Crushing Stress and Anxiety
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Mr. Biz Radio: Crushing Stress and Anxiety
Unedited transcription of the show is included below:
0:00:05
Welcome to Mr. Biz radio, Biz. Talk for Biz owners. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.
0:00:19
All right, welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz Radio with me, Mr. Biz Ken Wentworth, and I'm going to start the show today with a couple of maybe one or two questions. So for those of you out there, now, I can see you. You don't think I can see you, but I can see you. Raise your hand if you ever suffer from stress. Anyone ever have stress in their life? Okay, how about anxiety? You guys ever get anxious about a deadline or anything like that? Well, you're going to want to watch today's show or listen to today's show, depending which avenue you're using, because we have an expert in the space.
0:00:48
She was on the show, gosh, I think about ten months ago or so, something like that. And literally immediately after she was done with the show, I'm like, oh, my gosh, actually, I listened to that show. I hardly ever listened to a show. I listened to that show and I said, you got to come back on. It's taken a while. We've had a couple of bumps in the road here and there, scheduling wise, but we got her back on.
0:01:08
My guest today is Dr. Annie White. She's the author of “The Calm Code”, and we're going to talk about that. She's developed a new science backed way to tackle stress and anxiety. She's here today to give us brand new tips for stress that you can start using right away. Dr. Annie White. Welcome back to Mr. Biz Radio.
0:01:25
Well, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be back.
0:01:28
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I've been eagerly anticipating and awaiting you coming back, so I'm happy to have you back. Now, for those of you didn't listen or watch the last show again, I think it was I want to say it was late December of 22 is when the show was released, I think somewhere around there. So go back and check out that show for sure. But for those who have not and did not listen to that show or did not see that show, if you would talk to us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.
0:01:58
How did you get to where you're at now and doing what you're doing now with “The Calm Code”?
0:02:03
Well, my entrepreneurial journey started with natural medicine practices, so I've started a few natural medicine practices. And as we all know, starting any business and running any business is extremely stressful. So I got a huge dose of stress. But it wasn't just that that led me to develop the techniques in my book, “The Calm Code”. It was that all of my patients were stressed or anxious, and I saw what an effect it had on their health.
0:02:36
And I thought if we can't solve this in a new way, not in these old ways, like eat more healthy, get better sleep, exercise more. That's good advice if you want to live longer, but if you want to lower your stress, it's sort of hard to do those things if you are really stressed out. So I thought, well, we need different tools. We need different things. And this was over a ten year period. This wasn't in like four minutes that I sat down and developed this stuff.
0:03:06
But I jumped into researching neuroplasticity, which is the science behind how our brain works. And once I figured that out, that every thought we think either trains our mind to be more stressed or more calm, a little bit of a simplification, but take it as you will, then I was onto something.
0:03:27
Well, so it's interesting. So this is often what happens when we talk to people about sort of their journey and everything. So this was something that happened in your life. And I know you mentioned the last time you're on the show, I remember talking about it had some profound impacts in your personal life, right?
0:03:44
Well, it did. I mean, here's the thing, Ken. When I got to the point where I actually faced the fact that I needed to use the tools that I developed for my patients on mean, I had ruined my business, or one of my was my husband had walked out on me, and I was at probably the lowest point in my entire life. And some people would say, maybe she's a little bit stubborn that she didn't figure this out earlier, but it's because I thought that these tools were for my patients. I mean, I'd never need these tools, but I did, and my life got to that point, and they helped me out of that. They saved my marriage.
0:04:33
My business was too far gone. I couldn't save that. But it helped me in a profound way.
0:04:39
Well, and I can only imagine and from that, I'm imagining, as you finally had the epiphany of, like, maybe I should actually practice what I preach. And then the positive results it had for you is that when you were like, okay, I need to put this in a book. I need to get this book going.
0:04:57
1 million% true. Because once, I mean, I was handing this stuff out to patients all the time, and I'd say, Here, go do this. Try this. This will help. I had all of these things, and I had all the research behind it, but I'd never put it into a book form or even like, a handout form. I was just using these tools to try to facilitate less stress in my patients lives. And you're exactly right. Once I saw for myself how well that they worked, I knew I had to get them out to people in some form, some way, something easily accessible. And that's where the book came into play well.
0:05:37
And the interesting part is not only with your credentials, but now it's like, this is not only my credentials and my research, but this is me. You can tell personal stories to patients to say, hey, you know what? I was going through a similar type thing in my life. I use this, and here's the result I had. And it's not just you've rolled up the sleeves, and you've actually done these things yourself. And so often you see and I feel like it all the time is you have someone who is trying to give you advice on something that they frankly have never done. And I know that sounds silly, but it happens all the time.
0:06:12
I had a business advisor tell me, he was like, don't take advice from anyone who hasn't accomplished what you're trying to accomplish. And again, it sounds like a well, duh. Of course you wouldn't do that, but people do it all the time.
0:06:25
They do, and there's a lot of information. It's a big thing right now for people to teach other people how to do things, and people are just like, oh, yeah, well, I can teach how to do X, Y, or Z. But unless you've really been through it, you don't have the knowledge and the intricacies of how these things work. Whatever tool, whatever you're trying to teach can work for other people. And you can't really give advice on it if you don't really know the intricacies of how it works.
0:06:58
So you're right onto something there, and so is your mentor.
0:07:03
Yeah. And I think the other part about it is, even after you give the advice and someone know, they come back to you the next time they see you, and they say, you know what, Dr. Annie? I tried that, and I ran into this roadblock. And you could potentially say, you know what? I know exactly why I ran into that roadblock too. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, whatever it may have been, here's how I got around it. I started the same way you did. I got around it with this.
0:07:28
And I can tell you myself as a patient, I would think, oh, my gosh, thank goodness, right? Someone who's been there, done that.
0:07:36
Definitely, I can give you a really quick example of that. I used to toss out, oh, meditate. I want you to try to meditate for five minutes a day. And most people think that meditation is emptying your mind, which is almost impossible to do in our day and age, because our minds are going 856,000,000 miles in different directions at all times. So when patients would come back in and say, this didn't work for me before I went through that really stressful time, I didn't really get it.
0:08:08
But after I went through the stressful time and I couldn't meditate myself at all, I said, okay, let's do some guided meditation. And you will start with three minutes max. Then we can work from there. And that started really working well for people.
0:08:25
Yeah, I can imagine. And I got to admit, the meditation thing, I need to start doing it. I know. There's so many benefits. I've done research on it. I hear it. We've had guests on to talk about it, including you. I really need to just start, and I think that's a great way to do it. I think it's intimidating for me to have never done it, to say, I'm going to sit down for 20 or 30 minutes and do this.
0:08:45
Don't even do that.
0:08:46
I can't do it.
0:08:47
Three minutes, Ken. Three minutes. Guided. All you have to do is listen and breathe.
0:08:52
Yeah. I love it. I love it. We're going to hit a break here, guys, talking to Dr annie White. You can find out more on our website, www.doctoranniewhite.com. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Come back after the break on Mr. Biz radio.
0:09:04
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0:09:43
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0:10:14
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0:10:25
All right, welcome back. It's time for the Mr. Biz Tip of the week. This one is short and sweet. This week's tip is so many times, especially as entrepreneurs, we get that. Was that movie up with the dog? Who's like squirrel. We get that all the time. A good idea that can't be executed efficiently is a bad idea. A great idea that can't be executed efficiently is a bad idea. You got to be able to execute good ideas. Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, anyone who follows him, he talks about this. He says, good ideas are ideas alone are shit.
0:10:59
They don't do anything for you. You have to be able to execute on those ideas. Otherwise, what the heck is it worth? You do it poorly, someone picks it up and kicks butt with it and has a bunch of success because you didn't execute. So super, super important. You got to keep that in mind. Great ideas, but you got to be able to execute. And if you're not a good executor, a lot of people this quick example, steve Jobs, visionary guy, not an executor.
0:11:24
Not an executor. In his career, he tried to do execution. He was poor at it, very poor. And he got Steve Wozniak to be able to help him with that, and look what happened, right? So if you're not a good executor and you're this visionary idea person, get yourself an executor. Find someone who can take those ideas and make them come into fruition and have success again this week, talking with Dr. Annie White again, go back and check out the show she was on at the end of 2022, I think it was in December.
0:11:52
Again, Dr. Annie White and doctor is actually spelled out www.doctoranniewhite.com. We'll put it in the show notes as well. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, as I mentioned. But I want to start the segment here with you. I know I've heard you say this before. I want you to explain to us what you mean by the path to stressville.
0:12:13
Okay? So I want to give you my airplane analogy. Are you ready?
0:12:17
Okay. I like it. Yeah.
0:12:19
Okay. So this is how stress works in your brain. So you just got a job at your favorite airline. You're so excited, and you are in charge of flight scheduling. So you don't care about comfy seats or snacks, thank goodness. All you have to do is get the passengers from where they are to where they want to go. So in our analogy, the passengers are your thoughts and the flight paths and their connections are the neural pathways and the synapses, which are the connections between the neural pathways in your brain.
0:12:54
Your boss comes in and says, ken, I have no idea what's happening, but everyone has been scheduling flights to stressville this week. What is your job? Your job is to make more paths and connections to get to stressville because of the volume, the passenger volume or thought volume to get there. So the more stressful thoughts, you think, your brain is making more pathways and connections toward those thoughts.
0:13:25
So your boss comes back in three months later and says, okay, there's been this huge shift and everybody's now going to calm down. Well, what would your brain do? Your brain then needs and you as the flight scheduler then need to make paths and connections to calm down and the paths and connections to stress, Bill, actually deteriorate in your brain. So does that make that analogy make sense?
0:13:55
Yeah. No. And I love it because I know you described it differently on the last show. So I love the new analogy and it makes a lot of sense. So what are some ways? I know we're going to talk about some different ways in the next segment on how to limit some stress and anxiety. And then when it does hit, what are some things that we can do, actions we can take to sort of quell it or make it go away as best we can.
0:14:19
But it sounds like this is one of those ones that's kind of stopping it before it happens, right. Triggering actually the problem and not just the symptom. What are some things that you can do to create more of those paths to calm down?
0:14:34
Well, I'm going to give you a lot of tools, but like you said, consciousness is key and consciousness is first. And most people don't know and don't pay attention to whether their thoughts are stressed, whether their thoughts are negative or fearful, versus calm and happy and positive. And that makes a difference because every single thought you think builds those corresponding paths in your mind so that when a stressful thought comes up, if you have built those stressful tracks in your mind, it'll go straight down to stress. Bill right, because your mind isn't balanced anymore and most people don't get that concept.
0:15:17
So being aware, even just pinpointing it, not judging yourself, because that brings up negativity not thinking, oh, my gosh, I did it again. Just being aware and thinking, oh gosh, okay, well, that was a stressful thought, that was a fearful thought, that was a negative thought, that was a worry thought, or this is a happy thought is a great way to start out because once you're conscious of these things, you can use the tools to make those changes.
0:15:45
And I also give tools to use to build the calm, happy and positive parts of your mind so that you don't go straight to stressful. With every stressed thought, you have a fighting chance. Your mind is more balanced, you can think of more calm solutions, you can be creative. So that's also an important factor in all of this. But consciousness is.
0:16:12
This. The first one I heard from a guy named David Meltzer, and I heard him say it and I thought, man, this is so simple. And I tried it and it actually worked. And it worked for me for a while and then it started to not work. And that is when you have sort of a negative or fearful thought, as you're saying is to literally just either out loud if you're by yourself, so don't do it when you're around people or they might think you're crazy, but is just literally say cancel, cancel, cancel.
0:16:37
And divert your pathways a little bit, changes what you're thinking about and everything. And again, it may be super simple. However, that started not work for me because I think my brain was like, okay, that's stupid. We're not going to listen to that anymore. It worked for a while. And so now if I use that, I will use that and then I have my wife will kill me on this one, but I have a vision of my wife. We're on vacation and I'm going to be full disclosure here. She's on the beach in a bikini, and I put that picture in my mind, which completely diverts me away from anything negative. Right. It takes me back to the beach and my beautiful wife on the beach and bikini and blah, blah, blah.
0:17:13
And then the other thing I heard that I think is super powerful that I've used as well is I've found myself in a car and I'm mad because there's traffic or I get stuck behind. We have a train track that's several miles from our house, but sometimes we'll get stuck and I'll think, oh, my gosh, this stupid train. And then I think, or you get stuck when there's an accident. I can't remember who said it, but they said, change it to Why am I going through this? To at least I'm not and fill in the blank.
0:17:42
At least if there's an accident, I could be in an accident up there. Gosh, I hope everyone's okay. I hope no one's hurt. And at least for me, it completely distracts my brain into something completely different. And those kind of little minor things, I'm sure you have much better things, work more complex.
0:18:04
Well, the only thing I would say to that, like the cancel, is inherently negative. So you're building negative parts of your mind every time you're saying that, which is probably why your brain rejected it a bit. So perhaps since you're going to the beach and your wife in the bikini, which is fabulous, maybe instead of that, just break that pattern with another word, but a positive word, like love or break it. I mean, even if you want to do a funny word like furry or something, but it does break the pattern, and it's positive. So you're building those positive pathways at the same time.
0:18:41
Okay? Yeah, I love that. And you're right. I didn't really think about that again. I hadn't thought about you're right. Cancel, I mean, it's a negative word. It's definitely a negative connotation, and it's.
0:18:51
Sort of chastising yourself for having that thought in the first place, which I want us to stay away from, because it is not our fault that our brains get wired this way. You go through stressful situations. You're an entrepreneur. Your mind can get wired this way before you even know what's happening.
0:19:10
Yeah, definitely. All right, guys, we're going to hit a break here. We're going to come back. We're going to continue talking about how to limit and quell stress and anxiety.
0:19:20
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0:20:21
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0:20:30
All right, welcome back to the show. Again. We're talking with Dr. Annie White. Repeat guest on the show. You can find out more at www.doctoranniewhite.com and doctors spelled out. And check out her book called “The Calm Code”. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So I don't want to continue talking about these things the way that we can sort of limit some of the stress that we experience and then again, how to deal with it once we do have it, because some of it's inevitable, unfortunately, in our busy lives and stressful lives and challenging things that come up now and again.
0:21:03
But I want to ask you about something I've heard you say before, and I think people will find this interesting I know I did. Is you talk about how to pick your nose the right way.
0:21:14
Pick your nose the right way for stress. So, like you were saying, with your traffic situation, this is a great tool to use in a traffic situation. And it's a breathing technique. And the coolest thing about this breathing technique is it activates your parasympathetic or calm nervous system on the spot, right? So you're stuck behind that train or some jackalope cuts you off. I want you to do this breathing technique, and I'm going to give you five steps, okay?
0:21:44
So first step is you're going to breathe in all the way down deep into your lower belly for five counts. You pause for five counts. You breathe out for five counts, and you pause for five counts. This is not new. This is box breathing, and it's used by Navy Seals. Now, they get into some pretty dicey situations. So if it works for them, it can work for any of us, right? All right, so our final step now, this is something different.
0:22:18
You take your right index finger and you cover your right nostril as you're breathing that way. And you're doing that great five count box breathing. You breathe in and out only through your left nostril. And studies have shown that breathing in and out only through your left nostril activates your parasympathetic nervous system, and it calms you down faster.
0:22:40
Interesting. Yeah. And I've done box breathing when I competed athletically, I've done it. And that's how I heard about it originally, was from Navy Seals. And again, I thought the same exact thing you had mentioned. Gosh. If this works for them, this is going to work for me. When I'm about to get on the platform and I'm feeling stressed, nervous, whatever it might be, it works like a charm. But I hadn't done it until the last time you were on the show. Annie, you'd mentioned this on the last time you were on.
0:23:04
I hadn't done it before with just the left nostril. And you would think, I mean, most people are out there right now are listening or watching. They're like, really? Your nostril makes a difference? Like, are you kidding me right now? It does, right? It does. I've done it again with both nostrils. That's how I'd always done it. And then once you were on the show and you had mentioned that, I even thought I was a little skeptical. Like, really? I mean, is this like a gimmicky thing? Is this Dr. White?
0:23:29
She's got to put a little spin on this. I don't know what well, I do know what it is now because you've explained it, but it just seems like it's so crazy how the body works and all these different little tweaks you can do to make things better. What are some other practical tips that we can do? I mean, I love that one because that can apply to anything in any time. Like you said, even the traffic or your boss comes in and lays into you about something or whatever it might be.
0:23:55
And you can do it anywhere, absolutely anywhere. You can do it. So that one's super powerful. I know. What are some other things we can do to help limit and then deal with that stress and anxiety that inevitably pops up?
0:24:08
Here's a trick I really like. So when we're entrepreneurs, we have these different loops that we get stressed about, and it depends on your business. It depends on what's going on. But it could be about sales. It could be about marketing, it could be about something going on with an employee. It could be a myriad of things. But I say pick one of those topics, set a timer on your phone for five minutes and fantasize and write out a fantasy world of how you would like this to be.
0:24:40
So in your best case scenario, how would you like this to be? And intermittently as you're writing this out, also write in how that would make you feel. So let's say it's an employee that you're having an issue with. You can actually imagine the talk you're going to have with that employee working everything out. It goes awesome. You feel calm, you feel peaceful, you feel connected, you feel empowered.
0:25:09
Write that down. And then I want you to review that. You can set your timer for three to five minutes and review it every single day for a month and let me know what happens. Here is what's going to happen. First of all, the energy around that issue. So in this circumstance, we're saying the employee is going to change. Why? Because your energy has changed around this issue, and you're going to see things start to shift.
0:25:39
Not only does this build the calm, happy, and positive parts of your mind, it shifts your energy and it sets you up to manifest this to happen in your life. So I know I just tossed a ton at you, but I'm going to add one more thing. Then I want you to feel grateful as if this has already happened. And you're going to use this statement. It's the magical statement. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Bob and I resolved our issues.
0:26:11
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Bob is a happy employee. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Make whatever you want up. So then if that issue comes up during the day and you don't have that three to five minutes to review what your fantasy situation is, go straight to that gratitude statement. Straight to that triple thanks. Awesomeness. And that will also help shift your energy, because when we're grateful for something, we are strengthening the calm and the happy and the positive parts of our brain.
0:26:40
We are shifting our energy. And when we are grateful, as if it already happened, our subconscious mind gets on board and gets creative about how to make that happen.
0:26:52
I love it. So that ties into the next question I was going to ask is, I know a lot of entrepreneurs deal with stress with their spouses, right? Because you're grinding, you're hustling and all that kind of stuff. And maybe your spouse feels neglected, feels like, oh, my gosh, all you do is work, whatever that might be. Fill in the blank on how that fits for you. I know I talk to a lot of people who are colleagues, that are entrepreneurs and everything, and they deal with that.
0:27:19
Is there a way that I know that would work with that situation as well? Obviously. But is there another way that maybe even is a little more specific in dealing with a spouse?
0:27:28
Yeah, I have something so much better.
0:27:30
Okay.
0:27:31
So for relationships, and this can be for any stressful relationship because it could be your spouse, it could be your kids, it could be anybody. You're going to set the timer again. I'm big on timers. But it keeps you focused. You're going to get your pen and paper again, and then you are going to write down things you appreciate about this person. You're going to include memories that you've had with this person.
0:27:53
You're going to include what you would like to do in the future with this person. And then you're going to include how this person feels about you in your best case scenario. Now, instead of reviewing this list every time you get stressed about it, I want you to make a new list just for three minutes. And you do this for a month and see how the stress in your relationship changes. And it's for all of the same reasons I gave you with The Last Tool.
0:28:22
But you're. Going to see a shift in how things play out between the two of you. It's incredible. And you can believe me after you do it, and then I want to know how it went because it works like a charm.
0:28:37
Yeah, I think so much of that, even in my personal life, I mean, so much of that, whether it's with my wife or one of my daughters or my brother, whatever it might be, I think so much of that is you get the paradigm in your head, right? You get the negative paradigm. I want to feed that paradigm. I want to feed that negative fire. And then it just spirals out of control and you end up in this big brouhaha about something that oftentimes is like nothing.
0:29:03
And think about your energy around that person. If you're spending that time in that negativity, you're going to go and be around them and that will be in sort of the back of your mind, but definitely in your subconscious, and you will respond to them as if that's happening right then.
0:29:18
Yeah. Super powerful stuff. Very practical. Love it. As always, Dr. White, appreciate you coming on. www.doctoranniewhite.com, facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, thanks for coming on show, really appreciate it.
0:29:31
Thanks for having me.
0:29:32
Great to be absolutely great to see you as well, guys. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Have a great rest of your week and don't forget, as always, cash flow is king.
0:29:41
To become part of Mr. Biz Nation, follow him on all social media platforms or never miss a show by going to mrbizradio.com. If you prefer free video content, visit the Mr. Biz YouTube channel or check out his streaming channel, which is available on 100 plus streaming platforms at mrbiznetwork.com.
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