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Happy Monday and welcome to your
mental health mini. 

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This week's guest is Tara Bixby 
and we are talking anxiety. 

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I think we are overcomplicating 
anxiety and if you talk to 

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helping professionals, we're all
going to have different views on

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anxiety. 
But this is something that I've 

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recognized from my own life and 
what I've seen with my clients 

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and patients is that I believe 
there's three pathways that can 

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ignite anxiety. 
The first pathway is triggers in

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your environment. 
So sight, sound, smell, feeling,

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taste, whatever can trigger an 
emotional memory that's been 

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stored in your amygdala. 
So that's one way, another way 

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that I think anxiety can be 
ignited is by our thoughts. 

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You know, what are we telling 
ourselves? 

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What are we worrying about? 
What are we thinking? 

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Because your thoughts can 
essentially scare your amygdala 

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into activating your anxiety. 
And the third way is gut health 

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is internal stressors. 
Because if something's going on 

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inside your body, you know your 
amygdala and vagus nerve, 

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they're communicating with each 
other. 

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And if your amygdala perceives a
threat inside your body, it's 

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going to activate your stress 
response. 

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I think people when they feel 
anxious, they think it's a 

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message that's saying things are
going to get real bad. 

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Something's going to fall apart 
in my world. 

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Somebody's going to die. 
I'm going to die. 

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They think it means something 
bad. 

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I wish people would think of 
anxiety as stress activation. 

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When you feel anxious, just 
like, Oh, my nervous system's 

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activated again, you know, 
reshift that focus to just being

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a nervous system because because
a lot of people fear anxiety 

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because they don't know what 
anxiety is. 

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So I would just encourage people
to know about anxiety, know 

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about your nervous system and to
know that those physical 

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sensations, while they're 
terrible and horrible and nobody

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likes them, that it's just your 
nervous system activating. 

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But you have the power to 
retrain your nervous system to 

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not be so responsive. 
But I think if somebody's 

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listening to this and they're 
struggling with anxiety, I have 

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a couple things. 
I would definitely encourage 

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movement. 
If you can get your heart rate 

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up for 30 minutes a few times a 
week. 

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When you get your heart rate up 
and you're moving, your amygdala

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thinks that you're escaping 
danger. 

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And so it thinks, OK, you know, 
they've escaped that danger. 

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I no longer need to be activated
and it'll close that anxiety 

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loop for you. 
I want people to really 

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understand also with movement, 
your anxiety activates your 

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nervous system, your sympathetic
nervous system and energy is 

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mobilized within you. 
And if you don't burn off all 

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that energy that was mobilized, 
it becomes stored in your body. 

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So that's also like a really 
good reason to move your body 

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when feeling anxious. 
I would encourage people to 

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prioritize sleep. 
Like are you getting good sleep 

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quality? 
And I'm not saying, oh, I sleep 

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8 hours, Are you sleeping good? 
Because when you don't sleep 

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good, it pisses off your 
amygdala and therefore you feel 

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anxious the next day. 
The other thing I would 

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encourage is just grounding, 
like really ground in your body.

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Send your amygdala signal of 
safety. 

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Let it know that you're safe 
because if you're able to calm 

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your nervous system, whether you
go for a walk in nature or you 

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know, you sit on the couch and 
you sip your coffee in the 

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morning, whatever you can do to 
just really ground yourself in 

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your environment, in your body, 
it's going to send that signal 

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of safety and your amygdala is 
going to think you're OK and 

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therefore it's going to 
basically stop activating. 

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I would start by just checking 
out your lifestyle, You know, 

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what's your diet and lifestyle 
look like? 

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You know, like do you drink a 
lot of caffeine? 

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If you are drinking a lot of 
caffeine, try to start cutting 

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back and see if that helps or 
makes an improvement. 

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Let's get in nature, you know, 
let's expose ourselves to 

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sunshine. 
Let's go for walks, let's 

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ground, let's do movement 
practices and then really going 

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inward. 
And once you know what is 

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activating your anxiety, if it's
your thoughts, OK, cool, go 

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focus on CVTA little bit. 
If it is trauma, because a lot 

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of people have not made the 
connection that trauma is, you 

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know, it's causing dysregulation
in your body and it's igniting 

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anxiety because of triggers in 
your environment. 

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So then once you get to that, 
you know, let's let's do a 

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somatic experiencing, let's get 
in your body, discharge the 

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storage stress. 
And I want people to know that 

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because they get so discouraged 
when they go somewhere and 

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they're like, why is this not 
helping me? 

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And it's probably because you're
treating a pathway of anxiety. 

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That's not the pathway that's 
igniting your anxiety. 

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It's not a one-size-fits-all. 
So that's why it's always 

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tricky. 
And I always encourage many 

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different changes. 
I want everybody that's 

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listening to this. 
I don't care if you're anxious 

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or not. 
I want everybody to use the 

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tools because the more you 
strengthen that within yourself,

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if you do feel anxious in the 
future, it's more likely to be 

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easier to reduce your anxiety 
because you've already 

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strengthened that skill. 
Your body's like, oh, I know 

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what I'm doing and it jumps in. 
If you enjoyed this mental 

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health mini, you can listen to 
the full episode. 

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It is episode 91 featuring Tara 
Bixby. 

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A link to the full episode is in
the show notes. 

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As always, make sure to leave a 
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friend or family member, and 
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Podcast. 
Thanks for listening.