When in anxiety and stuck in the chimp brain...do these doables!!!!

As you recall, Job #1 is to keep in or get back to a “state” of high functioning.  As part of that, one may need to get out of a state of malfunctioning (feeling bad).

But when one is in the chimp brain, one cannot think rationally and figure out what to do.

So, one has to have a preset strategy that one can fall back on, using the little bit of the higher brain that is still functioning.

In many cases, one must do the simply physiological moves that distract or interrupt or displace the negative thoughts.

And, of course, since we know that two things cannot exist in the same space at the same time, we can start doing such things as counting or even just repeating a “mantra” over and over.

My number one preferred physiological strategy is to do “backward counting relaxation”  - so that is a standard procedure I can easily implement.  I often modify it by looking for a tense place in my body and starting there, counting backward from 10 to 0 (sometimes actually saying inside my mind the number and adding “relax, relax......).  As I am in a recovery mode, I essentially take a 20 minute nap, where my (Sleep Cycle) app wakes me up after 20 minutes so that I do not get groggy.

If my mind is going a thousand miles an hour and thoughts keeping popping into my head, I actually often write them down on a pad of paper lying next to me... and that seems to work.  AND I can then process every single one of those things I wrote down until they are solved - I leave nothing unsolved, as that would be at cross purposes with life!

Try this simple physiological doable strategy - and build it into your lifetime strategies you will always be able to use!!!

Keith