Great tips! Humming deep and low can help activate your vagus nerve, signaling to your brain that everything is going well, which activates your parasympathetic nervous system to effectively calm you down.
On a different note, I'm impressed with how far you've come, even with the lack of consistency in posting content here on UA-cam. I mean no harm in saying these things, but what I really want to say that you, Anthony, are probably one of the first content creators who have inspired me into changing my habits. Changing your habits/coping mechanisms is indeed a challenge, and I'm glad that you've come to this realization on how the human mind works during times of heavy stress or conflict. Life isn't easy (pandemic or not), but your content will always be valuable to me :)
So who else is feeling a bit scattered these days? Thanks again to Skillshare for supporting my work here at Break the Twitch. The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/anthonyongarobreakthetwitch02211
There is a lot of this that I relate to. Also found out that I have adhd this year and getting treatments like meds and cbt have been great. Cold treatment sound like a great idea thanks
great advice. When I was having anxiety issues a therapist recommended looking around the room and imagining the textile feel of things, like my jeans or the texture of the cieling or the carpet, or the wall, or things around and trying to focus on those, and things like the temperature of the items and their rough/smoothness. Like you suggested with textures, imagining those things forces you to focus on them.
thank you so much. Nearly everything you said I could relate to down to the t. I cried a little and screamed a lot. This distraction/focusing issue is hard for me to handle, but I'm grateful to know that I am not the only one. Thank you I really appreciate it
Cold showers regulate your vagus nerve. The same goes for humming, rocking gently and singing, so you could also try those. I think there are other techniques as well; these may be more accessible than the cold shower, which some people might mentally attribute as punishment, thereby being counterproductive. As for meditation, you are 100% right that it is sometimes hard to sit just for 2 minutes. Actually, if you are feeling frozen or too highly aroused, meditation could even make things worse (see www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/practice/what-is-polyvagal-theory-and-how-can-we-apply-it-to-meditation). By the way if you are interested in self-compassion, you should definitely check out the work of Kristin Neff and/or Christopher Germer. Great that you tackle this topic! I find it funny that you do not call this video “emotional regulation”, but I also understand why you would not do that ;)
interesting with the cold technique. I'm a big coffee drinker. Yet i always said that icecream wakes me up way quicker than coffee. But i realized a while back, that the part of icecream that wakes me up is the cold part. I feel like my brain is zapped awake when i eat / drink something cold in the morning, like cold/ ice coffee. works great in the summer, not so much in the winter though. Maybe it has also a grounding component to it... never thought about this in this way, but makes total sense. thanks!
Thank you for sharing these interesting and helpful tips! Speaking respectfully here, I had a little bit of a hard time getting past my befuddlement at some of the opening comments. Why assume that buying flour and toilet paper had anything to do with a hardcore coping mode, not acting rationally, emotional dysregulation, panic state, not aware of how you’re feeling, rooted in fear... when those were extremely logical items to buy in the situation? We were simply obediently staying at home more than usual, and that presents some different purchasing needs. Here’s why people bought toilet paper: we were told to stay inside for a long period of time. One thing you simply cannot substitute or do without, something almost every single household uses: toilet paper. Tell a medium-sized family they’ll be unable to shop for a month or two, and toilet paper is one of the highest priorities for anyone with a general sense of their family’s needs. Especially once it began to be hard to acquire-you’d better believe that if you found some and knew you might not see any available again for the foreseeable future, it’s probably a wise idea to pick up an extra package. Some people bought up the whole aisle, but most of the shortage was regular families buying just a little bit extra. And we needed extra, because suddenly none of our toilet paper needs were occurring at school or work. It all happened at home. Gotta plan for that. Flour: again, we weren’t able to do our typical shopping routine, and some staples like bread get moldy or were unavailable. For once, though, we had time to make it ourselves! Yay, what a time luxury. And to be home with the kids every day. . . and can’t go anywhere. . . finally, we had time to bond over making cookies and other fun things. Pizza night? Can’t go out? Let’s make it from scratch ourselves! What a beautiful way to spend time together as a family at home. I’m a homebody and honestly loved every second of being allowed to spend all those months home with my precious family. And yes, we needed more flour than usual, and sure, we made sure we had a little extra toilet paper. Don’t want a potty training child running out of that. But it didn’t have anything to do with fear or not being aware of how we were feeling. Just some thoughts to encourage thinking through things a little deeper; I’ve been so perplexed when hearing people say things like this. I know you’re someone who values good thinking and wanted to give some food for thought. Best wishes, and thank you again!
This is definitely thoughtful feedback and I do appreciate your care in giving it. You’re right that I sort of blended my points together in the beginning there, definitely did not mean to vilify those buying toilet paper and flour (I mean, we did a ton of baking and it was really great) nor directly correlate those activities to purely coping but I 100% can see how it came across that way. I have always joked in videos a bit about my tendency to cope with cookies so contextually I think I was playing off of that perhaps. Thanks again for taking the time to share this.
The way I see it, there are still other ways of looking at the situation from a mental health/mental illness perspective. You're right to say that toilet paper and bread are necessities, but if you're someone who suffers from anxiety or some other mental illness, then that line between what's rational and irrational becomes more visible. A lot of people experience emotional imbalances or irregularities; we all become irrational at times given a certain situation or crisis. When the pandemic fist hit my area, what I was most worried about was not my own health and well-being, but the ones who struggle immensely with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder or even autism. Some people just suffer or struggle more than others from sudden changes in their routines.
As someone from the US, I find it ironic that people panic bought toilet paper but some states never even went into lock down! My interpretation: people were facing an unknown and their brain said "what do we do in this situation? We must DO something!" And as soon as there is a suggestion of a possible shortage of something, the general response is often to hoard it. Thus, in an effort to feel like they were doing something in response to the situation, and because of the media, people bought more than what they needed, and as I mentioned earlier, some of those people probably never even had a real lock down
I hope this message won't get taken the wrong way, but if you're going to have a platform like Skillshare be your sponsor, then please be honest about any upfront fees, or even ones that are hidden. At one point in time last year, I decided on a whim to try out Skillshare without the knowing that I would be charged $99 for the entire year upon activating my account, instead of being promised $10 a month. That's a waste of money in my opinion and have since cancelled my account with them.
I lose my focus when work makes us MULTITASK! I am 57 yrs old and I remember when companies told us to FOCUS on one thing until it was done correctly! Now companies require this multitasking crap where you do TO MUCH AT ONE TIME! Not good! Leads to todays ongoing mistakes in anything we encounter.
I used to do cold showers back during summer and it helped so much. Our heater is broken and so I end up freezing when I step out of a cold shower so I’ll think of other ways to try grounding. But when it warms up I’m definitely going back to cold showers, they work wonders.
I am from Brazil and i am learning english with your chanel. Thank you!
Great tips! Humming deep and low can help activate your vagus nerve, signaling to your brain that everything is going well, which activates your parasympathetic nervous system to effectively calm you down.
On a different note, I'm impressed with how far you've come, even with the lack of consistency in posting content here on UA-cam. I mean no harm in saying these things, but what I really want to say that you, Anthony, are probably one of the first content creators who have inspired me into changing my habits. Changing your habits/coping mechanisms is indeed a challenge, and I'm glad that you've come to this realization on how the human mind works during times of heavy stress or conflict. Life isn't easy (pandemic or not), but your content will always be valuable to me :)
So who else is feeling a bit scattered these days? Thanks again to Skillshare for supporting my work here at Break the Twitch. The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/anthonyongarobreakthetwitch02211
There is a lot of this that I relate to. Also found out that I have adhd this year and getting treatments like meds and cbt have been great. Cold treatment sound like a great idea thanks
I can’t focus and then I’m supposed to try and watch this 14 minute video, that’s eternity to my brain lol
great advice. When I was having anxiety issues a therapist recommended looking around the room and imagining the textile feel of things, like my jeans or the texture of the cieling or the carpet, or the wall, or things around and trying to focus on those, and things like the temperature of the items and their rough/smoothness. Like you suggested with textures, imagining those things forces you to focus on them.
thank you so much. Nearly everything you said I could relate to down to the t. I cried a little and screamed a lot. This distraction/focusing issue is hard for me to handle, but I'm grateful to know that I am not the only one. Thank you I really appreciate it
Thank you! I forgot about cold therapy. I needed this today!
Great info. For me playing an instrument, yoga or going for a walk are also great for grounding.
Happy to see you again.
Great thoughts! Thank you.
The irony is I'm struggling to focus on what you're saying.
Great video Anthony. The emotional connection to the twitch is so resonant for me as well. Really insightful stuff!
Thanks Chris!!
I would suggest you add some kind of timestamps as it helps to navigate through a video, especially when talking about such an important topic. Best!
I'll do that! Thanks for the suggestion.
Great techniques and insights, thank you so much!
Cold showers regulate your vagus nerve. The same goes for humming, rocking gently and singing, so you could also try those. I think there are other techniques as well; these may be more accessible than the cold shower, which some people might mentally attribute as punishment, thereby being counterproductive. As for meditation, you are 100% right that it is sometimes hard to sit just for 2 minutes. Actually, if you are feeling frozen or too highly aroused, meditation could even make things worse (see www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/practice/what-is-polyvagal-theory-and-how-can-we-apply-it-to-meditation). By the way if you are interested in self-compassion, you should definitely check out the work of Kristin Neff and/or Christopher Germer. Great that you tackle this topic! I find it funny that you do not call this video “emotional regulation”, but I also understand why you would not do that ;)
interesting with the cold technique. I'm a big coffee drinker. Yet i always said that icecream wakes me up way quicker than coffee. But i realized a while back, that the part of icecream that wakes me up is the cold part. I feel like my brain is zapped awake when i eat / drink something cold in the morning, like cold/ ice coffee. works great in the summer, not so much in the winter though. Maybe it has also a grounding component to it... never thought about this in this way, but makes total sense. thanks!
I knew the ice trick for when I want to self harm, but I never thought to try it with my panic attacks. Thanks
Thank you for sharing these interesting and helpful tips!
Speaking respectfully here, I had a little bit of a hard time getting past my befuddlement at some of the opening comments. Why assume that buying flour and toilet paper had anything to do with a hardcore coping mode, not acting rationally, emotional dysregulation, panic state, not aware of how you’re feeling, rooted in fear... when those were extremely logical items to buy in the situation? We were simply obediently staying at home more than usual, and that presents some different purchasing needs.
Here’s why people bought toilet paper: we were told to stay inside for a long period of time. One thing you simply cannot substitute or do without, something almost every single household uses: toilet paper. Tell a medium-sized family they’ll be unable to shop for a month or two, and toilet paper is one of the highest priorities for anyone with a general sense of their family’s needs. Especially once it began to be hard to acquire-you’d better believe that if you found some and knew you might not see any available again for the foreseeable future, it’s probably a wise idea to pick up an extra package. Some people bought up the whole aisle, but most of the shortage was regular families buying just a little bit extra. And we needed extra, because suddenly none of our toilet paper needs were occurring at school or work. It all happened at home. Gotta plan for that.
Flour: again, we weren’t able to do our typical shopping routine, and some staples like bread get moldy or were unavailable. For once, though, we had time to make it ourselves! Yay, what a time luxury. And to be home with the kids every day. . . and can’t go anywhere. . . finally, we had time to bond over making cookies and other fun things. Pizza night? Can’t go out? Let’s make it from scratch ourselves! What a beautiful way to spend time together as a family at home.
I’m a homebody and honestly loved every second of being allowed to spend all those months home with my precious family. And yes, we needed more flour than usual, and sure, we made sure we had a little extra toilet paper. Don’t want a potty training child running out of that. But it didn’t have anything to do with fear or not being aware of how we were feeling.
Just some thoughts to encourage thinking through things a little deeper; I’ve been so perplexed when hearing people say things like this. I know you’re someone who values good thinking and wanted to give some food for thought.
Best wishes, and thank you again!
(Wow, it looks so long written out like this. Well, I hope you understand my well-meaning intent despite my lengthy tome.) 🙂
This is definitely thoughtful feedback and I do appreciate your care in giving it. You’re right that I sort of blended my points together in the beginning there, definitely did not mean to vilify those buying toilet paper and flour (I mean, we did a ton of baking and it was really great) nor directly correlate those activities to purely coping but I 100% can see how it came across that way. I have always joked in videos a bit about my tendency to cope with cookies so contextually I think I was playing off of that perhaps. Thanks again for taking the time to share this.
The way I see it, there are still other ways of looking at the situation from a mental health/mental illness perspective. You're right to say that toilet paper and bread are necessities, but if you're someone who suffers from anxiety or some other mental illness, then that line between what's rational and irrational becomes more visible. A lot of people experience emotional imbalances or irregularities; we all become irrational at times given a certain situation or crisis. When the pandemic fist hit my area, what I was most worried about was not my own health and well-being, but the ones who struggle immensely with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder or even autism. Some people just suffer or struggle more than others from sudden changes in their routines.
As someone from the US, I find it ironic that people panic bought toilet paper but some states never even went into lock down! My interpretation: people were facing an unknown and their brain said "what do we do in this situation? We must DO something!" And as soon as there is a suggestion of a possible shortage of something, the general response is often to hoard it. Thus, in an effort to feel like they were doing something in response to the situation, and because of the media, people bought more than what they needed, and as I mentioned earlier, some of those people probably never even had a real lock down
Cold showers are great not only for anxiety 👌🏼
I hope this message won't get taken the wrong way, but if you're going to have a platform like Skillshare be your sponsor, then please be honest about any upfront fees, or even ones that are hidden. At one point in time last year, I decided on a whim to try out Skillshare without the knowing that I would be charged $99 for the entire year upon activating my account, instead of being promised $10 a month. That's a waste of money in my opinion and have since cancelled my account with them.
Anxiety and ADHD is much harder in lockdown
100%
I lose my focus when work makes us MULTITASK! I am 57 yrs old and I remember when companies told us to FOCUS on one thing until it was done correctly! Now companies require this multitasking crap where you do TO MUCH AT ONE TIME! Not good! Leads to todays ongoing mistakes in anything we encounter.
Unable to focus on a video that’s trying to teach me how to focus...
“Lizard brain” is the technical term for copy cat, take whosever word for it nonsense. Similarity does not equal relevance.
Thank you!
I used to do cold showers back during summer and it helped so much. Our heater is broken and so I end up freezing when I step out of a cold shower so I’ll think of other ways to try grounding. But when it warms up I’m definitely going back to cold showers, they work wonders.