DailyOM: Tell us about your experience with anxiety. What are some of the most common causes of it?
Ashley: My experience with anxiety started as a child. I had constant anxiety — in school, around my parents, on the playground. I did not know it at the time, but my childhood was painted with the tension, fear, and stress that all stemmed from uncontrolled anxiety. Twenty years ago, I began to study neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) — a mixture of behavioral psychology and cognitive therapy — in a desperate attempt to gain the personal growth I needed to free myself from the cage of anxiety. From there, I became a practitioner and trainer in NLP, time line therapy, and hypnosis, as well as life and holistic health coaching, all in the pursuit of learning how to help people end their anxiety, just as I had learned how to end my own.
The cause for anxiety is simple, but the problem feels overwhelmingly complex. The solution will elude us until we learn what turns anxiety on in the brain and how to turn it off. The stress response can be triggered by foods and beverages that do not agree with our nervous system. It can be triggered by real-life stresses, such as loss of a job and fear of illness.
But the most common trigger — which in this course I teach how to quickly turn off — is the stress that comes from our own thinking. When we focus on what we do not want to have happen, we trigger the stress response, and from there, we have a cascade of hormones that send us into fight or flight. Anxiety ranges along a spectrum from minor worry to full panic attacks. With these different kinds of anxiety, the cure is the same. We turn off the brain's stress response, get the brain to tell the body we are safe, then the body stops the cascade of stress hormones and reactions, and we come out of fight-or-flight mode.
DailyOM: Are some anxiety and stress necessary and even good for you? How do we know when anxiety has taken over our lives and become toxic?
Ashley: We know it is toxic long after we have been living in an unhealthy state for months or even years. Our nervous system has two modes: rest and digest or fight-or-flight. At first, we don't even notice we are in fight-or-flight. It becomes part of our mode of operation. We use the nervous energy we get from the stress hormones to keep us going at a great cost. When we are in stress mode, we are out of healing mode. The opposite of feeling anxiety is being in a state of healing and rest. If we are in anxiety for a prolonged period of time, our body shuts down and suppresses healing.
You ask if some anxiety is necessary. Anxiety is not the bad guy we have made it out to be. It is actually a good thing! It is the red warning light on our internal dashboard saying, "WARNING! WARNING! Something is wrong! We are under threat!" Without the sensation of anxiety, we would live in stress mode until we just dropped dead from exhaustion. Anxiety warns us that we have been living in fight-or-flight for too long.
Our body is always listening to our thoughts and perceiving threats we think about as actual threats that are happening right now. When we change our focus and how we think, we can stop telling our body to trigger the stress response. It is the prolonged stress response that triggers anxiety.
DailyOM: Walk us through your course. Tell us about the homework and tools you teach.
Ashley: I am thrilled to offer this course. It is an accumulation of what would amount to working one-on-one with me for three months. By the end of the course you will have all the tools you need to no longer suffer from anxiety, worry, procrastination, and stress. On day one, you will learn how to turn off anxiety in the moment. If you only completed this first day and then did the homework often, you would have great success. The rest of the course teaches you and gives you exercises and homework for rewiring your brain so that the brain stops triggering your stress mode when it should not. Your body will shift back into healing mode — and you will feel it!
You will experience anxiety-free days and nights, sleep better, feel at peace in your body, and have more energy and mental clarity. You will nourish your body and learn what foods and supplements best optimize your health. You will transmute anxiety into excitement. Joy will fill your life! Many health issues including chronic pain, infertility, acne, and acid reflux all stem from the same triggers that cause anxiety, so when we resolve this, you also will notice positive health changes as well!
DailyOM: What is one of your favorite anti-anxiety tips that someone could implement in their lives today?
Ashley: Specific breathing techniques can help a lot in the moment to lower stress. Slow, deep breathing can help when you do it in a specific way that increases heart rate variability. Start by lying down. Breathe in and place your hand on your belly. Feel your belly rise. Now place your hands along the sides of your rib cage. Feel your belly rise with your next breath, and then feel your ribs expand. Release your breath. Place your hand on your collar bones. With your next breath, feel your belly fill, your ribs expand, and then, your collarbones rise. This is called a three-point breath. It means you are taking in a full breath.
Now, for the important part that makes this into a stress-relieving exercise. You will slowly do a three-point breath while counting to five. Do not hold your breath at the top. Exhale immediately but even slower than when you inhaled. Count to seven. At the end of the exhale, pause. Then, start over again. Breathe in fully for a count of five. Exhale immediately and slowly for a count of seven. Pause. Continue to do this for five minutes. This breath specifically allows for the heart to rest, the body to oxygenate, and the stress response to be turned off. Your thinking at any time can turn it back on, so be sure to focus on what you want to happen, not on what you do not want to happen.
DailyOM: Thanks, Ashley! Her exclusive program gives you everything you need to successfully control stress and anxiety — with a toolkit of resources that you can use for a lifetime. Imagine anxiety-free days and nights — what a relief! Until next time, be well.
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