Anxiety 2 Confidence podcast

Most people have heard of the fight or flight response, it happens every time we think we are in danger. 

Many people have not heard of the freeze or fawn responses to anxiety, even though the fawn response is the most common one that I see in clinic.

In this episode I go through how each of these responses make us behave in response to our anxiety so that you can gain a better understanding of yourself and your reactions to anxiety.

If you need any further support then head to https://www.anxiety2confidence.com/ for more information on how I can help and for ways to get in contact with me.

I have had a lot of clients and friends talk to me recently about feeling even more anxious as we go back to normal than they did at the start of lockdown.

As I write this in the UK, we are coming out of a nationwide lockdown in a series of steps. This means that the government rules and guidelines are changing regularly and as science is reviewed and tested, scientific recommendations are changing also.

In this episode I share my 6 top tips for how to manage your anxiety through the return to "normal"

For more information head to: https://www.anxiety2confidence.com/

In this episode I am talking about how to overcome the anxiety around public speaking.

As someone who has never been a natural speaker, I fully understand how terrifying the idea can be!! Thanks to my own work with CBT and hypnotherapy I was able to enjoy public speaking and talk at summits, work conferences and run my own workshops.

Here I talk through some of the techniques that have worked well for me and the clients I have worked with over the years.

Find out more here: https://www.anxiety2confidence.com/store

In this episode you can find out how "normal" negative thinking really is and what you can do about it!

I also discuss "toxic positivity" and how you can avoid it while managing your negative thoughts.

For more information and to find out what negative thoughts are holding you back head to: https://www.anxiety2confidence.com/

This episode was informed by a talk at the 2020 British Psychological Society online conference titled:

Keynote:

In it I cover the key ingredients of mental health wellness as defined by the wellcome trust so that you can consider which of these could have an impact on improving your mental health.

When we experience the symptoms of anxiety such as the heart racing or feeling sweaty and shaky we are actually experiencing our bodily response to fear.

Our fear response comes about because our brains have evolved to keep us alive for as long as possible, his means that it Is hard wires to fear things that threaten our lives.

What can happen in people with anxiety is that the fear response doesn’t only react to life threatening situations, it starts to respond to situations where death is very unlikely.

An example of this is fear of flying, statistically the risk of death is low but people with a fear of flying experience sometimes very extreme symptoms when faced with even the thought of flying.

Find out in this episode what makes our fear response react to non-life threatening situations and what you can do to manage your anxiety.

In this episode I am talking about the common ways that our thoughts can damage our confidence. This is a really important part of understanding why we get anxiety as often anxiety comes from a lack of self-confidence.

I also chat through some techniques that you can try yourself to combat these thoughts and avoid self destructive behaviours so that you can build a calm and realistic self-confidence.

Find out how anxiety can impact our motivation and cause us to procrastinate in this info packed episode!

Included are some practical tips to help you notice when your anxiety is holding you back and what to do about it.

Visualisation is a well documented and utilised technique. It is often used by sports people to improve performance and mindset, in this episode I talk you through how you can do it for yourself!!

To learn more about how you can learn self-hypnosis from the comfort of your own home head to: https://www.anxiety2confidence.com/self-hypnosis-product

I have been inspired to record this podcast for two reasons, firstly because many of my clients who have anxiety, with or without depression, tell me that they struggle to remember things. Secondly because as part of my psychology MSc we have been studying the effects of anxiety in exam performance.

In this episode I cover:

• What types of memory are affected

References:

Shi, Z., Gao, X. and Zhou, R., 2014. Emotional working memory capacity in test anxiety. Learning and Individual Differences, 32, pp.178-183.

Hembree, R. (1988). Correlates, causes, effects, and treatment of test anxiety. Review of Educational Research, 58, 47-77

Schweizer, S., & Dalgleish, T. (2011). Emotional working memory capacity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 49(8), 498–504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2011.05.007

Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336–353. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336