I am going to walk you through step by step how I am using cold exposure therapy or polar plunges or ice baths to learn how to heal a dysregulated nervous system. And so what we're going to do is we are going to invite you to ask questions. I'm going to teach a little bit, and then I am going to walk you through, and you're going to see me live as I climb into a barrel of 34-degree water. There's my husband, Christopher Robbins—and I'm going to climb into this barrel of 34 degree water, and you're going to watch me go from a state of high stress, high anxiety, high panic in my body, and I'm going to breathe myself from the inside out. I'm going to calm my nervous system. And so if you have questions about anxiety, does it really work? Yes, it works. You see, when you are somebody that feels waves of anxiety, there are two things going on. Number one, when you feel a wave of anxiety, how many of you feel waves of anxiety, or you have somebody that you love who feels waves of anxiety, right? A wave of anxiety is just your nervous system sounding an internal alarm.

That's what a wave of anxiety is. Your nervous system believes that something around you requires you to pay close attention. When that wave of anxiety hits, there's a number of physiological things that happen in your body, namely all of the blood gets pulled from all over your body and goes to your major organs. Your thoughts start to hyper-focus, your heart starts to raise, your stomach starts to get in knots, andthat's all just a chemical and physiological response to the fact that your nervous system thinks that there's something going on that requires you to pay attention. Now, the problem for me, when I was really struggling with anxiety, is the second that I felt a wave of anxiety, so many of my thoughts would start to spin. And because my body was feeling this wave of anxiety, this fight-or-flight feeling, my thoughts would start to go, Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't like this. I don't like this. And because my thoughts would start to spin, the wave would get more intense, and the wave would start to crash more and more.

And so there are two things that I'm going to teach you today. Number one, when a wave of anxiety hits, I want you to understand your body is just starting to go into a default mode. This is called your sympathetic nervous system. You have two nervous systems: your sympathetic and your parasympathetic. Sympathetic is fight or flight. It's the, Oh, my gosh. It's the wave. It's normal to feel waves of anxiety, everybody. It's normal to wake up and feel anxious. It's normal to feel a wave of anxiety after you've been drinking. It's normal to feel a wave of anxiety if you're walking to work and you hate your job. It's normal to feel a wave of anxiety if you're walking into a restaurant and you're about to meet somebody that you don't feel really emotionally safe with. Your body and your nervous system is sounding an alarm. Pay attention. It doesn't mean danger, just means pay attention. Anxiety becomes a real problem. And you're hanging out with a woman who struggled with anxiety for 30 years. Anxiety becomes a problem when that wave, which is normal, sounding the alarm, pay attention—signals your mind to start racing, okay?

And so, number one, I don't want you to freak out when you feel a wave of anxiety. Go, Oh, don't say, I am anxious, or I have anxiety. I say, Oh, I feel a wave of anxiety. When you label it as a wave of anxiety, you can now distance yourself from it, and you can now manage riding the wave. Because what happens with all waves, everybody? They go up and then they come down. Everything that goes up eventually comes down. And so when I see those of you in the comments going, Yep, every single day at work, Mel, I'm feeling a wave of anxiety. There's something up at that job that's making your nervous system go, Pay attention. Pay attention. And so that's why you feel on edge. That's why you're like, Ah. Now, the second thing you're going to learn today is you're going to learn that once you label, Oh, I feel a wave of anxiety. I just want you to say, Label, I feel a wave of anxiety. The second thing we're going to do is we're going to control your thoughts. And you can control your thoughts through your breathing, okay?

I'm going to teach you. You're going to breathe in for eight seconds and out of your nose, okay? Now, I'm going to invite you guys to please ask questions because I am about to climb into this ice barrel. I see questions about, How am I able to deal with it without medication? Well, that was a process. I will make another video about that. Everything again, everybody, that I'm about to show you, this is not medical advice. I am not a therapist. I'm not a licensed doctor. I am a woman who struggled with anxiety for 30 years and using the five-second rule to get control of my thoughts by interrupting them, YOLO, and by learning a lot about my nervous system and learning how to recognize a wave of anxiety and not let my mind freak me out when it happens, not escalating it with my thoughts. That was step number one. Step number two was using lots of different techniques to be able to recognize when I go from a state of feeling on edge and stressed out and fight or flight and feeling that wave, to being able to breathe myself and soothe myself into a state of being calm, quiet, confident.

You can see me putting my hand on my chest right here, the vagus nerve. This is the on-off switch between your anxious and your—I'm looking for something to show you. Your anxious and your fight or flight and your calm, cool. I write about this extensively, by the way, in The High-Five Habit, which I've read for free on our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube. Com/melrovins, and you can find all of our videos. But today I'm going to show you what I do with The Cold Plunch because you guys have had so many questions about it. And we're going to be doing a lot more content about this because I don't think it's possible to truly love and enjoy your life if you feel like at any moment anxiety is going to hijack you and ruin your life. And that was me for 30 years. I finally started taking control of my thoughts, and then I learned how to take control of my nervous system. Now, here is Chris. Let me tell you what's making me nervous. Chris is actually in a vest and a hat. Is it that cold today?

Well, I don't know how long we're going on here, but I'm going to be warm.

Okay, so you guys can ask videos. I'm about to go into a ice-cold barrel. Now, first of all, does anybody have any questions about why cold exposure has been helpful for me for anxiety? And by the way, cold exposure can be taking a shower every morning and then finishing your shower by turning the water to the cold setting and standing there for 15 seconds and then 30 seconds and then a minute. Cold exposure could mean climbing into the ocean or a lake when it's really cold, or a river where it's really cold. Cold exposure, guys, could mean pouring your bathtub full of just cold water and then climbing in it. And the reason why I do cold exposure, I was introduced to it-.

It could also be without water. You could just-.

Sit in the snow?

You could strip down and be standing out in very cold temperatures.

Why do you do this? Well, Chris and I got interested in this because we kept seeing the Wimhoff videos, the dude that's always sitting in the snow with the beard and the cool accent. We took a workshop. Chris is a certified yoga instructor. He's a Buddhist meditation instructor. He's a soon-to-be death doula, hospice volunteer. This guy is Zen. Me, not so much. I was really interested in it because I wanted to see. Could I train myself to go from a state of panic into a state of calm? Could I sit in a safe situation, namely an ice-cold barrel of water, and breathe myself into a state of calm when the situation around me was freaking my body out. And so I... The answer is yes, you can, and it has helped immensely. And so I'm going to give this to Chris because he's going to film me as I go out here. So we're going to step outside, everybody, to... Oh, God, it's cold. To Vermont. Okay, welcome to southern Vermont. Okay, so here's the barrel. One of the things... Oh, my God, you filled this up, Chris? Chris put it to the top. Okay.

The thing is that there's like two... There's three actual benefits in terms of anxiety. So number one, every morning when I wake up, I know that I'm going to climb in this when I'm here in Vermont, and I already dread it. How many of you have things that you dread in life that you think about it and you immediately feel that wave of, I don't want to. So simply knowing that there's something that I'm going to force myself to do that I don't want to do and feeling that wave of resistance in my body and having the just willpower to push through it, the personal commitment that I'm going to do it even though I don't want to, that's breakthrough number one. Because that same resistance of, I don't want to, is what used to keep me in bed in the morning, feeling anxious and letting my thoughts spiral. So simply just saying to myself, I'm going to freaking do this even though I don't want to. I'm going to finish my shower with going cold, even though I don't want to. That's breakthrough number one. And these are skills that you can use everywhere, everybody.

And if you get questions, Chris, just hammer me with them. Breakthrough number two is when you actually get dressed and now you're out here, my feet are freezing. There's still snow on the ground. It's probably 40 degrees here. I'm standing here without a jacket on. My husband has on a hat and a vest, and pushing through and climbing in is breakthrough number two. Breakthrough number three, when it comes to taking control and healing my trauma and my dysregulated nervous system and learning that I can, in any situation, flip from a state of stress and anxiety into a state of, Okay, I'm okay, soothing myself. It's a superpower. And so what you're going to witness is you're going to witness me climbing in there. And the second I climb in, it's fucking freezing. And so you're going to see me tense up for real. And then I'm going to blow out the air and submerged down to here. And here's one more thing. A lot of you are asking that I have Rainos, but my hands get cold. I have Rainos, which is a circulatory issue that's related to arthritis. I didn't want to try this because I was afraid that my hands would get even worse, that the numbness would get worse.

It's actually getting better by safe cold exposure. So I'm going to climb in here. You're going to watch me breathe through this. And then, Chris, you can have them ask questions. And I'm going to stay in there for a minute, okay? You don't have to be a superhero. You don't have to do it for 10 minutes. Just simply knowing that you've made A, the promise to do this and dreading it, that's breakthrough one. B, stepping into that shower or that tub or stepping outside, that's breakthrough two. Three, feeling the pressure and the wave of anxiety hit you and breathing through it, that's breakthrough number three. Every single one of those you are building the muscle, everybody, of knowing that you can stand in discomfort. You can feel resistance. You can feel waves of anxiety, and you have it within you to get yourself through it. All right, here we go. Yes, I'm throwing this. This is really full. Why did you have to fill this off?

You're just going to press it all out. It's all good.

I've never seen it this full, you guys. My heart's racing. I do this all the time, and every time I go in, I know it's going to suck. That's one of the things about this. You never turn on the cold water in a shower, it feels good.

Do we have a question? So one question is, do you breathe through your nose or.

Your mouth? I breathe through my nose. I would watch the videos, but I breathe through my nose eight seconds, breathe out. But I breathe out of my mouth to get in. Okay, here we go. Because now I'm starting to feel a major wave of anxiety.

Other people are anxious.

For you. Anxiety spreads. Anxiety spreads. Okay, you want to... Okay, here we go. Holy shit. Holy shit. Okay, I'm feelingNo, it's not warm. It's freezing.

It think everybody is shocked. They have no questions for you at the moment. One question is, where did you get the barrel? And you can see right here the brand is Ice Barrel. You can find it online. Yeah. Another question is, is it easier the longer you're in? No.

No.

Can't you get a cold from this?

I don't know. I don't know if you get a cold from it. What I'm what I'm experiencing is my hands and my feet are tingling. It. My skin feels super tingly, like pinpricks all.

Over it. When in chronic pain, how long do you do this for? I don't know.

I think you need to talk to your doctor.

My understanding is that anything between two and five minutes is maximum required because after five minutes, the value dissipates.

I've actually never been in it longer than four… I typically stay about 90 seconds. What happens the longer you stay is that you're… When I first got in you guys, there was this moment when I was in labor with our first daughter, where the contractions were so scary and my heart was racing and my mind started to spin. I thought, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. Thankfully, we were.

To do something… Is it hard to calm your breath?

In the beginning, it was. But as you noticed, I went from really labor breathing in and out of my nose to signal to my body that I'm okay and to shut my fucking.

Mind off. How come you are not shivering? That's your breath controlling your body, right?

I'm shivering in the water a little bit. But did you guys notice that 30 seconds in, I went from really labor breathing to being pretty calm? I mean, I'm not sure of this, but my body's calm. I don't feel any anxiety. I feel discomfort. I mean, it's freaking freezing in here, and I'm starting to shake a little bit, but I'm not feeling away from anxiety. My heart's not racing. My thoughts are basically at the mountain. Look at that view, you guys. Yes. And so I'm shaking and I'm cold. I'm really cold, but I'm not scared. And I'm not like, I got to get out of here. I got to get out of here. I got to... Even saying that made my heart race. Let me get back calm again. I've been in.

For a while. Any.

More questions? I did. 90 seconds is plenty. 90 seconds is enough for me.

Would you have a hot bath now? I don't have one.

But I don't need a.

Hot bath. Is it okay to do a cold shower before bedtime?

Oh, my gosh. You get a great night's sleep.

It's the best before bed.

I think a cold shower, honestly, everybody is harder than this because only having my head or my shoulders hit the cold water feels like my pants. Now I'm shaking. What do you do after?

Why don't you show them what you do after when you climb out?

Here we go. I'm just trying to get the water in. I'm just trying to get the water in. I'm just trying to get the water in. I'm just trying to get the water in. I'm just trying to get the water in. I feel like we need like a rail because I do feel shaking. Now, you get the horse stance to get the blood back in here, and then you wave your arms around to get the blood flowing because all the blood went to my heart and my brain to try to keep me warm. And I'm getting the circulation going again. Yeah. Activate. Now, see how red my arms are? That's the blood coming back in. And ironically, I'm warm. Let's go inside because. Do you have any other questions? Other questions while I'm soaking wet? Other questions?

How many minutes for a beginner?

I tried to just do for a minute. I'm not in the shower. For the shower, I did 30 seconds. The first time Chris and I did it, though, you guys, we did it in a workshop, so they wanted us to go 90 seconds. But if you have a friend there supporting you, try to go for a minute. I didn't bring my hands down for a long time. But now I put my hands down and I shove them in between my thighs, which are basically like meat knittons. I just give them work on there.

There's a lot of questions about, can you have a heart attack? And if I had open heart surgery, can I do this?

You have to talk to your doctor, everybody. If you have any concern about your health or your heart or stroke or any health condition, please talk to your doctor and please do this with somebody who's supervising you, who's been trained in cold exposure therapy just to.

Be safe. Is it okay to do this daily therapy?

Yeah, like a meditation practice. I literally just did yoga, and then I finished my exercise by going in there for 90 seconds. I hate it every time, but every time I do it, I literally access this switch inside of me.

Why is your skin red?

I think my skin is red because when you feel waves of anxiety or you're in a really stressful or fight or flight or emergency situation, your body sounds an alarm, okay? And if your thoughts start to spin, your blood goes to your major organs, to your brain so you can hyper-focus and pay attention, and to your heart so that you can run faster. And so when I get out, I believe that my arms are red because the blood is starting to come back and circulate through my body again. One of the reasons why this is important is because, again, there are good reasons why you have anxiety and waves of anxiety. When you feel a wave of anxiety before a test, for example, or before a big interview, and you get nervous and you feel that hyper, that alarm go through your body, your heart races, your armpit sweat, and you're like focused on everything, it's because right before an interview, right before a test, your body's sounding alarm, Hey, this is important. Pay attention. When I step into that ice cold water, which is literally about 34 degrees, the second you get into cold water, it could be life-threatening.

So your body sounds an alarm. Hey, it's important. Pay attention. Do not stay in here long. And so the blood goes from your digestive tract and from your limbs to your heart and to your brain because it's trying to keep you alive. When I started to breathe, and as you watch the video, if you're just joining us now, if you go back, you'll watch me, I get in, I have a whole wave of anxiety because I'm in ice cold water. So my body sounds the alarm, get out, this is dangerous. I submerge and then I breathe myself into a state where I'm telling my body I'm okay. And by breathing in, I go about eight seconds in through my nose and eight seconds out through my nose. It also quiet the racing thoughts. When I climbed into that barrel, you guys, my mind was like, get out, get out, get out, get out. This cold, this cold, this cold. Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out. It's sounding the alarm. As long as I'm focused on my breathing, my thoughts are racing. It's pretty amazing how this is a technique you can use to take control.

And I think even without the cold exposure, when your thoughts are racing, put your hands right here on your vagus nerve. This is an on-off switch between your fire flight nervous system and your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calm, cool, grounded in your body nervous system. Put your hands right here and just breathe in eight seconds. And then I usually say three sentences: I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved. And if you just keep doing that over and over, breathing in and breathing out to interrupt the racing thoughts, pressing on the vagus nerve to signal to your body that you want your resting nervous system to flip back on. And if you say, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved, in that moment, it's true. All right, I think that's it. Any other questions? No, none at all.

How is the Reynolds when you get out?

Normally, when I grocery shop, my hands turn white, and my Reynolds has gotten better because of this. I never would have believed it. I'm the person that literally, guys, when I reach in and grab French fries out of the freezer at the supermarket and I pull it out, my fingertips are numb. When I hike or ski, my toes are white. I was just in 34-degree water and they're red, they're not white.

Will you take a hot shower now?

Probably. Just to rinse off quickly and get into the day.

But there's no value or need necessarily, or that's not part of the practice?

I don't know. I honestly don't know. I mean, you feel warm and you get this adrenaline rush. I mean, if you've ever jumped in cold water, I grew up on Lake Michigan in Western Michigan, and they used to cut a hole in the ice and do these polar plunges for charity. When you jump into cold water, your whole body is like, woo! And so you get this adrenaline rush. I wouldn't need to, but I just want to rinse it, rinse myself off, that's all.

I think the last question that has come up a lot probably for people in warm climates is how do you prepare the ice?

Well, what you could do is just run your bathtub to cold. If you want to make it really, really ice, just buy a bag of ice at the gas station and throw it in there. But honestly, just freaking tap water that's cold is cold enough. You'll be surprised in your nose and out your nose. And final thing, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist. I'm a woman on a mission to literally live an amazing life to stop feeling such sadness and negativity and heaviness in my mind and my body and to really experience more joy and ease. I'm just sharing everything that's working for me, everything that I'm learning as I research, as I experiment with you in the hopes that I can save you some of the heartache and headache that I have caused myself because I didn't know any better. Your thinking patterns don't begin with a thought. What did they begin with? It's triggered by a feeling or an emotion. So your body reacts to something first. So you feel the stress first, or you feel the trigger related to past trauma first. You feel something happening in your body first.

And the mistake that we make is we then immediately race up to our heads and we assess with our minds, What does that mean? Oh, something must be wrong. Oh, I'm really stressed out. This isn't working. Then your thoughts, usually negative when it comes to some stress response, then dictate what you do next, which is yell or be frustrated or feel frazzled. What I'm going to tell you to do is to reverse that chain of events because everything begins with a sensation in the body. Your nervous system picks up on the cues around you first. Then it goes up into your mind and your mind tries to make sense of the sensation. And that making sense of, which is usually a negative interpretation, that then triggers a negative response. Let me give you an example just for those of you that don't have a steam shower or don't have time to jump in a cold plunge. Have you.

Ever noticed- I just had a cold bath.

I just fill it up with cold water or I take a cold shower. Yes, in either work. But have you ever noticed that you can be super frustrated or feeling really low energy or depressed or anxious. And if you go outside for a walk alone, that within 10 minutes you feel different. Yeah, totally. It's because you have shifted your physiological state. And when you shift or relax your physiological state, it relaxes your mind. And so I think a lot of us... And talk therapy is a fabulous thing if you can afford to do it. But what happens in talk therapy is you talk through all this stuff and you're in a calm state when you're in therapy, aren't you? So you're utilizing a part of your brain to talk through the issues in your life when you are in a calm, nonreactive state. And then if you ever noticed, you can talk for an hour with your therapist, but then you get out into your life and you get into the situation with your spouse or your kids or your colleague that you just processed with your therapist. You know that it is related to your trauma from childhood.

You know that you're working on not being a yelling. You know you're working on all these patterns. And yet you get into the situation- You're triggered. And you're triggered. And then all of a sudden you lose control again. And the reason why that happens is because it's not about your thinking first. It's about the fact that all of the triggers are stored in your nervous system and in your body. And you, in therapy, are using a part of the brain, your prefrontal cortex, which is present when you're calm. But when you get triggered in life, your kids are frustrating you. The traffic is terrible. You're exhausted and you didn't record the fourth podcast in the day. You're now in a different part of the brain and your nervous system is now flipped on. And so that's why you have to attack your mindset from your physiological state and you've got to use these tools. Now, a second thing that I want to say is this. I said that you can choose to become who you want to become at any moment. I subscribe to the whole body of research around behavioral activation therapy. Okay, what's that?

Behavioral activation therapy is act like the person you want to become now.

Act into the feeling instead of feel into the acting.

Yes. Let's just say that you are somebody who wants to be, I don't know, we'll just use an example. You want to be somebody like part of your bucket list because you've read Young Forever and you want to be a marathon runner and you're going to get back in shape, right? Instead of thinking about it, instead of being the you today that's 20 pounds over shape and the last place that you've run is to the car to try to beat the parking meter person. That's the last time you ever took a run. In order to become the new version of yourself, start to act like marathon runner would today. What do they do? Well, they have tennis shoes. They typically go outside every day. They might have different ways of eating. They probably follow different social media accounts than you do. They probably wake up at a different time. And so if you start acting like who you want to be today, an interesting thing happens with your mindset. You see, when your brain sees you doing something new, it starts to relate to you as that new person. This is why mantras often are bullshit.

Because people will want to learn how to love themselves, Dr. Hyman, and they will stand in front of a mirror. Affirmations. Yeah. After 40 years of beating them up, beating themselves up. I hate my body, I hate this. I'm a loser. I'm unlovable. Nobody's ever going to love you. You failed at this, you failed at that. Now look at the bags under your eyes and one boob's hanging lower and this, that, and the other thing. You've been saying that for decades. You cannot stand in front of that mirror and say the affirmation, I love myself, because your brain's like, Bitch, no, you don't. Did you see how you talk to yourself? I don't believe that. And so you have to take the actions first before you feel like it. Because if you see yourself following Dr. Hyman's protocol and eating in a way that actually activates the healing part of your body, your brain looks at you and goes, Oh, look at you. You actually do care about your health. And your brain starts to change the things it's telling you. It begins with your actions first.

And then what about the excuses that we all make? Oh, I can't because of this. I don't have time or I'm.

Too tired or.

I don't.

Have money or.

Whatever the.

Excuses are.

How do you.

Navigate.

That?

Because I think.

The idea of acting into the feeling is a.

Brilliant one. I often tell people that.

Just try it and then you don't have to actually decide you're going to do it.

You just have to.

Try it and then.

See how you feel. Yeah. Here's the thing about feelings that's interesting. I think you should ignore your feelings. What? Yeah, I do. We should.

Talk about our feelings.

Express our feelings. No, you should ignore... When it comes to change, you're going to have to ignore how you feel because you are never going to feel like doing something that is different than what you've always done. Your brain is not wired that way. Your brain is wired for certainty. Your nervous system is wired for safety. Your entire body is predisposed to keep you in the patterns that you're in because it knows them. Even though it sucks, Dr. Hyman, for you to tell yourself forever that you're unlovable or you're unworthy or you're always going to be with broken people, even though it sucks, it's familiar. It doesn't make any sense that you would tell yourself things over and over and over that continue to make you feel broken, but it's familiar. Any time you try to change a thinking pattern or you try to change a behavior pattern, your own body will shove resistance in your way because your body is biased towards wanting you to continue to eat what you eat, continue to think what you eat. Autopilot. Yeah, it's just on autopilot. And so number one, expect to never feel like it. Motivation is garbage.

It's not going to be there when you need it. Expect to not feel like eating what Dr. Hyman tells you to eat. Expect to not feel like interrupting the bullshit thoughts that you don't want to take with you in the future, expect to not feel like it. And so that leaves you with only one thing. You have to force yourself to do it. There is no other way. This is not easy. If it were, everybody would have six-pack abs. Everyone would have a million dollars in the bank. And so your excuses are always going to be there. And when you realize that there's nothing wrong with you, you don't lack the will, power, or discipline, that's not the issue. The issue is you've been waiting to feel like doing it, and you're never going to feel like doing it because this is what you've always done. And so expect the resistance to be there. And you can use the five-second rule. That's why I invented the thing. Tell us about that. What's the five-second rule? So the five-second rule- I wrote a book about it. I did. The five-second rule is a brain hack that I created in a moment of desperation because like everybody, I didn't feel like doing the things I needed to do to address the problems in my life.

It was 2007. My husband and I were 800 grand in debt. His restaurant business was failing. I had lost my job. Our entire life was what we put on the line to start the restaurant business. We had three kids under the age of 10. We were living in a fancy suburb outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and we were about to lose everything. I got checks for bouncing left and right. I was unemployed. Chris had not been paid in six months. Friends and family had invested in the business, so we couldn't really tell anybody how bad it was. At 41, Dr. Hyman, I found myself in a situation where I didn't even recognize myself. I never thought that this would be what happened to my life. I faced my issues and our problems by drinking myself into the ground, screaming at Chris, and blaming everything on him and basically sleeping in, hitting the snooze button five times, the kids were missing the bus. Here's the irony, is that even when you're in a crisis, you know what you should do. To do.

Some part of yourself that knew.

Of course. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you should get your ass out of bed and get a job. Get the kid's breakfast and take him to the school bus. Yeah, and the drinking isn't helping. Maybe you should tell somebody what's going on. Maybe you should ask for help. Maybe you should get outside and take a walk. This isn't PhD material-level crap that you need to do. But I couldn't make myself do it. Why? Because I didn't feel like it. When you start to blow off the little things, like getting up on time, eating healthy, practicing kindness to yourself, staying connected, asking for help, when you start to get the little things wrong, it just snowballs into everything being wrong. The good news is the way that you get back on track, and this is also what you believe and what your research and your work demonstrates, is that you get your life back on track, you get your health back on track, you reset your mind in the default ways that you think the exact same way by getting the little things right. Because when you get up when the alarm rings, your brain sees a human being that has the willpower to get up.

When you make your bed in the morning, your brain sees a human being that completes things. When you walk into the bathroom and you look in the mirror and you don't criticize yourself, but you give yourself a high five in the mirror, which is something I call the high five habit. Another bug. Yeah. You literally activate neuro pathways in your brain around positive encouragement toward self. When you journal, when you meditate, when you move your body, your brain sees a human being that prioritizes themselves. It's through the actions, the teeny, teeny little actions that snowball into massive transformation. One night, it was Tuesday. No, it was a Monday night in 2008. I mean, it was bad. We were a week away from a bankruptcy proceeding. Lean's on the house. Chris and I fighting like cats and dogs. I'm sitting in my living room and I'm like, Mel, you got to pull this shit together. Tomorrow is to do you a woman. You got to get up. You got to be nice to Chris. You got to look for a job. You got to get those kids on the bus. You got to do it all.

And what happened is I all of a sudden saw a rocket ship launch across a television screen. And I thought that's it.

That's the answer. I literally watched it. Yeah.

It was the dumbest story. I was four bourbon Manhattans into the evening, so it was probably alcohol that made me make the connection. But I was like, That's it. Tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off, you're going to launch yourself out of bed so fast, just like NASA launches a rocket, that you're not going to be in that bed, Mel, when the anxiety and the depression hit. Because I was having cascading panic attacks, like generalized at this point. The next morning, the alarm rings. All I did was count backwards five, four, three, two, one, and I stood up. That one decision changed the trajectory of my life. What I had discovered by mistake during one of the worst moments of my life is the single most powerful starting ritual, which is what habit researchers and neuroscientists call a technique, metacognition that you can use to interrupt old habit loops stored in the basal ganglia. 5-4-3-2-1 interrupts that encoded pattern, and it draws your focus to the prefrontal cortex, giving you a manual way to switch gears between autopilot, subconscious, trauma patterns, all of it, and activate the part of the brain that helps you change, that helps you learn new behavior, that helps you take control.

The five-second rule has now spread- That sounds like a holy grill. Oh, it is a holy grail. It's now being used in clinical settings with pediatricians. It's profoundly effective with OCD and PTSD. I had an entire inpatient wing. The medical staff in a Philadelphia hospital come and tell us that of all the things that they can give somebody on discharge after an inpatient commit, the five-second rule is probably the most effective thing because- To break it down. What is the five-second rule? The five-second rule is any moment where you know what you should do, but you feel the feeling come up: hesitation, anxiety, fear, heaviness, trauma, whatever it may be that causes that momentary hesitation. If you don't physically move within five seconds of that moment of hesitation, the subconscious part of your brain takes over. To physically move. You got to physically move. And so there's this window, this five-second window. Psychologists call this the difference between a bias toward thinking versus a bias toward action. Many of us, especially if we're analytical or we're introverted or we struggle with anxiety or ADHD or depression or whole trauma, we have a bias toward stopping to think and consider what to do versus doing what we need to do.

I'm talking about these windows of time where you're sitting in a meeting at work, you have an idea to share. Yeah. And you don't say it. Correct. You wonder why you're getting passed over at work. You wonder why you're not getting promoted. It's because you're not visible. And it comes down to these moments. Same thing at home. There's things you want to say. There's hard conversations to have. Or what about exercise? The hardest part is getting out the door. My mother used to say.

The minute I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.

Yes. Well, you don't even have to lie down because it goes away if you don't move within five seconds. She was an expert at that. Yeah. And so how you use it is in these moments or addiction, it's profoundly effective with addiction because you feel yourself drawn towards something. Five, four, three, two, one, count backwards, physically move away from the thing. So you just literally just.

Say five, four, three, two, one, and then.

Get your body up and go to the other room. Or do something different. Yeah. Here's the cool trip. You don't do jumping jacks or taking on your head or anything. No, here's the cool trick. Counting backwards is an action. Yeah. It's like a Trojan horse. Because let's face it, putting down the alcohol is difficult. It feels hard. You don't want to. You have this neurochemical draw to it. When you start counting backwards, five, four, three, two, one, you've actually made a decision not to do it. The counting is like the first domino that falls and then you turn and now you're moving in a different direction. The five-second rule became a tool that I used to push myself through the feelings and anxiety and depression and sadness and anger and grief and all the bullshit feelings that are very real that dictate what you do. You were in a really tough situation and it's understandable how you felt. Yes. And you could choose one of two.

Things, either.

To just go back to bed and.

Not.

Deal with it or wake up and deal with it. Yeah. But we make 30,000 decisions a day, and the vast majority of them we make with our subconscious. And if you want to become a different person, you have to make intentional decisions that are aligned with the person that you want to become. If you want to follow all of Dr. Hyman's advice, you have to make different decisions. And so counting backwards five, four, three, two, one is a tool that you can use to activate the part of the brain that you need to consciously make different decisions. And there's even more involved here because there's this famous researcher, Dr. Judith Willis, out at UCLA. And she has studied the impact that the nervous system has on decision making. And what she has discovered is that when your fight-or-flight, sympathetic nervous system is activated, so in situations where you're procrastinating, that's a fight-or-flight nervous system because procrastination is a freeze. Yeah, freeze. Right. Yeah.

Fight or flight.

And freeze. And freeze, right? Yes. And anxiety or nerves or nervousness or depression or just even worrying and overthinking, your sympathetic nervous system is now flipped on. Your prefrontal cortex, according to the research at UCLA, Dr. Judith Willis, your prefrontal cortex does not function in its full capacity when your alarm state is triggered. No, it can't. No, it can't. There's often a disconnect between.

The limbic.

System, which.

Is the reptile.

Lizard, thing, stress.

Response, and the frontal lane, which is the adult in the room. You see, this person.

Is an adult.

But why are they acting like.

A lizard? Yes. When you count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, the decision to count backwards is a moment of taking control. The counting itself is what activates the prefrontal cortex so that you make the choice to go walk outside so that you then lower your nervous system stress and then you could come back to what you need to do. It's profoundly effective with addiction, with suicidal ideation, with procrastination, with making more money. Because you're not going to make more money if you're not willing to make the sales calls. You can sit there and think about making them all damn day long. It's changed the lives of millions of people. It's just... And I love it because it's free. Anybody at any age can use it. Anybody in any language. Just don't count up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, it doesn't work. You have to count down. You have to because we have been taught to count up since we were little. So the act of counting up already happens in your subconscious. Counting backwards in the beginning, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1- You have to think about it. -correct. The more you use it, you are encoding a habit of taking action, a habit of courage, a habit of confidence, a habit of betting on yourself.

And so it becomes innate.

If someone's sitting there right now passionate about something, wanting to get inspired, wanting to do something, but they're settling for the pain of where they are. And that's why I asked that mediocrity and happiness question. It is really that dance between, I'm going to settle for where I'm at or I'm going to be where I want to be. How do you think about that journey?

How do you start? You know what just popped into my mind in a weird way? Cancer. If you got diagnosed with a cancer that was treatable, would you try to treat your cancer?

Yes.

Of course you would, because otherwise it would kill you. When you feel this call or this burning desire, and I feel like we all have this flame inside of us. We are not like a boiler where the pilot light can blow out. That is not how a human being is wired. You, whether you're stuck, whether you're in pain, whether you're suffering, you still have this flame inside you that is burning. And when you actively engage in your own campaign of misery and you actively tell yourself the reasons why it's not going to work, work, or the reasons why you can't do it, or the reasons why now is not the time, or you're never going to make it happen, or it was great for Jay or great for Mel, but nothing ever works out for you. When you engage in your own campaign of misery, you are creating literally a cancer inside of you that eats at you. And we don't realize that by engaging in this campaign of misery, because it's active, that flame is burning inside you and you are actively convincing yourself not to do anything. It is an active engagement. That's why I call it a campaign, because that flame is going to keep on burning, which is why the campaign has to get louder and the excuses have to get louder.

And you know what starts to happen? Is you start to listen to that campaign and you start to feel pain because there's something burning inside of you. And the only cure for this is to stop listening to that campaign and simply start taking small steps just one every day toward the thing that you want. I talk to my daughter about this all the time. So she dreams, absolutely dreams of being a singer-songwriter, solo artist with a successful career, literally stadium tours. And if I'm being perfectly honest, this kid has all of the talent and all of the... Like she's one of those five tool players, and she is a great person, kind, and just awesome. And she's even on a program for it, the best in the country. She has everything. She just has to do the work. What is the work? Well, the work is simply writing crappy songs every day. The work is not listening to the campaign of misery, because all around you you're going to see evidence of this person's better, or that person this, or this one's that, or that, Uh-uh. When you listen to that campaign in your head, it is like a cancer inside.

It causes pain because you can feel when you are giving up on your own potential, and that is the worst life to live.

And we're all... I remember I was the president of that campaign in my own life. And I want people to understand this is that everyone you think is doing something good with their life, at one point they were the presidents of this campaign in misery in their own life. I remember saying, Well, that never is going to happen for me. Those things only happen to those people. I remember also watching things, and this was the key one that I realized had to go. Me and my friends and my dream when I was young was to be a spoken word rap artist. That was my goal. I've always loved words. I've always loved having a large vocabulary. I've always loved bending words and making them rhyme. I think that's why I love words today, and what we do so much is that. We would sit there and we would watch rappers or artists that were up and coming, and we would critique them, and we would almost talk badly about them. We would criticize them, and we talk about how rubbish they were and how untalented they were. If we had those opportunities, how good we'd be.

I realized that today's culture is propagating that even more, because now we're just scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, and you'll see someone who's doing what you want to do, and you may think you can do it better. But instead of doing it, we're spending our time watching someone else doing it and going, Well, that sucks. That's rubbish. I actually have friends who message me stuff like that sometimes, and they'll be like, Look, I've been wanting to make videos for a while, and they'll send me someone who's made a bad video in their opinion. And I said, You know what's really interesting? When you're on social media, you look at everyone who's doing worse than you. I said, When I'm on social media, I look at everyone who's doing better than me and learn. There's those two mindsets. You're either criticizing someone or creating and learning and growing. And so I just feel what you're saying is so true. And I think I spent so much time thinking I had something, but then not doing anything with it.

Yeah. So a couple of things. I want to give everybody a visual. Because I find Jay is into words. I got to have a picture. My mind is not the words mind. You are either in the stands commenting about the game or you're on the court playing it. Right now I want you to think about that flame inside you, that dream that you have. I'm going to go back to my daughter who is on the court. But she will be the first to say that for many years she was engaged in her own campaign of misery, sitting in the stands, telling herself why she can't get on the court right now. I like that visual because at any moment it literally cuts right to the truth. Are you in the stands criticizing the people who are playing the game, or being jealous of them, or in the stands telling yourself it's not time to jump in, or are you on the fricking court? There's only two places to be in life. That's it. There is no middle ground here. And so what I want to say also is that being in the stands, it is loud.

It is an active thing that you're doing. This is not a passive thing that we do to ourselves. We actively argue against our dream and our potential. And that is 1,000 % tied to your happiness, to your confidence. Because if you are arguing against your own God-given potential, you are actively destroying your confidence. You're actively destroying possibility in your life. And here's the thing, you freaking know it. People know when they have imposter syndrome, they know it. They talk about it openly. And I also hate the term fake it till you make it. And here's why. When you say, I'm just going to fake it till you make it, you are calling yourself a fake. It amplifies your self-doubt. Instead, say this, I'm going to get on the court and try until I make it, because the pain of sitting in the stands and never getting down there is way greater than tripping on the court. Way greater. You're causing your... And this is the thing I want people to understand. You are causing yourself so much pain by laughing off and making jokes about how it's never going to happen. You are causing yourself so much pain by thinking about it.

Get out of the freaking stands and get back on the court in your life. I did this to myself for years about the podcast. I'll tell you some insane stories. So here I am crazy successful in the audiobook world. The most successful self-published audiobook in the history of audiobooks is the five-second rule that leads to a seven-book, Audible original deals with Audible because of the success of that. I kept telling myself, Jay, I'd look at you and I'd look at a ton of our other friends who have these amazing podcasts, you, Richroll, just everybody. And I'd be like, I missed the boat. I'm too late. There's 2 million podcasts out there now. I can't do this. I don't have anything different to say than Jay. Jay's already got it covered. Why would I jump in there now? And then I would, in the stands for six years. And you know what else I would tell myself? Well, you're just successful because Audible is your partner. And if you were to try this, you're going to fall flat on your face. And you don't have time. And here's another thing that I tell myself, Well, who on Earth is going to come to Boston to sit in a studio with you, Mel?

Everybody's remote now. Boston is not a media place. Nobody travels there. Like just in the freaking stands, telling myself, No, no, no. Now here's the thing about campaigns of misery. It does not actually mute the heartache and the pull that you have because your dreams actually can't leave you. They're meant for you. And so all that campaigning or the drinking or the numbing out or the avoiding the thing that is inside you, it doesn't make the dream go away. It just creates more pain. And so finally, it was two years ago that I'm like, I have to take my own advice, and I got to make some major changes because I knew when I was going to step into the podcast space that I was going to make it the only thing that I was doing, that I needed to complete all the speaking engagements that I had. I needed to create different boundaries. I had to get serious about taking the steps and getting on that court. And that's what I've been doing for the last two years. And a lot of people don't know that I actually got my start in 2007 hosting a local radio show.

And I have wanted to get back to radio for almost 12 years because I love the intimacy of it. You know this, you can't share your life in real time in an audiobook. No, definitely not. You can't do it in a 60-second reel. People. But I, too, sat there in the stands, actively engaged in my campaign of misery. Here's another area of my life where I engaged in campaign of misery, loneliness. I have been profoundly lonely for a while now. And by lonely, I don't mean alone because there's people around me. But I have, and I think a lot of people feel this way, and I know a lot of women do, particularly when your kids get older and the social things change. I think a lot of us are struggling with adult friendship and especially coming out of quarantine. People are now, I don't want to leave my house not because of anything going on, but because I like being home. I started to get serious about the fact that I was really in the stands in my life complaining to myself that I didn't see my friends, that I don't have friends, that I'm really lonely, but I wasn't on the court.

What are you going to do about it? Because it's easy to actually start making friends if you send texts every day to people and you make plans.

Oh, Jay's in Montreal. Why don't I text him? Oh, he's in the same hotel. Why don't I go up seven floors and go see him? Because my monk is in the penthouse. You know what I'm saying?

I love what you're saying. I can resonate with it so much. And there's a journey.

From-where is your campaign of misery right now?

Oh, that's a great question. Where is my current.

Campaign of misery? Where are you in the stands in your life, Jay?

Mine is actually, I grew up loving... I went to public speaking and drama school, and public speaking became a huge part of my life, and drama stopped. And drama is something I'd love to get back into. Really? Yeah, I loved acting growing up. I love the idea of getting into someone else's emotions, and I love the idea of learning about new characters and understanding. And I keep wanting to do it. And two years ago, three years ago, when the Bad Boys movie came out, I was asked by Sony to be in their theatrical trailer for TV. And so I played the role of a therapist with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. And I had so much... It was so uncomfortable because I hadn't done it for so long. I went to drama school for seven years. It was so uncomfortable doing it. And I got an acting coach that week, and I practiced, and I learned all my lines. And then I got there on the day and they gave me a new script. They said, Oh, the script's changed. And I'm going, Guys, I had five days. I knew about this five days ago.

I had an acting coach every day for two hours a day, and they give me a new script. Then they come in 10 minutes. I've been waiting around for two hours learning this new script. We get there and they say, Oh, by the way, Will and Martin have scrapped this script. There's no more script. They're just going to Freestyle. And you're going to have to free style. I'm like, You want me to free style? We're two of the greatest to ever do it. I'm not a comedian.

Now were you friends with Will at this point?

Not in the way we are today.

Okay. Because I think people might be like, Yeah, but you guys are friends. This is not a friend of mine. Yeah, we were.

Acquaintances, but not in the relationship we have today.

Okay, good. That's important.

Yeah. And I didn't know Martin at all. I'd never met him in my life. And so I am fully feeling imposter syndrome. I'm fully in my discomfort zone. And I had the most fun. You're on the corner. Yeah, I was on the court and I had fun. But then since that day, I retreated. And so that's been, if I'm completely honest, that's where my heart is. I love the idea of getting to be... I've always loved biographies, and I've always loved autobiographies. I've always loved true stories. And so if I had the opportunity to learn or play or be in a true story, that would fill my heart with a lot of joy.

Is there somebody that you would.

Dream of playing? No, I don't have that. That answer I don't have clear. But yeah, that would be my honest answer to that question. If that's something I'm in the stands on. There's so many excuses. I'm like, Well, Jay, if you did that, then it discredits all the work you've done up to now. Well, Jay, if you did that and it doesn't work out, then what about the people that you coach in that industry? If you did it and you did it really well, then people will call you a sellout because you chose to do something completely different. And it's not saying I want to do that and stop doing what I do today. It's just that there's a part of that expression that I'm so creatively inspired by that I'd like to try.

Yeah. I got an incredible question from JT Photofilm about a video that I posted yesterday that was me documenting a moment of anxiety and what I was doing to calm myself down. And JT asked this question about how is it that my husband, Chris, deals with my anxiety because anxiety is the most contagious emotion out there. You've all had the experience, right, where company is coming over and somebody is freaking out about the state of the house and cleaning like a frenzy, that would be me. It's so easy to catch somebody's anxiety. I wanted you, Chris, to address some of these questions because the first question was, do you ever catch my anxiety when I get anxious?

No.

I think you get annoyed.

At least not in the moment.

How is it that you don't catch it? Because I catch our daughter, Kemda's anxiety, or our daughter, Sawyer, or our son's anxiety. But you seem to be able to insulate yourself from other people's anxiety.

Well, I mean, it's a good question because I do sometimes find myself catching our kids anxiety, but I don't catch yours. And maybe that's just because of the amount of time that we've had together and the moments, frequent moments often where I've been the one sitting there with you.

And.

Trying to extract your anxiety, because that's really the technique that has always been so effective with you.

Can you explain that breakdown what you do? If I start getting anxious, like I did on Sunday, or I have throughout our 24-year marriage, what do you do? Because you have this superpower of being able to remain calm. And the thing that I find the most validating is even though you don't feel anxious, you are able to validate my reality of being anxious even though you're not in the same reality.

I mean, without giving it too much thought, I think some of it has to do with the fact that, first of all, I touch is huge. What do you mean touch? Meaning being able to hold your hand or being close and upfront and personal to what you're experiencing, and just pulling what you're feeling out of your mouth. That act of inviting you to describe what's going on, to give detail to it and to almost not let up, to keep pulling a thread what else is going on? What else is there? What else are you feeling? I think maybe part of the reason why I don't get triggered by it in that moment is because I've seen it work so effectively that once you get it all.

Out- It's.

Like barfing. -it dissipates. It's almost as though the calming nature of the question set and extracting that from your brain or from your heart or wherever you're feeling it, I know or I have a high degree of confidence that it will calm down. It may not just extinguish itself, but it will go away.

So can we break this down for people? Because I don't... I'm not very good at that.

I didn't watch your video the other day, so I wondered what.

You did to actually calm yourself down. I journaled. I talked to you. I then texted my three closest friends, Mindy and Lisa and Gretchen. And then I went for a really long walk, which stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system and calms you down. So technique number one is to give somebody a hug or hold their hand, center them with physical touch. Yeah.

Sit up close in front of them. Make sure that you have as much eye contact as you can have physically with that person.

Okay. I'm realizing that you do this consciously. You sneaky guy.

It's been a few years.

And then the second thing you do is give people the questions that you might start asking the person in your life that's feeling anxious.

Well, I would start with tell me about your anxiety right now. What are you feeling? What's happening? Not only physically in your body, but, of course, emotionally. I mean, those are the two main pillars.

And then you keep going and anything else. And he does that over until I'm literally like the tank is completely empty. You know what else I've noticed? And I think this is a really important thing, is that you don't respond to what comes out of my mouth.

No answers. You cannot provide any direction or guidance or go for the solve.

Why?

Because there is no solve, particularly when you're in the acute moment. There is no... Nothing is going to resolve that right there. And then even if you have the most best idea ever, which is super tough for guys in particular, I think, because we're so programmed to go for the solve rather than just be with it.

Here's what I just realized at the biggest possible level about why what you do with me when I feel anxious is so genius. Well, anxiety is all about uncertainty. And typically, it's about what you're afraid of in the future that's coming that you can't control. And by getting close to somebody physically, even if it's over a video call and you lean in, but you always sit very close to me or you give me a huge hug when I'm feeling anxious or you hold my hand, you're grounding me with physical touch back in this moment. And then the questions of extracting it get me to a point where I'm empty and no longer spinning, and I'm right back in this moment when I have nothing left to say. And because you don't either try to discount or solve or invalidate anything that comes out of my mouth, you just get it out. I'm able to get it all out because the second you would say, Well, you don't have to worry about that or this, that, and the other, somebody that's having anxiety will start to argue back. Back, which then takes you back into the future fear.

Yeah. Then you're jumping into a conversation, which is the last thing that the person who's suffering the anxiety wants to be having.

Since you've done this with me a hundred times, and we have kids that have some anxiety, what is it that you've observed when you get somebody back to zero and in the moment? What do you observe in the person?

I don't know. I've never really thought about that. I think what I observe is what you just said, which is people coming back to right now and how that is in and of itself is such a powerful grounding mechanism for... Because you're when you're right here, you're out of your head. You're not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or wherever the source of that anxiety may be coming from. You're present to your physical space and surroundings and that, I think, has a must. I know it has a profound effect on calming it, not necessarily extinguishing it, but certainly.

Calming it. I think that's your superpower. I really do. You are the most grounded, calm person in my life. I wonder if it's the years of having a meditation practice and being a practicing Buddhist that has trained that skill in you?

I think so. I mean, I've never... I've never sat down to think about where it comes from necessarily. But yes, in Buddhist tradition or practices, completely just being in observance and the act of deep listening, not just opening your ears, but really listening for what is being said is totally, that's right up a Buddhist alley for sure.

Now I know our kids like you more. I'm more fun, but you're the one that grounds.

Us all.

First, though, to recap, we explain the five-second rule for us. Yes, real quick. It's super simple. It's going to sound stupid. You can use it immediately once you hear it. The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal or you know you should do something, but you feel yourself hesitate, just count backwards; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That'll switch the gears in your mind. It'll activate your prefrontal cortex. Boom, when you hit one, go. There's a five-second window between your instincts that change your life and your mind killing them. It's critical that you learn how to wake up and take control in that moment. The five-second rule is going to help you do that as a tool for change and for making powerful decisions. You say that our brains are built to protect us from change and the scary things in life. Yes. But to hone on the point that these are our brains. What does our body do in those instances when we're faced with those scary things in life? Well, one of my favorite uses of the five-second rule is to use it for mind control. I say that with a complete straight face.

I used to be someone that suffered from tremendous anxiety. I took Zoloft for 20 years after Panic attack started in law school. Zoloft was a wonderful drug for me to take. I thought about anxiety a lot like, All right, if I were diabetic, I would take insulin. There's no shame in mental health. We've all got something going on. Take the drugs, stabilize your body, and get on with your life. About four years ago, I started to wonder — and this is a personal story, I started to wonder, Could I use the five-second rule to actually control my thoughts? Could I use it to cure myself of anxiety? Now, the answer is yes, you can, and yes, you should. But the reason why I was inspired to do this is because like so many of you, I have kids. Two of our three kids struggle with anxiety. We have a 17, a 16, and 11-year-old. For our 16 and our 11-year-old, right around the time they were 10, they both had these really acute moments of anxiety where they could no longer do sleepovers. They were limiting what they were doing. I mean, it's so sad when you see a little kid starting to edit their experiences in life because of their thoughts.

I thought about four years ago, Okay, if I really want to help my kids deal with anxiety, maybe it's time for me, Mel Robbins, to come off of Zoloft and try this five-second rule and learn everything that I can about neuroscience and anxiety and how it works and what it is and what it isn't and the connection between the feelings in your body and what your brain does so that I can help my kids. Because it's not really fair if mom's on Zoloft going, Oh, change your thoughts. But if I teach myself how to deal with the worries and the panic and the anxiety that I used to struggle with, maybe I could help them. Here's what I did. First, you have to understand what anxiety is, and you have to understand the connection between worry, which is something we all do, and self-doubt, which is something we all do, and anxiety. We all have a habit of worrying. Just for the sake of this conversation, habits are behaviors that you repeat when you're not paying attention. Believe it or not, it's not just nail-biting or tapping a pencil. A habit is even when you back up your car in the morning, if you look over your right shoulder, that's a habit.

It's behavior that's been automated in your brain. Worrying is a habit. Worrying is a pattern of thinking that you default to when you're not paying attention. When you're not paying attention, you're sitting at a meeting. It's very easy. Have you ever noticed how your thoughts just drift and you start thinking about, Oh, my gosh. Is my loved one okay? Oh, I wonder if I'm in trouble. You start immediately thinking and worrying, and we just default there. The connection between worry and anxiety is close cousins. Anxiety is what happens when your habit of worrying spirals out of control. Your habit, it's just like drinking. You might start drinking casually, and if you don't get that habit in check, it can spiral out of control into an addiction. So what happens when you are anxious is that you not only start to worry, but your body starts to feel really anxious too. Your heart will raise, you might start sweating. Yourthroat can get dry, you can get a pit in your stomach. When you start to feel the physical sensations of worry and anxiety, and then you got your mind drifting over to something's going wrong, that is when you can start to deal with anxiety.

If you have anxiety, you're not alone. They say that 30% of women suffer from anxiety at some point in their lives. I will tell you, I have been really startled by the number of men that come up to me at the end of speeches that I give, as among the corporate circuit giving keynotes, that come up and say, Do you have any more information about anxiety? Do you have any more information about anxiety? Nine times out of 10, it's for them. I think with all the rapid change in the world and technology and how much in everybody's jobs things are innovating, there is a rise in this habit of worrying, this sense of a loss of control, and feeling anxious is very normal. We talked a little bit about, I believe that you can control your mind. It's important for you to foundationally understand that anxiety and worry are the same thing. It's just that your body starts to get agitated, and that's when we call worrying anxiety, and you can actually beat it. Now, the key is stabilizing your thoughts. You can use the five-second rule to do that. One other thing I want to explain to you, and this is something that I was just on with Dr.

Az on his syndicated talk show talking about, is this exact conversation. How do you use the five-second rule to cure your anxiety, to control your emotions, to stop yourself from melting down? Here's something that you need to understand. First of all, when it comes to your body, in your body, there's no difference in your body between feeling excited and feeling anxious. No difference whatsoever. What do you feel when you're excited about something? You're going to go to... Who's somebody you would love to see in concert? Sting, at least. Okay, so Sting. Oh, Sting. Sting is playing. You've got incredible tickets. You are standing right there at the stage. The music's starting. He's about to come on. What are you feeling in your body? Those butterflies, the literal flutter inside. Yes, exactly. That we call excitement because you're there, you're going to see Sting. This is going to be amazing. Now, when you're worried about something or you're anxious about something, maybe you have to speak up. Maybe you have to give a speech. Maybe you have a tough conversation that you've got to have about the IEP for your kid and the advocacy that they need.

Maybe you got to talk about your getting a raise. Maybe you've launched a new business and you really want to share it with your friend. Right before you're about to do that thing that you've never done that you feel a little uncertain or a little insecure about, what does your body feel like? Exactly the same thing, right? You got the butterflies. You might start sweating a little bit. Your heart might race. Now, the only difference between Shelby being at the sting concert and you standing outside the meeting at your kid's school, going in to talk about IEPs and getting help for your kid, which was something that made me very nervous. The only difference between those two scenarios, because our bodies are doing the same thing, is that Shelby's brain is saying, Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. Sting is about to come. Oh, my gosh. She's not saying, I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous. Oh, my gosh, I'm at a concert. Oh, something must be wrong because I feel like butterfly. She's like, Butterflies. And she's like, Sting is about to come. Yes. Right? Yeah. Your brain is telling you. Your brain has context.

In this situation over here, you see a friend. You have this new business you've launched. You really want to share this idea with your friend. But you've got butterflies in your stomach. Your brain says something different than what Shelby's brain is saying. It's going, Uh-oh. She might think you're pushy. Maybe you shouldn't talk to her. This is not a good idea. You're not fully trained yet in this stuff. Or you're not ready to have this conversation. Who do you think you are to have this conversation? No. Your mind starts to get worried and basically says a bunch of negative garbage. Your body, by the way, excitement, fear, same thing. Excitement, anxiety, same thing. Excitement, uncertainty, same thing. Excitement, fear, exact same thing in your body. She's not afraid of stinging coming on stage, but her body is having all the same signals as if you were afraid of him, seriously. The only difference between excitement, fear, anxiety, worry, uncertainty, and stress is what your brain says it is. We can use that to our to cure anxiety and to cure the habits of self-doubt. Here's how you're going to do it. You're going to use the five-second rule to trick your mind into thinking that you're excited instead of thinking thoughts that actually expand the nerves, the anxiousness, all that stuff.

You use the five-second rule in combination with what we call an anchor thought. An anchor thought is a thought that makes you excited. It's a thought that makes you happy. It's a thought that will help you stabilize your brain. Because Shelby could have easily, at the sting concert, taken the butterflies in her stomach and started catastrophizing. Sting is not coming. I'm going to get trampled. I feel claustrophobic. Oh, my God. You could have done that, but she didn't, because her brain had something else that it was willing to anchor on to ground her, an excitement. What you're going to do, let's just take the scenario of you have a meeting that's making you really anxious. You have a presentation you're going to have to give. You have something that's important to you, and you're worried you're not going to be able to make the sale happen or make the IEP happen or whatever it may be. Outside the meeting, the moment you feel yourself starting to worry, the butterflies are kicking in. You're starting to go Niagara Falls now under your armpits. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now, why would you want to count? The reason why you want to count is because, remember, thinking patterns can be habits.

And so when you get into the habit of doubting yourself and worrying, you're now in the interior part of your brain, and that can easily take over and expand and escalate the situation. So you want to cut that off and you want to stabilize what's happening by activating your prefrontal cortex. You're going to go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That's going to activate this puppy up here. Now that your mind is awakened in terms of the frontal lobe being awakened, you're ready to accept a new thought. You can't just stand there outside your... I've tried this. I've had psychologists for years tell me, Oh, just change the channel. Your brain is like a TV. Just change the channel. No, it's not. My brain is more like a freight train that is moving at an agitated state of 65 miles an hour. If I try to just switch the thought, the train is going to jump the tracks. You cannot go from a state of agitation to... You can't do it. But you can slow a state of agitation down. The way you do it is the five-second rule. You're feeling the butterflies, feeling the nerves, you're feeling the blanket sweating, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, that'll stabilize the situation and stop your mind from expanding and making it worse.

Now you can take that anchor thought. Pick something before the meeting. This is critical. Don't try to create an anchor thought where you're freaked out. Pick something beforehand. In the case that I'm using, that was my situation of going and talking to the school about my son's dyslexia and the IEP and everything else that he was needing in terms of special Ed, I was a vision of him sitting in a classroom with the tools that he needed, you know what I mean? And coming home and being really happy. The second that I would feel I'd be in the meeting and the teacher would say something that was stern, so then I'm like, Oh, she's not on our side. I'd be like, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I'm picturing my son with the vision of him coming home. He's actually reading. This is incredible. That stabilizes the worry. Now, I'm in control of my thoughts, and I haven't done what I used to do, which is the second I start feeling the pit in my stomach, my thoughts go catastrophic. They're not going to give them the services. My son is going to never read. He's going to be bullied.

This is going to be a big deal. Now, by the way, if I would have allowed that to happen, when your mind starts to go worry and anxious, it hijacks your thinking capacity. They've done all these studies with brain capacity about what happens to your mind when you worry, and you actually cannot focus on anything else once it gets too big. Using this technique, you'll be able to stay present in a meeting. You'll be able to stay present in a situation. You'll be able to stay present in a conversation or with another person or on a plane so that you can control what you're thinking. I personally have used 5-4-3-2-1, marry it with an anchor thought to cure myself of anxiety. I haven't taken Zoloft in four years. I haven't had a panic attack. I don't even worry about anything. This ties into confidence so tightly because confidence is a skill, and it's a skill that you build, and you build it only one way. You cannot think your way to being more confident. You have to prove it to yourself through action. The thing about confidence that's really interesting is that the more that you start to use it to stop worrying, you'll actually see yourself moving forward in your life.

Using confidence to stop- Using the five-second rule to stop worrying. It's just a tool. That's all it is. It's just a little tool that helps you wake up and take control and redirect your thoughts and really have power in the moment and power over your decisions. But there's a really important connection to confidence because as you start to lower self-doubt and worry, you will actually be able to push yourself to take actions or to speak up when normally you wouldn't. When you see yourself taking those actions and when you see yourself beating fear and your excuses, you build the skill of confidence. You're seeing yourself as the person that you can rely on. That is what confidence is. Confidence is not a personality trait. It's actually the ability to go from thought into action. To trust yourself that you can do this, that you're capable of doing that? Yes. I think it's even more than that. I think it's this idea that... Because you might not trust yourself. I think that confidence is the willingness to try, knowing that you'll either succeed or you'll survive. You're going to either succeed or you're going to survive.

But damn it, you're going to try. When you become the person that has that mentality of, Hey, I'll either survive this thing, this conversation, or I'm going to be successful. But either way, I'm going to have it. That is the mental shift that will help you start to build the skill of confidence. Most people think that, Hey, confidence is a belief. The more that you see yourself doing things and the more you build competency in something, you start to have less anxiety about it, right? That's why you believe in yourself. But for those of us that don't believe in ourselves, being told that confidence is believing in yourself, that is horrible advice because you don't know what to do. Well, I don't believe in myself, so don't tell me confidence is believing in myself. I know I don't. Tell me how to build confidence. Well, confidence is built one push at a time. Confidence is built by wrangling those thoughts that you have that stop you, tuning them down, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and pushing forward knowing you'll succeed or you'll survive. But damn it, you're going to try. Well, I like that dichotomy between not succeed or fail, but succeed or survive.

Correct. This isn't... Whatever you're scared of doing, one, the fact that you're scared of it shows that you're worried about it, and you're saying that worry is a habit. You're used to going to worst-case scenario in your life. Totally. Totally. That's, by the way, the worst-case scenario is your brain's way to protect you from doing something that is uncertain, or scary, or new. Part of your wiring is that you're hardwired in your brain to, within an instant, go worst-case scenario because your brain is worried about things that are uncertain, scary, or new. Yes, it's a habit, and it's also a mechanism in your mind that is tricking you into staying safe. The key then to confidence, one, so you're saying that confidence is, it's not a trait, it's a skill. Yes. Implying that it can be built, it can be practiced. Let me prove it to you. If I told you right now that to list everybody in your life that makes you feel good about yourself, okay? Those are people that make you feel confident. Now list everybody in your life that when you're around them, you shrink. You feel a little uncomfortable. You feel a little on edge.

You don't feel like you can trust them. Those are people that make you feel insecure. So confidence can... There are certain areas in your life where you are confident. There are certain areas in your life where you're not confident. There are skills that you have, whether it's cooking, or gardening, or selling. My husband is the greatest guy on the planet with Excel. He can do anything on an Excel spreadsheet, and I can't do anything on an Excel spreadsheet. There are skills that you know you can do. You don't even have to think about it. You're not worried about having to do it. I'm that same way about public speaking. Don't even have to think about it. Don't even have to worry because I've practiced it for so long. There are things that I'm terrible at that I lack confidence in, but I could build confidence by practicing it. I could build confidence in myself around people that make me insecure if I were to study the triggers as to why I feel insecure, if I were to have conversations with those people, or if I were to become confident enough to distance myself. Your confidence is a skill set, like a muscle that gets built based on experiences, based on the actions that you take, and it's something that's fully within your control and that can be worked on.

For women, oh, my gosh, the number one factor in a woman's success is confidence. Perceived confidence, more important than anything. More important than anything. Self-confidence or perceived confidence, are those different things? Very different things. Confidence, they're basically a couple of different buckets of confidence. There's the internal mindset confidence that a lot of us don't have that you can build as a skill through action. There is the competency confidence that comes through gaining by practicing competency. Then there is the external confidence that you project that other people perceive. Here's something that every single woman needs to know. Harvard Business School just wrote up about this study where they asked a ton of managers across different industries, What is the number one reason why you're not promoting your female people that you're managing? Do you know what the manager said? Number one reason. I thought she lacked the confidence for the new role. Now here's the kicker, a kick in the gut, by the way, is that the managers were uncomfortable telling you, the woman, that she lacked confidence. Well, because they didn't want to be called sexist, and more importantly, they had no idea how to actually coach somebody into becoming more confident.

If you're perceived as confident, you make more money, you advance faster, you have more satisfaction in what you're doing. The thing that I want every single woman on the planet to understand is that confidence is not a personality trait. You can be extroverted and talk a lot and have zero belief in yourself. That's how I used to be. I used to be the loudmouth, bossy person that didn't believe a word that was coming out of my mouth, didn't like myself, none of it. There are tons of folks that are insecure that it's uncomfortable to talk into a meeting. You're not lacking confidence. You believe in your ideas. You're lacking the courage to actually step out of your comfort zone. The one piece of advice that I want every single woman to know is that there are two kinds of work. There's visible work and there's invisible work. You only get credit for visible work. Visible work is how you behave in a meeting. That's a very, very important place to practice the skill of confidence. What do you do to practice the skill of confidence? Number one, stop taking notes and just take note. If you have an important meeting, I used to be a lawyer, and you need all the details, hit the memo transcribe thing on your phone.

Let Siri take the notes for you. Then take that file, go straight to YouTube, make it a private file, upload it. You know what YouTube will do? -transcribe it. -transcribe it for free. Now you got your notes. But I don't ever want to see you in a meeting like this. Not like this. -because you're in a visible place. -because what does that- You're in a visible place. What you're projecting is that you're not part of the meeting. You're just there taking notes. Your physicality is bent over. Now your brain is focused on transcribing. I want you sitting back. I want you jotting, taking note about a few things, and then I want you to do something that may feel uncomfortable. Five, four, three, two, one. Do not leave a meeting without ever talking. Don't do it. It is a very visible place for you to be seen. Here's another thing I want you to do. If you're uncomfortable sharing your ideas, and I have been startled by the number of people that write us from around the world that say that their biggest fear in their career was actually speaking in meetings and sharing their ideas.

The biggest fear. They started using the five-second rule, changing everything about their career trajectory. One of the things I want you to do in meetings, obviously, just take note, don't take notes. I want you to speak in a meeting. If you're uncomfortable, you don't have to share an idea. Comment. I know we're wrapping up, but I just wanted to say, in listening to all these ideas, I think Shelby's suggestion was a really important strategic consideration that I really liked a lot. That's it. Now, did you pick up on one word that I used? No. Strategic. They have done studies. This is psycho research, because it'll make you really mad when you hear this. They've done studies where they coach women executives to use the word strategic in visible settings. Conversations with your bosses, how you behave in meetings, emails. Within one year of coaching women, just to say the stupid word, strategic, for street theory. The annual reviews and the remarks for how executives are perceived as strategic contributors jumps dramatically simply by using the word. Here's another thing to pay attention to: your emails. Are they to the point? Do you have the confidence to write an email that is to the point?

Or do you ramble and go all the over the place and the thinks and explain it? Explain yourself. The most important thing that you can develop and work on for yourself, particularly for women, is the skill of confidence. Pay attention to visible versus invisible work. Raise your visibility by practicing small acts of confidence. Use the five-second rule to interrupt the habits of taking notes, of saying I'm sorry, of writing long-winded emails, of not elevating your ideas. You'll be surprised by what happens. There's a lot here to talk about, and that's the thing. I wish we could go on for hours. Well, what's something that your success readers and your listeners... What are some of the big issues? And I'll tell you how to use the five-second rule to immediately, in combination with the latest research to solve them. Well, I think anxiety is a big one there, because that's something that people don't talk about. And especially, I love the fact that you said that you take medication for your heart. You take medication for diabetes. Some people have to take medication for anxiety and for depression. Yes. I think that's an important point because people will automatically...

When you're beating yourself up in your brain, you are also thinking that it's something to be ashamed of if you're suffering from anxiety or if you're suffering from depression. Welcome to the club. That's the thing. That's what I love what you're saying, though, is that everybody has it. Really, everybody does. Yeah. If you don't have it, somebody you love does. So understanding what it is and what it isn't is super, super important. If you have somebody that has panic attacks, that's even one more step removed from anxiety. We talked about anxiety and worry earlier. When somebody that you love goes into a state of panic, what we know is that their bodies have now gotten so... The body experience, the heart racing, the sweating, because they didn't stabilize their thoughts and the spotlight effect took over, and now the brain is magnifying what's going on, now the brain is in an emergency state. The brain is now really believes that you're having a heart attack or believes that your life is in danger. If you have a loved one that suffers from panic attacks, what you've probably experienced is that they immediately need to leave the room.

They immediately start thinking that they're having a heart attack. Now, the reason why your brain goes into that def con 10 mode is because if you're standing in your kitchen and you're getting ready for the day and you have a loved one that's anxious about what's about to happen, maybe it's a tough conversation at work, maybe there's a presentation, maybe they have to travel. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe they just have a panic attack because it's become a habit, a default mode that's encoded. It just is what it is. They all of a sudden start to freak out. Oh, my God, something's wrong. Something's wrong. My son would be like, I can't drink. I can't drink. Something's wrong. Sometimes in my throat, like he would just... What's happening is your mind... Let's go back to the example of Shelby being at the sting concert. When she's at the sting concert and her body starts to get butterflies, the mind has context for why there are butterflies, and it calls it excitement. If you're standing in your kitchen and you start to obsess over a conversation you need to have with your boss, or you start to obsess over something that you're nervous about doing in the business that you're building, and your body starts to then match those and you get the butterflies and the sweats, first level is going to be anxiety.

The thoughts are going to start to spiral. You're going to start to obsess over what you have to do. You're going to do that worst-case scenario thing. If you don't 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and stabilize your mind and interrupt that pattern, what's going to happen next is your body will go into full panic mode. Because if your thoughts get super crazy and worried, your brain is going to start to go, Holy, what is going on? She must be having a heart attack because she's standing in a kitchen and this doesn't make any sense. Why would her body be freaking out? Right. Your body's freaking out because I've let my thoughts go bananas. Now my heart's really racing. Now my mind's going, Uh-oh, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Maybe she is having a heart attack. Maybe there is something wrong. Maybe there's something in this room. And so your mind goes into overdrive. Now, have you ever had the experience where you hear a loud noise and you're like that? Yeah. There are two responses, automatic responses that we're born with in our brains to protect us. One is ducking our heads. Even a baby, the age of six months, ducts their head at a loud noise.

Highly instinctual behavior to protect you. Another one is to reach out and stabilize yourself as you're falling. As you get wobbly, you don't even think about it. Your mind takes over and directs your body. If you develop a habit of anxiety and panic attacks, basically, you're escalating everyday life concerns through this funnel, from worry to anxiety to the anxiety then escalating the body to now your mind going, Holy cow, I better protect them. That's why they get you out of the room. That's why you start to think you're dying so that you'll get help. That's why it's so important for you to start by addressing and fighting any worry that you have and redirecting your thoughts. If you start to struggle with anxiety, that's why it's so important to start using this strategy, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, now an anchor thought to stabilize the thoughts. If you have panic attacks, same thing. Exactly same thing. Now it's going to be very hard to get somebody out of a panic attack. The best way to deal with a panic attack is to just sit with the person and say, And what else? And what else?

Tell me what else you're worried about. Because if you can get all those thoughts out of the head- To tell them to verbalize all those things? Yes, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Then slowly and have them walk as they're doing it because the physicality of it unwinds it. Then when they're just buzzing, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, now let's go to the anchor thought. That's how you deal with it. Excellent. Trust me. I've done it with myself. My husband's done it with me. My kids have... It works like a charm. I remember when my son was really struggling with anxiety, he was trying to build up to doing a sleepover, and we used this technique, the five, four, three, two, one, with an anchor thought of him being super excited and waking up happy and all this stuff. There's research out of Harvard that's recently been published where they call it... I think they call it... It's not reframing. It's reappraising performance anxiety, if you want to Google it, reappraising performance anxiety. They did this test where they had... They had people that were about to either run a race, sing in a karaoke contest, or take a test, use a strategy very similar to what I'm talking about.

Right before you're about to take a test or run a race, we all have performance anxiety, right? They trained kids in control groups. One control group would say, I'm excited. I'm excited to run this race. I'm excited to take this test. I'm excited to give this speech. The other group, they told them to just think positive thoughts. Without the, I'm excited, excited. Because remember what we talked about in the beginning, Shelby being at the sting concert, being excited, exact same body state as me standing outside a meeting for my dyslexic sons IEP. Butterflies, butterflies, flutterflies. She's excited. I'm nervous. They had students before they were about to perform track or whatever or karaoke. I'm excited. I'm excited. In every single instance, every single one, they perform better. Why? Because by saying, I'm excited, you give your mind context for the butterflies and guess what else it does? It doesn't allow worry to hijack your mind, so you can actually now have your full prefrontal cortex to focus on performing. Because you're not focused on managing all this garbage. Works in study after study after study. Not only... You might not lose the jitters, but you gain control of your brain.

I struggled with anxiety for 25 years, and I thought it was in the rear view mirror. I haven't had a panic attack, a bad of anxiety, anything, really, for about five years. And boy, I woke up this morning and there it was. And I think the fact that I woke up feeling so anxious, first of all, is really scary. For me, anxiety would always come in the morning, and it feels like dread, and then it immediately, for me, feels like, I can't do this. I can't do this. And the this that I'm referring to is everything. So I want to talk a little bit about what I'm doing to handle my anxiety and about the importance of emotional flexibility. So as you can see, I am up here in Vermont. It's absolutely stunning. No reason to feel anxious up here. That's another thing about anxiety is we make ourselves wrong when we feel anxious, and I just did that. Here's why I'm feeling anxious. I came up here with my family because we've been quarantining outside of Boston for five weeks, and thankfully everybody's safe and healthy. We came up to my husband's family's house up here in Vermont, a place that I love because we thought a change of scenery would be super helpful for our psyche.

We've been here for two nights, and I woke up this morning and I felt so far away from my normal life that it scared the hell out of me. I'm physically far away, and it was a reminder of just how far away emotionally I feel from it and how much I actually am struggling, how I'm struggling to stay focused, how I'm struggling to work on my own, how I'm struggling to work remote, how I'm struggling to not be around so many people. And I think all of that came together and hit me this morning in the form of anxiety. Now, for me, anxiety is really suffocating. It causes me to panic. It makes me want to run. And so here are some things that I've been doing this morning to work through it. First of all, there's two ways I'm going to talk about emotional flexibility. One is being flexible with yourself so that when you feel something that's uncomfortable that you're flexible enough to give yourself space to feel it because pushing it down, denying it, making yourself wrong, it's only going to make that negative feeling grow. It's going to make that anxiety eat you alive.

And so I recognized that it was there. And what I do is I immediately say something. So my husband was next to me and I said something to Chris, and he just listened. And he demonstrated emotional flexibility because he didn't make me wrong. He didn't try to fix it. He just let me have my reality, even though it's not what he's feeling. The next thing I did is I just got out a computer and I just started writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and dumping and dumping and dumping. And that helped a little bit. And so then I texted three friends. I texted Lisa and Gretchen and Mindy and said, I am really anxious right now and I'm struggling. And saying that and going back and forth on text with them was a little helpful. And then I started to pace around the house because that's what anxiety makes me do. I start to feel like a caged animal. Chris said, We should go for a hike. And honestly, the thought of climbing a mountain right now makes me want to die. I said, No. I didn't want to exert anything.

I just know I need to move. And so instead, I'm going to go walk down the valley and do this five-mile loop that I really don't feel like doing. But I know I need to because I know that anxiety gets stored in my nervous system. It's triggered by my nervous system that everything right now feels far away from the life that I was living and the life that you were living. And that's why I'm so anxious right now. And so I'm going to move my body and move it out of my body. And then I am going to just practice having emotional flexibility and allowing the feelings to rise and fall and not do anything about it. So if you're experiencing anxiety for the first time, or if your normal anxiety has been jacked way up, or if it's coming back like it is for me, please be patient with yourself. Take deep breaths, get outside and walk, and by all means, be talking to your friends and family about what you're feeling. Because stored in here, it'll eat you alive. But when you start to speak about it and you start to move it through your body, you will move it out of your body and you will feel better.

I know in an hour and a half when I'm done with this walk, I will feel a hundred times better. I know if you pick up the phone and call somebody or you start journaling or you put on an exercise video and you move, you will move this through your nervous system and you will feel back in control. I promise. I promise. I promise. I can't promise that it won't come back, but I can promise that you can make it disappear by taking those steps. So when you first start using the five-second rule, most people use it to get to the gym, to make sales calls, to get up on time, to have tough conversations, do the physical stuff. But the real mojo is to use it to rewire your mindset. If you're somebody that suffers from anxiety, first of all, here's what you need to know, it's not a disease. Period. It's not a disease. There are people that suffer from acute anxiety disorder. They should seek professional help. There's incredible medication that works. I'm talking to the people that suffer from more general anxiety that people feel in their day-to-day lives or that are brought on by a specific situation.

I'm also speaking from specific personal experience and the fact that we know of hundreds of thousands of people who've actually cured their anxiety because of what I teach. Here's what you need to understand. Anxiety always begins with a worry. Always. It begins with a thought that is triggered by something. If you suffer from anxiety, you wake up in the morning and your mind spins, you lay in bed at night and your mind spins, you walk into work and you feel anxious in your body, I want you to write down all the things that trigger you to feel anxious. Interestingly, another major trigger is being home or going home and that moment right before your partner walks in the door. If you feel anxious when your partner is about to walk in or you're about to walk into your own home, that is a major signal that you are in the wrong relationship, that there is something incredibly off and you either need to get into counseling. But that is one that we hear a lot about. Because you're walking into a situation that feels uncertain. A lot of people, by the way, had parents that were abusive or parents that were yelling.

They also are experiencing ghosts from the childhood of it's five o'clock, dad's about to come home and pour a drink and everybody's on edge. So write down the triggers, okay? Because having the triggers ahead of time will help you come up with a plan for how you're going to catch yourself when your mind defaults to the automatic ways that it thinks. Then what I want you to write down next to the trigger is what exactly are you worried about? So having the trigger and then the what do I worry about? I worry that my boss is going to yell. I worry that my partner is going to yell. I worry that I'm going to get in trouble. I worry that my friends are going to laugh at me. I worry that I'm going to be a... Whatever the fuck it may be. Then what you're going to do is you're going to write down what I call an anchor thought. An anchor thought is something that weighs you down and it makes you excited. Here's how the strategy works with the five-second rule. The next time you're in a situation, and let's just use the example of pulling into your own driveway or your own apartment, and maybe you've got issues with your boyfriend or girlfriend or your roommate, and that makes you unsettled.

The second you pull in and you feel the trigger, you're going to go, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, because I want to interrupt your mind from going into the fuck, fuck, fuck. I don't like you. What if I do... Then you're going to drop in the anchor thought of the last time that you and your roommate really got along well, or the last time that you stood up for yourself and it went fine. Or your puppy. Yeah, or a puppy or whatever. You're going to say, I'm so excited to deal with this. Then you're going to get out of your car, even though your body is going to feel a little unsettled and your mind's going to raise, go, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you start to be like... But what are... Then walk in the door. What I'm teaching you to do is to not let your mind hijack you. It's very important because there's a very tight nexus between your habit of worrying and spiraling your thoughts and the way your body starts to amp up. We want to settle your mind so we don't agitate your body. You got it? Yeah.

If you start to practice that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, and for you 18-year-olds that are watching this, use this with the nerves that you have about what you're going to do with your life. Use this when you catch yourself worrying about college applications because worrying about the applications won't get them done. Worrying about what your friends are doing won't make it happen. Worrying about what you're going to be doing when you're 25 or how you're going to make money, it's not going to help you make money right now. It's only going to make you miserable. Five, four, three, two, one, cut off that habit. That'll stabilize your body and then go to a vision of you at the age of 25, driving a car that you think is cool and hanging out with a friend that's cool and saying to yourself, I'm so excited because I know I'm going to figure it out. Because you don't need to worry about that shit right now. But it becomes a habit that destroys your year this year. You have a choice over what you think about.

We all do. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out. And if you like this one, I have a feeling you're going to like this one too. I'll see you there.