So hopefully, you can see the slides there, managing stress and overcoming anxiety.
And just one point, if we could just make sure that our microphones are muted while we're speaking, this won't just help the talk, to be very clear.
So just to begin again, I'd like to thank Cathy and Howie for inviting this talk.
It's obviously very timely given the current circumstances. And it's true, I am a trauma expert specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder.
But what can trauma and extreme stress teach us about coping with everyday life, about overcoming anxiety?
As a psychologist, I specialise in helping people to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder.
So this is the crippling stress reaction that afflicts soldiers and other survivors of terrible events.
As a scientist, I develop and test strategies to prevent PTSD.
I have built programmes based on the latest science to improve resilience for people in the most stressful and dangerous jobs as police officers,
firefighters, paramedics and now ICU workers. In my 20 years of practise, I've noticed something remarkable.
The tools that transform anxiety and stress are the same tools that support people to achieve extraordinary success.
In this talk, I'm going to give you a snapshot of the seven tools that you can better manage
the anxiety and stress in your own life to support you on your path to success.
So the first rule is to focus on facts, not feelings, to deal with worry.
Science shows that 88 percent of our worries never come true.
One of the best ways to discover this is to keep a worry diary for a week.
Note your worry and then the outcome and tally it.
How many worries did you have? How many came true?
You'll likely discover that your worries come true much less often than you feel they will, which is good news.
It means that you when you spot your worrying, you can remind yourself of a reassuring fact.
Most of your worries don't come true. Research shows that the best thing to do when you spot your worrying is to disengage from it.
How do you disengage from worry?
A study carried out at King's in London found that people picturing the likely outcome to your worry that is an outcome based on facts, not feelings,
and of you coping no matter what comes your way or picturing any positive image such as sunshine helped people to disengage from worry.
It led to decreases in anxiety and worry.
The team at King's trained people who had uncontrollable worry to practise replacing their worry with images of possible positive outcomes,
or they trained them to talk through possible positive outcomes using words,
not pictures in their mind's eye, or to picture positive images unrelated to their worries.
Everyone in the study benefited from reductions in anxiety and distress and sustained base improvements one month later.
So what this means is that when you spot your worrying,
use this as a cue to picture a possible likely outcome to your worry or even a positive image like sunshine, you'll feel less anxious as a result.
The next tool is to to tap practical thinking that's what I call practical thinking, to overcome overthinking.
Everyone does it.
We chew over the past from time to time, and when we're dwelling are mood will plummet and unhappy memories are more likely to surface,
which keeps us focussed on unhappy thoughts.
It's a vicious cycle leading to poor problem solving, more unhappy feelings and in challenging times, more severe stress.
Imagine this You wake up early on Monday morning and you get ready for an important meeting.
You're chairing on Zoom at nine a.m. You switch on your laptop and the screen is black.
It doesn't start across the on and off button again and again.
It doesn't start. Oh, what's going on? Thoughts raced through your mind.
Why won't my laptop start? Why is this happening today of all days?
Why don't I start any problems with it last night? What are problems like this always happen to me?
Imagine this is happening to you. How might you be feeling?
Now, imagine the same scenario again, and this time you think, how can I best deal with this?
How can I chair the meeting at nine am?
And the first scenario with Y thoughts swelling your mind, you'll be more inclined to run back to bed and pull the duvet over your head.
And the second scenario how thoughts guide, problem solving and decision making.
They'll be able to find a solution, such as suggesting to chair the meeting over your mobile.
So dwelling as an unproductive pattern of thinking, the more you do it, the more you strengthen the neural pathways in your brain,
making it the default modes of thinking when you encounter disappointment or stress.
Dwelling keeps depression going, and it increases anxiety. So spot when your thoughts have turned to why and what if?
And instead of spending energy trying to answer unanswerable questions, ask How can I feel better now?
How can I refocus to the task at hand? Then take the step that will help to boost you or your focus?
You could hit the treadmill circuits class or if that's not possible,
try a bout of jumping jacks or even bringing a friend to ask what is new and good with them?
All helpful strategies to get out of your head. Suddenly, the whys and what ifs will feel less important because you're giving them less
attention and absorbing yourself in an activity that needs your full attention.
So the next tool is to use then versus now to break the link with past events that fuel self-doubt
then versus now is a trauma treatment tool that helps to unhook the present from the past.
By helping you to focus on how now is different to men, rather than focussing on how the situations may be similar.
For example, if you've spoken up in a meeting and had a flat response next time,
focus on how different the new environment is to the past, not how similar it is.
Perhaps they're a different team members in the meeting room. Your slides are different. Notice how keen people look to hear what you have to say.
Focus on the many ways now is different to them. Focussing on what you can see and hear in the here and now keeps you rooted in the present
and gets your attention out of your head and away from feelings and memories of self-doubt.
It keeps you absorbed in the task at hand, which is where you need to be to manage anxiety and stress.
The next tool to manage anxiety and stress is to plan ahead.
This is a really important tool and very important for the current times.
There is science to planning ahead. Several studies that have come out of our lab show that making a plan in the
evening for the next day and including one enjoyable activity in your plan,
dramatically improves mood, well-being and productivity and reduces anxiety.
Plan your work day and a half hour chunks and use the plan as a schedule to guide you.
Revamping and recreating it through the day,
especially when you discover that you've wildly underestimated how long it takes to reply to those emails.
We write that code or write up your project results.
Planning ahead works to reduce anxiety and stress because it moves routine decision making to the night before,
which frees up mental energy to tackle challenging tasks the following day.
Having a detailed plan makes you more productive and you'll be more likely to reach your goals and of course,
including a fun activity even for a few minutes. And your plan makes it more likely that you'll do something fun, which increases well-being.
The next tool is to use the three minute carrot. The three minute care is helpful to overcome avoidance, avoidance keeps anxiety going.
There's no other outcome with avoidance. Achieving a more centred life means kicking avoidance.
It means choosing what is best for you rather than what is easiest when common
behaviour amongst students and staff is procrastination putting off for tomorrow?
What would be best to get done today? If you're struggling to get started with something, you're avoiding use of three minute carrots.
Give yourself permission to try the new behaviour for just three minutes, then reassess how you're feeling.
Giving yourself permission to carry on for another three minutes. If you choose to order, stop.
You can also break the first step into tiny steps and take the first tiny step to start.
It's manageable to complete a small step like write an outline for my essay or
grants application before the bigger step right in the background section.
Completing the small step gives a sense of a sense of achievement and a breath of success to motivate next steps.
And after the first step, get cosy with smart language to resist temptations, to give back into avoidance, which will increase anxiety.
So use the words I don't rather than I can't when tempted away from your goals.
Studies suggest that if you say I can't, you'll be more likely to give in to temptation and give up the goal your plan to work towards.
But if when you're faced with temptation, you use the words I don't, you'll be much more inclined to follow through with your goals.
So if when a mate asks you to have a drink over Zoom, you respond with, I don't drink on Tuesdays.
You'll be much more likely to follow through with the original goal you had planned for the evening,
which might have been writing that essay or working on that application. Why is that?
Using the words I don't in response to temptations increases your sense of empowerment with goals making you more likely to work towards them.
Another tool to help you over the start line is to make decisions based on how you want to feel, not in how you're actually feeling.
Most people make decisions based on how they're feeling in the moment rather than on how they want to feel in the future.
So one of the ways to overcome avoidance and reduce anxiety is to consider how you want to feel in the future and to be guided by this today.
So if exercising will make you feel energised and happy. We're finishing up an admin task will make you feel relieved and rewarded.
Make your decision to get started based on how you know it will make you feel rather than how you're already feeling.
The next important tool is focus. It absolutely matters what you focus on and how you focus,
people who manage stress well choose to focus on what they can do rather than what they can't.
They realise they don't have endless years to bring their goals into reality, so they optimise their time.
And one of the ways they do this is learning to focus efficiently without distraction.
There are two types of focus helpful and unhelpful.
Unhelpful attention is focussed that's gone inside ourselves to our thoughts, our feelings, our fears or sensations in our body like our heart rate.
And unhelpful focus will always raise anxiety and increased stress.
For example, if I was worried about sweating and I focussed all of my attention on my forehead here as if I had sweat patches,
I'd soon lose my train of thought and I'd be working hard to cover up my sweat patches like this and possibly looking away.
Which were draw more rather than less attention to me and what might be quite distracted, helpful attention, on the other hand,
which is also called externally focussed attention, is the kind of attention that's out of our heads and in the world.
So ignoring my fake sweat patches and focussing on our talk will make me feel more at ease and less anxious.
Even though you can see that I've, I had poured water on my forehead.
People are most satisfied when they're absorbed in the task at hand,
particularly when they're absorbed in something that is challenging enough to be stimulating, but not so challenging that it is frustrating.
And finally, possibly the most important tool for dealing with anxiety and stress,
certainly for dealing with stress, is to extend the compassion you extend to others,
to yourself, speaking to yourself with kindness, lower stress hormones and makes you more optimistic as well as a better problem solver.
Whereas self-critical talk zaps motivation. In a study of almost 200 students,
Kristin Neff and her team looked at different aspects of having compassion for
oneself that self-compassion and its links with positive emotions and qualities.
Self-compassion is that capacity to extend kindness towards ourselves in instances of pain or failure,
the capacity to normalise our difficult experiences by recognising that people around the world have similar
struggles and that our struggles are part of the larger human experience as we're learning with coronavirus.
It's also the capacity to see painful thoughts and feelings as passing rather than identifying with them.
Neff and her team discovered that self-compassion was linked to happiness, optimism,
positive emotions and qualities such as wisdom, personal initiative, curiosity, agreeableness, extroversion and conscientiousness,
her team concluded that self-compassion may give rise to happiness and feelings of calm because it creates feelings of warmth,
connexion with others and a sense of balance or equilibrium.
When we're happy, we're less likely to ruminate or dwell about the past or worry about the future, which is linked to anxiety and depression,
a self compassionate mindset is linked to adaptive coping skills and could keep people feeling optimistic about the future.
Feelings of compassion for oneself and others is linked to greater activation of the left prefrontal cortex,
the part of the brain linked to joy and optimism.
If you're struggling to speak to yourself with kindness, you could first try to think kind thoughts or carry out kind gestures for other people.
The act of being kind will boost your mood and put you in a frame of mind where it's easier for you to be kind to yourself.
So just to wrap up, everyone feels anxious and stressed from time to time.
There are tools to help these times become less frequent. So you can progress your path to success without feeling so overwhelmed.
Remember facts, not feelings to overcome worry?
Use a worry diary and in the midst of worrying picture of possible positive outcome to the worry or any positive, uplifting image.
The next to the second tool was practical thinking it's not overthinking.
Dwelling is your cue to get out of your head and thought, how to move forward.
The third tool then versus now helps to break the link to the past, unhooking the present from past events that fuelled self-doubt or anxiety.
Plan ahead, break your days into half hour chunks and assign your tasks really important and include a fun activity, even if brief in your plan.
Kick avoidance start, a new behaviour with a tiny step. Make decisions based on how you want to feel, not in how you're actually feeling.
Use a three minute carrot to get started with big deadlines. And remember, I don't vs. I can't to resist temptations.
Focus your sell focus, keep focussed attention, which increases anxiety as a cue to get out of your hands and into the world.
And finally, compassion, be kind to your mind, extend the kindness you offer others to yourself.
The world benefits from you and what you have to offer.
Transforming your anxiety and stress will lead to a stress free life with less stress and help you to support a path to success.
There's more about these tools in the book, Be Extorting, which is at the bottom of the slide.
So I'd like to stop there. Thank you.
Thank you ever so much then that that was such a clear and practical explanation based on the latest research,
and I'm sure others will join me in having found that extremely helpful and extremely interesting.
And we've got a number of questions that have been submitted by people who have joined the set at this seminar to many really to go through
each of them and to say what we've done instead is to try to pull out some of the key themes from the questions that have been asked,
and we'll be asking the panel about those particular topics.
So I'd like to just take this opportunity to introduce Polly White as well to give us wife Polly and also Robin Dunbar,
who are both also from the Department of Experimental Psychology.
And I'm Kathy Creswell, also from the Department of Experimental Psychology, and I'll just be staring at through this next part.
So the first question was reflects a question that came up from a number of people, and this was really about recognising that,
of course, stress and anxiety are a normal emotions, as Jen mentioned, that are going to be understandable in difficult situations.
So people talked about, of course, the current context. Difficult work situations when dealing with challenging interactions with other people.
At these times, it might be easy to feel stressed, anxious, feel overwhelmed.
And so how should we think about managing stress in those contexts when our objective reality is stressful?
So Robyn, if I could go to you first for your thoughts on that? Okay.
I think the starting point really is that one of the key reasons we have friendships in an ordinary,
everyday life is that they are probably the best medicine we have for well-being and,
you know, sort of lifting us and counteracting illnesses and all these things.
Now, obviously, we're a bit stymied about getting out with friends at the moment.
But the key thing is the mechanism that at least we understand underpins this and that really seems to come out of the endorphin system.
That's what you do with friends triggers the endorphin system and endorphins just make you feel lighter and more contented,
calmer and kind of do all the things that Jen says actually in many ways.
And those are triggered by things like laughter, singing, dancing, eating, socially, drinking, socially, those kind of things.
You know, a lot of those we can actually do at the moment virtually.
So people are doing Zumba on Zoom and stuff like that.
Do it. I mean, it just, you know, so you come out of it. The world feels better already at the end of the session.
So and I guess things like singing mean I'm rather bemused by the Italian
singing from their balconies because only the Italians could do opera public.
But you know what a brilliant idea. Everybody who's there been there at the time comes away saying this.
This gives you such a lift. It's incredible. But at the end of the day, since a lot of these things are sort of semi social,
there is one default thing which triggers the endorphin system like mad, and that is any physical exercise.
So my suggestion is if you can't do anything else, go for a run because every jogger will tell you the day is better after that morning jog.
Thank you. And I definitely need a three minute carrot to get me started doing that.
And did you have anything you wanted to add? I fully agree with Robin and the exercise.
We think exercise is helpful because it absolutely gets you out of your head.
So it's very it helps to disengage from the worry and the rumination that can increase anxiety and stress.
But what the research also shows that's really helpful is to plan your workday and ensuring that you include breaks in your plan for the next day.
And so when we're working at home during this time,
it's so easy to be glued to the screen trying to stay afloat of emails and new work that's arisen as a result of COVID.
However,
it's important to structure the day and to break the day and a half hour chunks and assign tasks and include an enjoyable activity in the end.
One of those chunks of time.
So during your breaks and making sure you get off and out for 10 to 15 minutes and go for that run if possible, at some point during the day?
And then I think in terms of worries, when we're alone, it's very easy to come back into our heads and give our thoughts a lot of attention.
Our worries a lot of attention. So it's important to remember some of the facts.
And that is, you know, 88 percent of our worries don't come true. And I think of worry diaries really helpful to help us discover that.
And if we are getting very stressed and worried, just even, you know,
picturing a possible plausible positive outcome and then giving ourselves a pat on the back,
remembering that compassion that we extend to ourselves and other people actually increases our moods
and makes us more optimistic and a better problem solver to manage the problems we may be facing,
including our stress. So I think those are some helpful tools to add on top of that.
And I think those are really nice points to think about in relation to. Many people are asking questions not just about the current situation,
but also general work stresses, interpersonal stressors and those sound like very good tips there.
I was going to follow up more about stressors related specifically to the current situation,
because obviously there are many challenges isolation, family stress, managing the competing demands of work and family.
So I think Robin and Jenny touched on this really nicely, so I'll just go to pull it out to for any additional thoughts on that.
Yeah, thank you and thank you again for your talk.
I really enjoyed it, and I think lots of it is really applicable for people who are in a situation where their parents took care of children.
We've been running an online survey, actually caucus space,
tracking the mental health of young people and working out how best to support families over this time.
And one of the things that we found in our early findings is that the majority of parents are reporting,
trying to juggle work and looking after children and two thirds of them feeling like they're
not sufficiently needing that need meeting the needs of both their work and their children.
So, you know, if you're a parent in care and feeling overwhelmed, you are.
That's entirely normal. That's something that most people are experiencing.
And I think particularly for families where you might have children that are younger or with
additional needs or there's not a parent at home to support the children with education full time,
you know, they're under huge amounts of stress at the moment.
So I think the first thing to remember is that on the whole, children are remarkably resilient.
And also, secondly, it's a really good opportunity to help children recognise that a certain amount of anxiety and stress is normal.
But the crucial thing as a parent is really showing children how you can deal with it.
So going back to what Jen and Robert have been talking about, you know,
working out what you need to do to feel like you can cope and feel in control is really important and then helpful for children,
especially those that are prone to being more stressed, helping you see that you're dealing with it in a proactive way.
And I think also this is an opportunity to develop children's life skills.
So maybe think about the ways your children, your family can help support things domestically,
like cleaning and cooking and other jobs and ways that your family can enjoy time together.
And then, you know, if the stress relates to things your children are or aren't doing, which you know,
might be particular issues around times that teenagers are getting out of beds or, you know, engaging in work or agreeing to do some exercise.
I think it is about being compassionate, as Jen says,
trying to keep regular channels of communication open, finding times, perhaps when people aren't stressed,
have regular family meetings and thinking about compromise to reach practical solutions that work to some extent for everybody.
And then finally, you know, really trying to find the support where you can get it.
And that might be about other people reading a story to your children over Zoom each evening, you know, reaching out to them.
Maybe they can play games with your children using video conferencing.
And I think again, connecting with other parents and accessing support where you need to is really, really important.
Thank you, and I think some of those are all of those tapes are probably quite useful for us when thinking about not just challenges with families,
but any interactions we know in stressful interactions with other people and how we can manage.
They say thank you. One of the other questions that came up quite a lot related to the fact that, of course,
there are many fundamental differences in our personalities and our biological makeup.
So to what extent is our level of the level of stress or anxiety that we experience
really changeable versus something that some of us will just have to learn to manage?
So Jen, could I get to you on that question? Of course, genetics do contribute to anxiety and how we manage stress.
However, I think it's important to look at what maintains anxiety and what maintains anxiety are our thoughts and behaviours.
So it's really important to make sure that we tackle behaviours like avoidance, which we talked about in this talk,
which increases anxiety and approach anxious thoughts with fox testing them to see how accurate they really are.
For example, when we feel panicky, we may think that we'll pass out or we won't cope and should therefore sit down and take deep breaths.
But unless you have a heart condition, this is the worst thing you can do. And instead, I would encourage you to do the opposite.
So if you think you'll pass out, stand up and do some jumping jacks, you can't faint when your heart is racing, for example.
So I really think that the key is to look at the thoughts and behaviours that
we may be engaging in to help to break the cycle of what keeps anxiety going.
Once we spot it, he probably did.
Your dad, I think. Yeah.
So actually, in the child anxiety, Lichte has been quite a lot of attention trying to understand, you know, what potentially causes it.
And of course, it's a complex interaction between lots of different factors. We know genetics is part of that.
So inherited genes accounts for about 30 percent of the variance when we're trying to understand what what contributes to child anxiety.
And so one of the most robust predictors is temperament.
So if you have the kind of temper when you tend to withdraw from things or avoid or respond fearfully to new situations,
then that puts you at greater risk.
And of course, someone who's genetically predisposed might find things like the current environment just generally much more stressful to deal with.
So there's a real interaction.
But I think sometimes people do worry that they might be hardwired and more sort of biologically attuned to developing anxiety.
But actually, you know, having that kind of genetic makeup is not bad news at all.
So recently, researchers have suggested that actually, for those of us with that genotype,
we might show the largest benefit in low stress or enriching environments.
And if you think about the skills and strategies that Jens talked about or having therapy more broadly,
you can see that it's creating an enriching environment.
So and in fact, some studies have found that groups of people with more chronic genetic vulnerability actually do just as well,
if not better, when they have a psychological treatment.
So I think it's about understanding that, of course, biological factors contribute, but that doesn't mean that you can't change,
and being able to see that can help you let go of those unhelpful beliefs that
things might be hardwired to see that actually change is possible for everybody.
Thank you very much. We have a lot of questions, so people were asking about how they could best support others around them with their mental health,
so that might have been as a as a manager, as a friend, as a parent or carer.
So we're very interested to hear your thoughts on, you know, how can each of us help others manage their stress and anxiety?
So, Robin, if I could go to you, first of all. I think in the end, though,
it seems to me the best thing you can do in this context is encourage people to take part in one of these kind of social activities.
And the one we've really come to see is magic is singing.
I mean, obviously, this is a bit there's a more general point than the current situation,
but there are lots of choirs online that can sing sing by zoom or something.
But singing just has an absolutely magical effect on your sense of well-being and your sense of engagement with the people.
You're doing it with complete strangers into lifelong friends.
I mean, we've known each other forever sense in in under an hour.
It's just extraordinary that nothing else does it so well. I just kind of of it.
There's a kind of a lot of emphasis always on sort of talking to people and getting
them to think about the the the emotions and what they're thinking as it were.
And I have a I have one caution to add to that,
which is simply that this really works well for girls because that's how girls manage and maintain their social relationships.
And it just doesn't seem to work for boys because it's not how boys create their friendship.
Boys create friendships by doing stuff together. And then my kind of cartoon version of that is that there's the classic picture of
two old Greek men sitting either side of a table outside a cafe with their glasses.
Who's there in the sunshine, not speaking a word to each other, but sipping there is there from time to time and they are bonding.
Believe me, they are bonding in a way that only boys.
So I kind of just sort of throw that into the mix.
When you think getting people to talk is really good because it works very well with girls and you just have to be more imaginative with blacks.
Thank you very much.
And obviously, many people asking me questions, we're asking as thinking as in their roles, as parents or carers, if I could get to you now, Polly,
and particularly also thinking about the extent to which the the seven tools that
Jen spoke about apply when you're thinking about helping children and young people.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think your point is really interesting, Robyn.
I think that's right.
It's about achieving a balance isn't talking and opening up to some degree, but also not dwelling on it and making sure you take action.
I think those kind of principles apply to children as well. So. So I think that's right, it is about having those conversations with children.
And you know, some of the research that we've done really shows that children often worry about
talking about their fears because they worry about upsetting or burdening other people,
their parents, particularly. So I think having an environment where children feel they can talk to you and their fears aren't dismissed.
It's really tempting as a parent to sort of say it's going to be fine, you know, don't be silly,
but actually, you know, you do want to reinforce to them, you are going to take their fear seriously.
And it's really hard in the current environment because there is so much that we don't we're not able to control.
We can't suddenly reassure the child that their granny is going to be OK.
We just don't know that for sure. So it's about, you know, responding the way that the child can trust.
And I think finding time to talk to children where no one's stress or bedtimes
can often be a really nightmarish time when those conversations open up.
So I think, you know, agreeing a time to to talk about it the next day can often be helpful rather than opening those conversations up now.
And I think how Jen was talking about using dwelling as a cue to focus on other things.
I think actually, you know, at night time that that can be particularly helpful,
getting the child to be able to think of all the things they can switch their attention to and then maybe revisit it the following day,
where you can do things like using the worry diaries,
which are great and the strategies moving from Y to how I think know that's a really lovely strategy.
That's very doable. And then I think building on everything that's been said before taking action of some kind.
So working out, what is it the child stressed about?
So one of the things that we've in a lot of our teenage to be talking about is worries about things being different when they go back to school,
particularly in relation to friendships and relationships. So rather than worrying about maybe friendships being different when they return,
encouraging them to do things that make them feel more connected to friends now,
so that might be, you know, speaking to them over the video or phone call.
Finding other ways to feel connected are really important, and we know that actually with teenagers with low mood kind of activating themselves,
building on Jen's point about planning things in doing enjoyable activities, we know that's really, really important.
And that can really make a difference to young people when they're feeling low and feeling a bit hopeless about things.
Thank you. And I think very much in line with many of the themes that have come up today,
many of the questions that we received really reflected on the unhelpful patterns that we can get into when we're under stress,
but which then may contribute to keeping stress going.
Say, for example, negative thought patterns, particularly destructive behaviours, feelings of guilt and shame.
So how can we make sense of these responses and how can we change these vicious cycles?
Robin, could I get your first? Yeah, I think my comment is simply going to be really the point that probably just made about friendships,
such as when you re-engage with somebody after a gap.
There's an element of kind of uncertainty about the friendships, and this comes out very strongly out of everything we touch on.
Friendship is friendships decay very, very quickly, surprisingly quickly within weeks or months in terms of their quality.
If you don't see somebody at the normal rate and we do things like if we've not spoken
to somebody on the phone for longer than a gap than we would normally have done,
our next phone call with them is much longer as they were kind of trying to repair the relationship, bring it back up.
So I kind of think it is important to kind of try and encourage people to keep those existing friendships going.
I hasten to say this doesn't happen with family relationships. Family relationships seem to be much more robust.
Families will tolerate any amount of abuse from is what seems to happen until they've had too much.
Then it cracks, but friendships just decay very, very quickly and literally.
Within a matter of two months, the quality of a friendship will have declined if you haven't seen them.
And so it's just encouraging people to be able to keep those relationships going by virtual means as necessary.
When. Thank you, Adam and Jen.
Would you like to comment on that? Yeah.
So I think friendship and support is hugely important and but also when we're thinking about breaking the vicious cycles,
it's it's important to recognise that our thoughts and behaviours are influencing
how we feel and a step in feeling better is taking steps to change them,
if possible. So if we're avoiding something like a deadline,
our exercise will most likely feel guilty and recognising that guilt thoughts are linked to things like having sentences with the word shown in them,
for example, like I should exercise, I should be working on this project.
And as soon as our minds hear the word, should we instantly feel a desire to avoid what we should be doing?
And that leads to procrastination and feelings of guilt and shame and so forth.
So one of the tools I had mentioned was practising future feeling, thinking.
And so that's making decisions about how you want to feel in the future and being guided by this today.
So it was really this comes under the realm of the three minute carrot. So if you know that exercising will make you feel upbeat and uplifted,
make the decision to exercise based on how you know it will make you feel not in how you're already feeling.
And the same applies with getting started with a deadline.
We also spoke about a few tools in the talk that will help in relation to the three minute carrot and tips to keep going and with thoughts.
I think we thoughts that are part of that vicious cycle that that fuels anxiety and stress.
We it can be helpful to be open to the possibility that they're not facts and
that we can test them and we can collect evidence for it or against them,
and then we can update them. And then the updated thought is likely to lead to less anxiety and less less stress.
Like you said, we are approaching the end of this session, but before we do finish,
I would like to go to each of the panel and just ask if they have any other final comments that they'd like to make.
So Robin. I think I just pick up on what Jim was just saying about scheduling.
I mean, that's clearly really in many ways the secret to it and being a bit disciplined about it.
But it just made me think that actually, if you make a little slot for some sort of exercise, you know,
it doesn't matter whether it's going for a jog, as you can do down through the woods as it were or Zoom Zoom bear on Zoom, as they say.
The thing about exercise is once you get into the swing of it, it makes you want to do it again.
So there's a kind of incentive to keep making a slot available, so I'd go for a little gentle exercise.
It's always good for the mind. Thank you. Any final thoughts for me?
Yeah. Well, a few weeks on a few weeks ago on Twitter, the writer,
Damian Barr posted a poem and and it sort of recognised that the fact and I think it came
from the fact that a lot of people are talking about us all being in the same boat.
And he talked about, we're all in the same storm, but we might not all be in the same boat.
And that really resonated for me because I think the reality is that people are
in all sorts of different situations right now that may not be comparable,
and some people might be in a much less watertight, seaworthy boat than others.
And I think it's just about not beating yourself up if you find yourself in a situation that is so
much more challenging than other people and just looking for things like what can you control?
What activities give you a sort of sense of belonging, a sense of purpose?
What can you do to kind of show your boat up and get as much support as you possibly can?
And, you know, things like getting outside in nature, doing exercise,
all the things we talked about, I think, are really important trying to notice the positives.
You know, the fact that you might have a bit more time in bed, you might be able to wear comfortable clothes.
You might not be a technological genius. You know, all of those things, I think trying to harness them.
But at the end of the day, being compassionate towards yourself and others and not giving yourself a hard time if you're
not being productive in the way that you'd like to or potentially might see other people being.
Thank you, Jen. Any final thoughts for me? Yeah, I think it can be helpful to recognise that what we're going through, whilst it is a massive change,
it is also temporary and we are changing day by day in terms of the information that
we get and the plans that we have in relation to keeping safe with coronavirus.
And whilst we are at home, it won't be forever and we will be able to socialise at some point.
So sometimes just knowing that the situation that we're in, however anxiety and stress filled it is as temporary can be helpful.
And the other thing that I think is really important that I'd like to get across is how important it is to get out of our heads.
And I don't mean blind drunk, but I mean, how important it is to shift our attention away from our thinking and getting
into the outside world or the task at hand can really reduce stress and anxiety.
And this is one of the reasons why exercise is so helpful because when we are exercising,
it's actually really hard to also be be worrying and dwelling about things from the past.
So I think that can be very helpful. And I think also, you know, finally,
the sense of compassion so important to speak to ourselves with kindness in this lower stress hormones makes us more optimistic
better problem solvers to solve the stress that we are experiencing whilst we're going through this corona pandemic.
So compassion is really, really important for ourselves and for other people.