When You're Chronically Anxious

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Good morning, my friend. So grateful to be back with you. It's another Friday 5-minute self brain surgery operation.

[00:00:06]I'm your friend Dr. Lee Warren and we are going to get after some work related to what you can do when you're chronically stressed or anxious. These Friday operations are just trying to give you something practical, really tactical that you can do right now if you're feeling or dealing with certain things. We talked about acute anxiety and panic a few weeks ago and I gave you an operation called the anxiety ablation. You use that one if you're having a real panic attack or some real trouble or you might need to call a doctor or get some help and talk to your therapist about that.

[00:00:38]But this is more of a situation that many of us face where we just kind of feel chronically stressed. Like like things always feel hard.

[00:00:46]You're always feeling kind of anxious and you're not sure what to do. So I'm going to give you an operation today to use when you feel anxious or stressed, when you anticipate a situation that often provokes anxious feelings, or when you find yourself worrying about things that haven't happened or are not likely to happen, but you're worried about them anyway. Now again, don't use this if you're having an acute panic or anxiety attack, okay? It's not enough. This is a whole different issue. This sort of chronic stress is very different than an acute attack. So go back to the anxiety ablation episode a while back or talk to your therapist to get some kind of different strategy if you need for acute anxiety or panic attacks. We're talking about chronic stuff here, an almost constant feeling that you have of being stressed out. Now we always do a time out when we're going to do an operation and before we do the time out, we scrub in. If you're new around here, the scrubbing in is what we do before we go to the operating room. Now I open up thing of soap and I wash my hands and scrub stuff off of my skin for about 6 minutes before I do an operation. And that helps me get not only my hands clean so I don't bring anything into the operating room that might contaminate my patient or cause an infection, but also gives me a chance to sort of center myself and try to make sure that I'm not distracted or thinking about something else. I want to make sure I'm fully present and aware of what's going on for the benefit of my patient. They deserve for me to be all the way there. And if you're going to take this time out of your life to do this hard and holy work, I'm really proud of you by the way, for showing up today to do that. If you're going to take the time, make sure you get the most out of it. So, take a second, take some deep breaths, and get that vagus nerve activated, and get your frontal lobes to come online, and get the anxiety kind of calm down. Take a breath in and breath out a little bit, and just convince yourself that you actually have control with your mind of what your body's doing, that you can focus your attention, that you're not too distracted or trying to multitask.

[00:02:35]You can actually bring yourself fully present to the operating room here, cuz your patient, who is you, deserves your full attention. So, let's do a time out. The next thing we do is we go into the operating room after we've scrubbed in, and we just stop for a second. We all get on the same page about what exactly it is that we're doing here. You wouldn't want a surgeon operating on you if they were confused about the reasons why they were there.

[00:02:58]So, for this operation, we're here to reduce anxiety, we're here to reduce stress, and to clear our thinking about a particular situation. We don't want to feel tense or worried or uncomfortable anymore.

[00:03:11]Especially when anxious feelings sort of arise even in the absence of anything that's really going on. We're just sitting on our couch thinking about tomorrow, and all of a sudden we get anxious. We don't want to do that anymore. So, the goal of this operation is to bring more peace and relaxation to our mind, our brain, our body, our life by reducing anxiety, stress, or worry.

[00:03:31]Now again, it's intended to support your approach to managing stress and anxiety.

[00:03:36]But if you're struggling making progress, or this is a real problem for you, seek professional help, okay? Don't ever let any of my advice here replace the advice of your medical professional, your health mental health professional.

[00:03:48]Just make sure that you talk to somebody if you're really struggling. Now, what's the neuroscience here? The hippocampus of your brain, which is in your temporal lobe, plays a key role in regulating emotions, regulating memory, and cognitive processes. It acts as sort of a switching station, like a switch yard.

[00:04:04]Here in Nebraska in North Platte where I live, we have the world's largest railroad switch yard. And they used to in the old days, they would manually have to throw a switch to get the train track to move from one to the other if they wanted the train to go instead of this way to go that way.

[00:04:19]And your hippocampus is sort of like that. It can either direct information flow between the frontal lobe and the hippocampus, or it can direct it from the hippocampus down to the amygdala, and you can either be in a rational kind of problem-solving mode, or you can be in an anxious fight or flight sort of protect yourself mode, but you can't really be in those two modes at the same time. The hippocampus acts as kind of a one-way switch. So, I hear people all the time when I say that, they say, "No, that's not true. I can be anxious and grateful at the same time." You really can't. You're just really good at switching back and forth. So, the point of this operation where we want to try to divert our attention away from something that's making us feel anxious and activate the frontal lobe and other parts of our brains that are going to help us be more cognizant, more calm, regulate our emotions, things like that, we're going to have to get that switch working in our favor and going in the right direction. So, the hippocampus is this this switch. It's the handle that used to change the direction of the train tracks. It handles this information flow between different brain regions, including amygdala, like I said before, that handles fear, anxiety, and stress, and the prefrontal cortex, which handles rational thought, and calmness, and decision-making. So, beyond just simple information routing though, the hippocampus also serves as sort of a librarian. It retrieves memories and encodes new ones, and it acts like a threat detector or a guard dog, so to speak, like a security guard, constantly scanning for danger and threat.

[00:05:42]And so, functionally, what it does is it sort of perceives a situation, even if you're just imagining it, and it tries to find something relevant in your experience, to other times that you perceived something similar, and it tries to give you context and and help you make sense of what's happening. Is this a threat, like last time I felt this way, or is it okay? Is it safe, like some other time, or maybe like I never feel. And it prompts the response that it's most wired to create. And notice this, a lot of us begin to believe that we're just are the way that we are, that we're always anxious or whatever, but that's not true. What we've done is we've used Hebb's law, we've used neuroplasticity to train our hippocampi, that's the plural of hippocampi, okay? So, we've trained them to stay in an activated anxious state.

[00:06:29]But they're not inherently anxious.

[00:06:30]We've just taught them to do that. Maybe taught them to do that before you're aware that you taught them to do that.

[00:06:36]Because when you were little, maybe you were constantly in a situation that was dangerous or stressful, and you didn't know that that pondering on those things all the time was was wiring your hippocampus to stay in that state. It wasn't your fault that you got that way.

[00:06:49]But once you understand that it happens that way by repeated pondering or thinking about situations or worrying about situations or staying in a worrying state, once you know that that's what causes those automations, and that switching to a different kind of prevailing thought process will cause new automations, now you can stop thinking it's identity, and you can just use it as insight to help you improve how you feel.

[00:07:12]Because insight then creates responsibility. So, now you've got some skin in the game. Now you've got something you can do. And once you know you can do something, then it begs the question, or at least raises the question. Any of my philosophy friends out there might think that I misused the phrase "beg the question" there, but let's just say it raises the question of do I want to stay anxious? Am I getting some secondary gain out of that?

[00:07:35]Does it help me in some way socially or make me feel safer to stay in an anxious state?

[00:07:40]Or do I want to actually try to live my life in a different way? Now I have a responsibility because I can choose. And once you have a choice, then you no longer a victim. Now you are responsible. And so we get to choose.

[00:07:52]Are we going to automate the fight or flight, fight or freeze, fight or flight or fawn, one of those kinds of sort of protective runaway type responses? Or do we want to automate a frontal lobe engagement where we get our executive function to help us seek a calm and rational response to the situation?

[00:08:07]We've talked about before, the brain's always running these automation sequences. It consents to automate. Are you giving your brain permission to automate something with your mind? And your brain is asking you permission all the time, "Hey, do you want me to do this thing?" And when you sort of mentally consent, especially if you think that you have to, if you believe all your thoughts and feelings and you think you're obligated to react to them, then over time your brain will ask less of you and it'll just automate these things and you'll think it's just how you are.

[00:08:35]And because of that feature in your brain's design, like I said before, you've got opportunity to use neuroplasticity and self-brain surgery to your advantage. Lots of studies indicate that cultivating gratitude can reduce stress and anxiety. So, practicing gratitude strengthens your hippocampus and enhances its activity, making it more likely to switch from the amygdala-driven stress reaction toward a calmer frontal lobe-driven response.

[00:09:01]Now, every time I say that, somebody emails me and says, "Hey, I really don't have anything to be grateful about. My life is objectively terrible. I'm in a bad marriage or I have an abusive husband or bad father or everybody in my house is an alcoholic or I'm always getting yelled at or something."

[00:09:15]Somebody says, "I don't really have anything to be grateful for."

[00:09:18]And I would just challenge you, if you don't think there's anything really in your life to be grateful for, then just choose to be grateful that your brain is designed in a way that can help you not be as anxious if you would prefer to be more calm. And you can be thankful that your brain will respond and will support you in that goal. So, you can say, "You know what?

[00:09:38]I'm really grateful for my hippocampus.

[00:09:40]And I'm really grateful that there is a switch that I can learn to engage instead of just being forced to be anxious all the time because I can choose. I can learn how to pull that lever and get my frontal lobes on in.

[00:09:50]And all I have to do is spend a minute kind of meditating and pondering the fact that I do have a choice here."

[00:09:56]And you can prove it to yourself by choosing, instead of becoming more and more progressively anxious by focusing on what's making you anxious, you can choose to take some deep breaths. This is the basis of all breath work and all vagus nerve oriented therapy.

[00:10:11]Is this activating the parasympathetics or activating your breathing. And all of that, I would just remind you, requires a mental choice before you can start doing it. So, the idea that you're just simply too dysregulated to get gratitude working to drive your frontal lobes is is inherently false. Because in order to engage in any of the types of therapeutic interventions that we teach people, we want to engage our breathing, we want to engage our vagus nerve, we want to do carotid massage and slow our heart rate down.

[00:10:40]Any of those things require first a mental choice to have been made. Okay?

[00:10:44]So, you always have a choice. And that's something you can be grateful for. And again, Hebb's law, neurons that fire together wire together, is what causes this to happen. And that's why the ninth commandment of self brain surgery reminds us that I must believe I'm getting better at what I'm doing. The guiding scripture here, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God.

[00:11:10]And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. That's Philippians 4:6 and 7. Notice how Paul here advises you to let anxiety give way to gratitude because it will by design.

[00:11:25]Over time, thankfulness strengthens your hippocampus and helps it become more emotionally regulated and able to engage the frontal lobe for calmness in stressful situations. And the way you do it, how do you do it? Throw the switch in your mind. See yourself grabbing the lever in your hippocampus when you start to feel anxious. Just think of one thing you can feel grateful for. And just see yourself sort of pulling yourself towards that grateful thought. You see it in your mind. Like visualization is really important. Like see that switch and grab it with both hands and say I'm so grateful that I have an ability to throw a switch and make it happen. And since the brain can't really multitask, when you keep your focus on the thought that's making you less anxious, that's more gratitude-oriented, the hippocampus will direct activity and blood flow to your frontal lobes, the amygdala will calm down, and that will allow you to stay calm and make rational decisions rather than being triggered by stress hormones that are released by the amygdala. Okay?

[00:12:24]Second thing you can do is inhale the miracle of mindfulness. If gratitude feels elusive, if it's hard, especially when you're in challenging moments, just try this. Take a deep breath, hold it for about 4 seconds, and slowly let it out and process a conscious thought that with each breath, you are inhaling about 25 sextillion molecules. That's an astronomical number, and it's a huge gift that sustains you. There's oxygen in the room. Be grateful for that. Focus on the miracle of being able to control your breathing. And say I'm so grateful that I can choose to take a breath. And just picture that oxygen getting to your hippocampus and see yourself pulling that switch towards gratitude, and watch those oxygen molecules flow up to your frontal lobes, and watch them run away from your amygdala. And without oxygen, your amygdala is forced to metabolically slow down and turn itself off, and you're going to become more rational, more calm, able to make a better decision, and you're going to prove yourself, my friend, that you're a practicing self brain surgeon. You've handled the situation. You've learned how to operate it instead of just being afraid of it.

[00:13:34]This practice creates new synapses in your brain that make choosing gratitude more automatic over time, and you can remind yourself, "I'm thankful for the oxygen and for Hebb's law and for neuroplasticity, and it's helping me be less stressed and less anxious." What have you done here? You've effectively reversed the sick synapse that used to drive you toward stress and anxiety, and you've grafted in a new path, the gratitude graft.

[00:14:00]And it's going to reinforce your confidence that you can breathe your way out of stress and anxiety in the future.

[00:14:06]Don't forget to make an upper portal, okay? Take a piece of paper or in your journal, write down a situation or an emotion that typically makes you feel anxious or stressed, and allow yourself to notice how it usually makes you feel.

[00:14:18]And then take a deep breath, focus on how that oxygen is sustaining you, express gratitude for it, and notice if the feelings of stress or anxiety begin to lessen. Maybe start with "How anxious do I feel right now?" and write it down from 1 to 10, and then do it again at the end of the exercise, at the end of the operation, and write it down again, and just prove to yourself that you can actually lower your anxiety. That'll give you confidence going forward. Document the experience, and try this exercise with other sources of gratitude over time, and note whether your overall levels of stress and anxiety diminish and if you're able to regain emotional control more quickly.

[00:14:53]If this is helpful to you, share this episode, smash that subscribe button, hit the little bell icon so you get notified about new episodes, and I would love it if you would check out my new book, The Life-Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery. That's where these operations come from. There's 15 of these in there for all kinds of situations from anxiety to depression to grief to stress to high performance, all kinds of things. It'll be very helpful in your management and in your practice of self brain surgery. I'm your friend, Dr. Lee Warren. It's been an honor to be back with you today. I'm so grateful for you, friends. Don't forget you can't change your life until you change your mind. And the very good news is you can start today.

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