Author – Emma Triplett
Today we’re going to start to understand what you need to do to break that vicious cycle of anxiety and depression, change the way you think about things, lower anxiety and come out of depression and I’m going to teach you what to do step by step.
But first, we need to revisit our ancestors to understand a bit about our primitive blueprint.
Early man and early woman hunted and gathered and successfully supported themselves and their families. They got a rewards for carrying out these evolutionary processes and they got rewards when they took part in positive activities. We work better as a tribe rather than individuals, so they also got rewarded when they interacted positively with other people
The reward made them feel happy and motivated, but most of all was a coping mechanism
- It helped them cope with day to day activities.
- It helped them cope better with physical fear
- It made them braver
- It even helped them cope with physical pain
No doubt they were pleased and we now know what that reward is
It is a chemical response in the brain that produces various neurotransmitters which act as catalysts for that sort of mentally healthy behaviour. You know one of the neurotransmitter we talk about most, simply because it’s the most important, and its serotonin, but there are others, Dopamine, noradrenaline, oxytocin and endorphines
When we produce a constant flow of these neurotransmitters we are happy and brave and can cope with any situation life throws at us.
So we need to operate within these positive parameters, just like early man and woman, and although we don’t have to go out to hunt we do have to interact in a positive way, be active in a positive way and think in a positive way because when we do, we create a constant flow of these good neurotransmitters like serotonin.
positive activity, positive interaction and positive thinking
Positive activity – any physical exercise is good, going out for a walk is a great start, but also doing things you enjoy and when you feel you are achieving something
Positive interaction – spending time with people you enjoy being with – but a word of warning, not going over and over your problems or how you feel, it could make things worse
Positive thinking – you are spending too much time focusing on what’s wrong, you need to focus on the positive things in your life, recognize the good things and make positive plans for things to look forward to. Many people are unaware of the negative thinking they do.
So what stops the flow of serotonin?
Well, when we’re down the miserable end, the depressed end, we don’t produce any chemicals at all except a stress hormone called cortisol
When we up the other anxious stressed end we produce an overflow of stress hormones including adrenaline and cortisol, adrenaline in particular is a very fast acting hormone, which you would expect if you’re running from polar bears, but it will trump the effects of the good neurotransmitters.
So we need to learn how to burn off the adrenaline, learn techniques that help us to switch off and truly relax and do the positive things I’ve described that produce good neurotransmitters.
You are in control of you, your thinking, your brain and your life
How you think will determine how you feel and how you feel will determine how you behave.
So a good place to start is by thinking about what you can do – small steps mind
Anxiety and depression are a huge subject and need more than a short video to explain how they affect our lives and what to do about them, so if you’re not on the website hop along there after this video and sign up for the free hypnosis track and you will also automatically get sent free updates, resources and videos that will explain more and help you to develop specific techniques to rid yourself of anxiety and depression altogether.