're adults what's there to be anxious about or have anxiety about? And it's, sorry, my camera's, I don't know why it went out and I can't fix it while we're in the middle of a thing, but No worries. It's something that I've yeah, been dealing with in the last two years too, as far as having I guess anxiety attacks they're called. And it's so weird. It just came out of nowhere a couple, I don't know, like a year and a half ago. And, I'd heard about people having them before. I remember, I feel like I remember watching movies when we were growing up in like the 90s. Like where people would have them and they'd get a paper bag and they'd be like, Oh, just breathe in and out of this paper bag for a while. It was almost like a comic joke in movies. But if you've ever had I don't know where we're going to go with anxiety if it's the anxiety attack aspect of it. If you've ever had one, It's the most bizarre thing for me personally, it's like you almost just feel like you're gonna die almost or something or have a, not have a heart attack because like you it's so weird. I don't know how to even explain it, but it's just like this feeling where you're just like, holy fuck.

Michael: 3:21

Yeah, and I think it's To me, the reason I wanted to talk about it a little bit is there's such an interesting connection between the mind and the body. And so we're talking reclaiming mind this week. Next week, we'll talk on reclaiming body a little bit. And I think this could really fall into either category because To me, one of the interesting things about anxiety is sometimes it starts as a physical feeling and then becomes a mental, awareness and then this sort of vicious cycle where it's like physical first and then there's other times where it's mental first, where you start to have, racing thoughts or things that, feel a little more, they feel overwhelming, like as far as your thoughts go, and then physically your body starts to, I think start to experience those reactions to your thoughts. And so either way, however, whatever side they're triggered on for me recently I would say I felt it both physically and mentally, the thoughts led to physically not literally wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to move. And so I guess I'll just, share quickly. On Wednesday when I woke up at like around four, 430 or something like that. In advance of my alarm, I was thinking about, Oh, what do I have to do today? And it was just a laundry list of things that started to just. Continue to go. And I realized like, Oh, there's no end to this list or at least that was the thought that I had. Yeah. And it probably isn't that way for everybody where it's just based on external circumstances of what's in front of you for the day, as much as it, gosh, is a combination of everything that's happened to us in our lives and what we're what we're drawing from those experiences. But, either way, when It hit, 5, 5. 30, I'm supposed to get out of bed and I'm having these thoughts like there's no, I just won't be able to do this and this sort of self doubt and all sorts of negative associated emotions for anxiety start rolling in for me and then physically. Felt so ill as a result of it, stomach, my head, everything just felt it was all going to hell and I was like, yeah, incapacitated by it. It was just, laying there for hours. And finally, I honestly say by the grace of God, I was laying there and I was like, I got to put a time limit on this. I've got to get going. This is the exact opposite thing that I know I need to be doing whenever I have a lot of things to do. I usually just Take it one thing at a time and so I think that's the first thing I wanted to share is, the when it comes to anxiety that's related to the things that you have to do with outstanding work or something in your job that's a challenge or something circumstantially. I think it's One of the best strategies that I've used is to start doing something really simply to get things back in order. And so I was like, I'm going to wake up, I'm going to make my bed and then I'm going to go into my routine. I don't care if I have, it's the middle of the day at this point, but I'm going to get into my routine. I'm going to do it as if it were. five in the morning or six in the morning when I should be doing it. Yeah, that was the, my, my experience with this past week was, several hours of laying there with thoughts that were racing, but inability to really do anything about it physically, or at least have that perception. And then, the recognition that by doing something very simple, I could break the cycle of those thoughts and improve. Nope, you, you got that done and you. Needed it needed to be done whether it was started to drink water or eat right or Do something like make my bed, yeah little thing was the trigger for me feeling okay now I can start tackling the rest of this list and then So my second step was just writing out a list of what are the most important things I needed to do That day to help lessen the feeling of anxiety. What are the things I needed that were incomplete? The things that I could do that day. So those were a couple of the strategies that I used this past week. And it was like just a brief glimpse. My wife, I don't think she would be upset with me for sharing. She knows she's someone who's dealt with it on and off her whole life, more on than off. And so she would always say Oh, you just really don't get it. And I don't have the same frequency that that she does with those anxiety or even like a panic attack necessarily. But. Definitely gave me some good insights just to be able to empathize with her a little bit. Anything that you've you found in the past that helps you get out of one of those panic attacks or Not really. Or

Preston: 7:47

anything? No, it's almost like you just actually, I should say one thing that has helped. When I've had them, because I've had two that were were like, I called 911, like the first one that I had, this was actually still when I was back in California. The first time I'd had one. And it was like, I was like, Oh my God, like what? I just felt like I was going to pass out or something. And I. I was in this like apartment complex and I just saw one of the like the workers that like does maintenance around and I was like, Hey man, can you call 9 1 1? And they showed up and put the heart things on me and they're like you're fine man. You're probably just having a panic attack. Like we can take you to the hospital if you want. I was like they're not going to do anything about it. That's just going to be an

Michael: 8:30

expensive, might give you some drugs, Preston. Well,

Preston: 8:33

yeah. But that's not realistically going to long term solve anything. And then another. Time where I called 9 1 1. I was with like, I was driving, going on a hike with my family and I was driving and I had the kids in the car and Erica and I like just pulled over on the side of the freeway and I was like, holy fuck and it's so weird. And I just had to ride that wave out. And as I've looked into these things and heard stories of other people talking about it that's what helps me get through it knowing that other folks go through the same thing and that there's yeah I haven't found like it's just like for me I just got to ride it out and just know hey, this is just Not really real. It's real. It's so hard to what to call it because it's

Michael: 9:17

it's like you're experiencing it. It's hard to put your finger on it because I think it's something that is almost this my father in law calls it like irrational fears, like things that you're, you can't even really put your finger on that have you feeling so like Physically upset, your heart's racing, your skin's crawling, all sorts of different physical sensations. Like you said, and so it is, it's hard to, I think, put your finger on it. And to your earlier point, I was. Speaking in just about drugs. And I think there's like certainly some of those temporary band aids, things that will help whether it's Xanax or something related to it, that kind of just immediately calms your body down. And I think for some people, those are really helpful, but there's a lot of other things that we can be doing too, that, I said a couple of strategies that I used to get out of my little bit of a funk this week, but as my daughter has been going through various things in school and she's had like chronic migraines and other things like that. Yeah, she so she went to a neurologist last week and so they're talking about what things that you can do to help Reduce the stress that might cause migraines and things like that. And of course he mentioned, exercise Hydration, I think those are other things too that also really help with Anxiety is you know keeping your body fueled with good stuff putting good fuel into it but then also like the exercise and going outside and getting yourself to the the change of environment that you need to re reframe some of your perspectives, whether it's those irrational fears that you need to dispel, or just to start moving, because I think often when we're moving, it really helps us overcome some of those those moments where we feel like we're stuck, right? Oh,

Preston: 11:07

yeah, I think. I think it's much more a product of where we're at in our modern society than it is. Like it's not, like people didn't have these a hundred years ago the way I think we do now.

Michael: 11:19

Yeah. Oh, they think a lot of them are self inflicted. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

Preston: 11:23

I don't know if self inflicted is the right word I'm thinking of, but like in a way, because we're just sometimes, we're scrolling through Instagram and just doing a bunch of stuff that's not really serving us and making us think about things that don't really matter. Where we should be out chopping wood. You know what I mean? Or that's the stuff that we used to do that.

Michael: 11:44

That's exactly it. You're occupying your mind with something like chopping wood is a great example. And as you said that earlier, it's like it combines so many. It's just multitasking, right? You're doing something that's useful. It's creating fuel, but you're burning calories and energy. So you're exercising, you're getting stronger. You're focusing on something that doesn't really allow you to focus on, what you're worried about tomorrow, because you're like, Hey, I better make sure that I don't, hit my foot or right. Exactly.

Preston: 12:14

Yes. You don't have time to worry about. Anything.

Michael: 12:19

Yeah. So that's a really, I think that is a good, just analog to, to exercise and working out. I don't know, we could definitely talk about other aspects of it and some of the reasons that I think anxiety is more prevalent now, but I mainly just wanted to share a little bit about like having gone through that. What were those couple of pieces that were helpful to me, which were just like. Doing something simple like making my bed and making a list of things that need to be done. And then taking things one, one little task at a time and then making sure that I get right back into the routine of exercise and putting good food and good things into my body. Help me break through at least in, in this most recent instance for me.

Preston: 13:07

Yeah, thanks for sharing that because I think one of the most important things about what we talk about on here. Is that, we're just like you guys listening, like we're just normal guys and we go through those things and these are our journeys and our stories and it's if you're feeling that way, it's like we've been there too.

Michael: 13:30

Yeah.

Preston: 13:36

Bah dum tah.

Michael: 13:39

I'll be interested too to revisit this at some point in the future with. With Scott and some other guests because, I would love to even have like my wife on and have her talk a little bit more about it. And so we'll have to bring some other folks who maybe do have a little bit more, not only experience, but also like expertise, so to speak because they've. Spent more time either dealing with it or studying it and understanding it. But yeah, I think it's easy to negatively judge yourself at first when you're having those types of, moments of weakness is what I describe them and where, you feel like you're not strong enough to deal with something by yourself, but It's just, it's very common for everybody to be going through it and it's not to I know it's not as stigmatized as it once was, so that's certainly the truth. But totally. But I think it's also really important for us as men to be okay with the fact that, we're vulnerable to those types of attacks, those types of experiences. And the more that we talk about them, I think the better we can find paths through it. A

Preston: 14:41

hundred percent agree with you, brother.

Michael: 14:43

Thanks for tuning in for relatively short and succinct episode 50, a couple episodes away from 52, which means we'll have Been at it for a year, which the timing is pretty close to I think we kicked this off in March of last year. So yep, we'll get Scott on for these One of these next couple episodes have some interviews lined up as well. So thanks for joining us. Talk soon. Have a

Preston: 15:12

great week, gentlemen.