thank you for coming along to what i'm
sure is going to be
a fantastic discussion i'm kirsty and
I will be moderating this evening as a
member of UQ alumni myself
and also a current PhD student of
tonight's speaker
I am very pleased to be joining you all
tonight
um I'd like to begin by acknowledging
the traditional owners
uh on the land on which we meet today
where ever that may be for each of us
and i would also like to pay my respects
to elders past and present
so before we get started i have just a
little bit of housekeeping
you'll notice that your video and audio
has been automatically switched off
but if at any time you have a question
please feel free to pop it in the q a
box
located at the bottom of your screen and
we'll have some time at the end to pass
those questions
along to the speaker and hear their
answers
so this event is a part of uq's global
leadership
series which is designed to be a program
of thought-provoking discussions for uq
alumni
tonight we will be hearing from dr james
kirby who is a senior lecturer here at
uq
as well as a practicing clinical
psychologist
james is particularly interested in
compassion and evaluates
compassion-focused
programs as well as what fears blocks
and resistances
people have towards compassion he also
holds a visiting fellowship
at the center for compassion and
altruism research and education at
stanford university
and he continues to work as a clinical
psychologist
helping individuals with self-criticism
and shame
now i think most of us would agree that
2020 has been a stressful
and uncertain year and this may have
triggered some increased feelings of
anxiety in many of us
and the people that we know even in less
turbulent times one in four people
experience anxiety at some stage in
their life
so this evening we wanted to turn our
focus towards one of the most common
mental health conditions in australia
james has worked with anxiety from a
variety of perspectives from clinical
practice to research and education
so this evening james will be discussing
anxiety his functions
and how we can understand and validate
our experiences of anxiety
he will also be sharing some practical
tips that we can implement ourselves
and i'm told he might also actually
guide us through a short exercise
so without further ado i'd like to hand
over to dr james kirby
oh kirsty what an introduction thank you
very much and it's lovely to be here
with you all
i'm just going to share my screen
so i've got some slides that'll just
guide us through
tonight so hopefully it's now
showing my screen and uh yeah as kirsty
mentioned um
i'll be talking tonight about anxiety
really and how
perhaps many of us might be experiencing
more anxiety than what we would
typically
because of that virus that we can see
here on the screen there
covert 19 so it certainly has made
things different
challenging for many of us so i'll be
talking a little bit tonight
not only about anxiety and what we mean
by anxiety but i'll be talking about
anxiety
and contextualizing it with a covert
background so
we'll see how we go there and then after
that i'll kind of mention a little bit
about what would be anxiety's function
what's its purpose
now we experience it but what's it
trying to tell us what's what are we to
do
with this anxiety and then after that
hopefully uh i can guide you through a
couple of little exercises that might be
helpful
uh to help when anxiety does come and it
does feel a bit overwhelming and
stressful
so i'll guide you through a couple of
different exercises there now that'll be
at the end
um and as we go through those exercises
please don't feel like you have to do
them you can just listen if you'd like
but
obviously the exercises if we can do
them together it could be quite helpful
potentially
to experience it and then of course
you're free to ask me any questions
there
uh after the presentation uh and
kirstie's mentioned that on the q a
please
please write any questions that you're
interested in
so the global leadership series would
typically be
delivered in the evening at customs
house i believe
and if you were at customs house and we
had just finished our wonderful
presentation and we were walking back to
the car
if you're walking back to your car and
if you were to be met by this
what goes through your body what are you
feeling
often the immediate kind of reaction to
this is a fear or an anxiety response
and we can start to have some thoughts
about some danger that could be
lurking in this alley who knows it might
be completely safe it might be very calm
but usually our reaction to seeing
something like this
at night time in particular can trigger
off
anxiety for us and we even might even
start to get a bit angry with ourselves
oh why did i park down there
idiot um but yeah so usually though that
first response is some anxiety
because there's this anticipated danger
so we have what we call this anxious
self
and when we have anxiety come on there's
a pattern that goes with it
and firstly our attention tends to
narrow in so the attention sort of
narrows in
on the thing that's making us anxious so
all we can see is that spider the spider
can also see you of course but uh
first thing we see is that spot and
that's all we can see and we're really
staying focused on the danger because
it's important to know where the danger
is coming from of course
we might scan our environment too and
the scanning is often to see if there's
any other danger any other predator or
fear or threats around
but also we scan to see if we can escape
so that's usually the first thing we do
and then we might have thoughts oh god
get out of here hide run away
and when we experience those thoughts we
don't usually experience them in a very
calm way like
oh i should get out of here usually the
thoughts have a little bit more urgency
or pressure behind them
i could get out of here hide you know
escape
and then with that comes a physiological
response so our heart rate will quicken
uh we'll have our sympathetic system be
activated and the sympathetic system is
very important
to help us with the goal-directed
behavior and activation of our bodies
and you'll start to notice in your body
these different kinds of things that can
emerge
so some people they'll notice sweating
or shaky legs
they get stomach pains or butterflies
things like this there can be a lot of
tension in the shoulders as well
and then all of this can eventually lead
to certain behaviors and those behaviors
are typically things
to avoid or escape or will run away
if we can now if we can't um in
a certain situation if we can't get away
or we've been
seen as it were we might be very
submissive
um you might even go here take my phone
take my money
please just leave me i'm no threat we do
that kind of submissive thing so
we give off this impression that we're
not a thread you can get what you want
there's no need to hurt me
and so their typical ways or anxiety
will show itself
so it'll show itself in this pattern
will emerge and i'm sure we can all
many of us can resonate with that
pattern of the extra self
very easily um and so
when we have this anxiety kick in and i
experienced it just the other night
actually when i was uh giving a zoom
talk
to my students i was mid lecture then
bang
this line popped out and got me um
scared the
living daylights out of me as you can
see that's the kind of
startle reaction that we can experience
when there's an immediate danger
and so anxiety will come in uh and it
will signal to us that there's a danger
around
now of course lions aren't that
prevalent in brisbane
thank goodness if we were to see a lion
that would be quite extraordinary
um but there are other dangers of course
that will
signal anxiety or some fear if you will
and that will be things like heights or
spiders for some
now also when we're evaluated so when
we're evaluated that often brings in a
lot of anxiety
fear of what you might get or hopefully
not get
we can also be very anxious and worried
and concerned about relationships out of
fear of rejection
because that brings a lot of hurt and of
course there's also a lot of social
media where we can also
experience lots of anxiety about whether
or not if your posts or comments will be
liked or not liked or something
will be said about it on top of that
when we're out and we're socializing we
can take a lot of care
in our appearance and be concerned with
how we look and we can sometimes be
worried so we can spend extra time
on how we look and how we present
ourselves because we're worried about
people laughing at us again
and that kind of ties into that
rejection they're usually a lot of the
common ones the things of evaluation and
judgment and
rejection that can underpin a lot of the
anxiety that emerges but we can be
anxious about anything
um who knew that we would be so anxious
with crowds for example
we're very anxious with crowds at the
moment if we were to be surrounded by a
lot of people like this right now
i imagine a lot of you would feel very
uh repulsed or anxious about that
out of fears that perhaps something bad
would be would be caught
in terms of covert and a lot of us was
very anxious about whether we can get
our hands on some toilet paper
and there are credible scenes on the
news or in the supermarkets in australia
at least
um we're just trying to get access to
that and the fears and worries and not
being able to get that
because what that means so anything has
the potential
to become a signal to let us know that
we should be anxious or worried
and people will have very different uh
signals that will trigger anxiety
but there are some of those common ones
common ones around rejection
or some in particular danger when it
comes to perhaps physical
now anxiety at its worst can show itself
as a panic attack
now some of you tonight listening may
have experienced a panic attack they're
awful
um they include a range of symptoms that
emerge
very quickly and it can kind of give the
impression that you're having a heart
attack
so you can have that pounding of the
heart lots of trembling feels like you
can't breathe for example
you also get this pain in the heart kind
of chest region
which gives the indication that there
could be a heart attack and
this is often a difficult one too this
fear of losing control
or going crazy because often a panic
attack will just emerge it'll just
happen
it can be very difficult sometimes to
spot what the trigger was
to the the panic attack and that becomes
quite scary for for individuals because
the pancreatic could happen anywhere and
then you can become fearful of having
another
panic attack now a lot of us might not
get to the point of a panic attack
but many of us would have experienced
like an anxiety attack like a huge
rush of anxiety coming on and it's uh
it's not a pleasant experience at all
but it's all there all of these signals
are there to try to tell us something's
not quite right there is some kind of
danger
they're not pleasant to feel these
things but the purpose is around to let
us know
that hey something's not quite right you
need to protect yourself
now when people have a panic attack
usually in therapy i've seen
you know quite a few clients for example
who've had panic attacks
usually the person will you know
contact the ambulance go into hospital
go to emergency
and they'll have a full body check and
it will come back that
no it wasn't anything physical it was a
you know psychological it was a panic
attack and
perhaps it would be useful to go see a
psychologist
and usually at that point and this is
the real kicker to all of this
the person can feel very embarrassed
about
over reacting to the panic um and they
can even feel
ashamed of going to that kind of extreme
as it were
to hospital when it was um not anything
to physical wasn't anything to do with
um having a heart attack and so when
they come to therapy to see me not only
they dealing with the fears of the
anxiety and the panic attack coming back
but they're also dealing with the shame
that they're experiencing over
going to the hospital and very worried
that others will find out
that they are unable to control as it
were this anxiety
so anxiety has this sort of superpower
that it can just
jump to the worst conclusions in a
single bound can be quite frustrating in
that way
um but not only can we have a lot of
external threats
that can trigger the anxiety and that's
what i've really been talking about so
you know the line or the hearts or the
spiders or the rejection from others
perhaps that's other people
and those other people evaluating us
they're all external they're in the
environment
we can also have a lot of internal
threats as well
so our brains have the capacity to judge
evaluate and question everything that
we're experiencing
even the emotions you're experiencing so
if you start to question how you're
thinking and feeling
that brings in doubt which is connected
to anxiety which is connected to
worry and so we can get ourselves caught
up in
all sorts of anxious and worry loops um
just within our own minds
we don't have to have the threats
immediate around us at all so we come
from both
places the external world and our
internal world
and you can kick off these dreadful
anxiety loops and that's no one's fault
that's just how our minds work
but i've kind of been interchanging
between anxiety and fear and they are
different so anxiety is much more
associated with
future problems uh so that more drawn
out emotional reactions
like a persistent worry um you know
you're you're on
edge because something's coming up
perhaps a big event
a talk on zoom perhaps um
but there can also be a kind of
subjective
aspect here is kind of subjectively
experienced as being out of proportion
to what the actual threat is so you
might have this real fear that something
terrible is going to happen
but it's actually well it's a talk
what's what is the worst that can happen
so there can kind of be this some out of
proportion aspect to it
which again for people who struggle with
anxiety
that can be very embarrassing awkward
something they can experience shame
about because
they quote unquote shouldn't be like
that so it becomes quite tricky for
for individuals who do struggle with
anxiety
on the flip fear fear is much more about
imminent danger
it really builds quickly and intensely
and on top of that the idea behind it is
to get you
activated straight away to get you going
to get some kind of body movement
so um you know when i saw when i was on
that same lecture and that line was in
the background i don't want to be
thinking to myself
i wonder if that line has already had a
meal
he doesn't look that hungry um i'm more
focused on my lecture
because if we were going through that
pathway that's obviously going to be
problematic
and any delay could be a real risk so
that's why it comes in the fear comes in
so
quickly and sharply um to to have
another diagram to kind of point it out
there's the fish you know there's the
predator and the shark and the fish has
that immediate fear or stress response
the body's stress system goes into
action like the pattern we spoke about
right at the beginning whereas with
anxiety there's no
external threat immediate but we might
be thinking
about what if that big bad fish that
shark comes out today
and just by thinking about it we've
activated
all of our stress response in our bodies
so our brain is not
good at discerning is it an external or
internal
if it's internal and you're just
generating it in your mind and imagining
it
it will kick off the body's response
systems as if it were there
and that's why many of us can have um
our most anxious moments
purely through purely our minds as
opposed to what's in our environment
around us
there's been many people have studied
anxiety and fear a great deal and this
is really just here
and this is work done by joseph ledoux
he's one of the world leaders
in fear and anxiety and really just
putting the forward um some science
behind that claim that of course
fear is much more to do with uh
immediate and
imminent harm as opposed to anxiety
where it's uncertainty and it's more
in the distance in terms of space and
time
so the nature of anxiety is such that we
all experience it we will all experience
different
levels of anxiety and it has a pattern
that comes with it
it'll shape your attention your thoughts
your physiology body and behavior
and anxiety can be very helpful so it
warns us of threats and prompts us to
take steps to
prevent these threats from being
overwhelming
so it might even lead you to do good
preparation now some people talk about
this idea of an inverted you
for anxiety and that means an inverted
you in regards to performance so if
you've got too much anxiety
it won't be would lead to a very poor
performance if you have no anxiety at
all
it might not be a very good performance
because um you have you lack the energy
and the excitement that can be very
helpful in order in order for you to
anticipate
and be on your on your on on your game
phase for for the actual
event that you need to perform for so
it's often
spoken about having moderate level of
anxiety can be particularly helpful to
get our systems and our bodies going
however anxiety can also be quite
unhelpful for many people
so anxiety has a big avoidance aspect to
it and
if you're avoiding a lot of things it
can really limit your living
it restricts what you can do you might
not even leave the house out of fear
and that's a tragic circumstance
on top of that anxiety can be very
intense as we mentioned with the panic
attack
and if the anxiety is intense and it's
been around for a long time
many months even if not years
for some and it stops and restricts you
from doing the things that are important
to you
then an anxiety disorder may be a
possibility and if you feel that there
are some things that resonate strongly
with you here
i'm certainly thinking about reaching
out
to a psychologist or someone in mental
health to assist with that
can be helpful our therapies are very
good at helping with anxiety that is for
sure
but i suppose this talks all within the
setting and context of um
coven and as i was trying to put forward
anxiety really comes when we're
presented with danger
you don't have to look far to be
signaled with danger with covert
every minute almost there's an update on
how the virus is spreading
unfortunately victoria's of course going
through an awful little period
at the moment and i see new zealand it's
sort of spiked again there as well
um and when we even hop on our just
general
news sites um you know there's many
instances of danger and warning and we
get tally updates on
you know how many cases there are um
thankfully how many have recovered but
also how many deaths they've been
and we're just faced with this
constantly just get ping
ping pinged now the thing is you're
already dealing with lots of stress as
it is
those stresses are different for
everyone but you know perhaps family
stress
work stress and then if you put on top
of that this kind of stress as well
and it's getting pinged a lot it can
really put us on edge
um and that's where a lot of tension can
come through and that tension can ripple
out
and impact our relationships and and
also impact our own
uh mental health and well-being that's
no one's fault this is just how it works
this is just how it unravels
and last week on q a for example
we had a psychiatrist killian ash talk
about how
there's this unprecedented stress on the
community and
unprecedented levels of anxiety in the
community
but letting people know that services
are available if you need them and there
have been some
movements made to make access to mental
health support
more easy which is absolutely fantastic
but no one anticipated
going into 2020 that we would be faced
with this pandemic
and the issues that it brings and what
we do
know about how the pandemic has had an
impact on us because
we've had it now for many months we've
been able to collect some solid data
letting us know
how it has impacted our mental health in
australia at least
you know depression and anxiety as
disorders
have increased by 200 300
compared to non-pandemic times i mean
that's an extraordinary jump
i mean that's very significant and it's
not
just us and this is the whole the whole
key facet here
um everywhere this is happening so as a
result of this
pandemic in what it's impacted on our
lives
all of us are experiencing heart and
stress and tension and we're seeing
double to triple the rates
of mental health concerns
but it's not just the virus itself
that's causing those increases it's the
rippling effects that the virus has
i mean because of what we're having to
do in response to the virus
we've seen levels of unemployment
increase that itself causes
stress financial stress is occurring
people having difficulty with sleep
alcohol use unfortunately because of
some of the lockdown measures we've seen
spikes in domestic violence which is a
tragic outcome
people have had to delay medical
treatment particularly if you've got
some kind of chronic health condition
where you needed regular care
because of the influx of patients coming
in with covert
um that that had to be delayed which
means people were living with pain for
longer
and not getting the the treatment that
they needed
not only that a lot of us have been have
been put into situations where we've had
to quarantine for example
or isolate from others and isolate from
others when we're also feeling unwell
and children have also had to experience
a lot of disruption and not getting to
socialize
is is a big miss for the kids
to not be able to have their birthdays
with their friends and so on now things
are changing which
is fantastic and more of this is
starting to occur but there's still a
lot of
uncertainty with all of this which makes
it very difficult
and because of the constant uncertainty
and that
leads to risk always being able to be
turned up
very sharply very quickly and
to make us feel like we're constantly
walking on eggshells
knowing that something disastrous is
just around the corner
and that of course has impact when
you're dealing with all of these other
factors
at the same time you know something's
going to give and that's no one's fault
because this is pressure that we're not
prepared
really to manage and on that particular
episode of q a that would really make
this point around our health systems and
our
mental health care systems in particular
have not been designed to
to manage this so we've already got a
system that's under prepared for this
um to be helpful and to be supportive
not only all of this is happening we're
losing a lot of social connection
as well so i mean i i'm guessing this
would have happened to some of you and
it certainly has happened to me
some of us have been unable to go to
funerals to say our goodbyes
now in the moment that hurts a lot but
that's also an ongoing hurt
and it might come back at a later point
and really affect us
there's been birds and sometimes dad
hasn't even been able to be in the
hospital or if he has it's only been
able to be there for two hours to help
support mum and welcome
the new life into this world and on top
of that there's been a lot of weddings
that have had to be postponed or
cancelled or they've happened
with only themselves and these are
important rituals
as part of being human that we go
through they help with closure and they
help with
happiness and bringing our people
together in in times of joy
and to to not have those or to have
those limited and impacted and the
uncertainty that comes with it again
is very stressful for people there's big
loss there and so as a result when these
things happen not only can we feel
sad by it but we can get angry and get
angry that this stuff is happening why
weren't we better prepared
we should have been better prepared but
we can also be worried about
when will i be able to get married when
will that time happen when will we be
able to come together
in this way so how we think about covet
is really very important
we initially use terms such as social
distancing as a way to
be helpful in how we manage this and
limit the
infection rates of covert but many
organizations including
the world health organization have been
against that term they prefer physical
distancing
because at the moment we need to
socialize we need to socialize and
connect with people more than ever
myself and others in particular
professor paul gilbert from
the uk or clinical psych have been
pushing this
term of what we really need to be
focused on is safe relating
we need to be relating with people right
now because we know
when things are stressful and we are
anxious one of the best coping
strategies we have
is to turn to somebody but when we do
turn to them do it safely
so the idea of distancing implies
perhaps there's risk there we've got to
stay away from
and i know it might be just subtle in
terms of the language but this is where
we do need each other more than ever
but we just do it safely much like we do
other things safely too we drive safely
and we use hygiene safely and we have to
do this safely
so i guess what i'm really trying to put
forward is this idea that
you know if we are able to relate safely
and compassionate with each other during
this period
this could have a really big impact on
our minds
and the emotions and the anxieties that
we feel but also on the behaviors that
we engage in
and because it's really important
although we've had a lot of isolation
loneliness has not increased at the same
rate
as the isolation and some of the reasons
put forward as to why this could be the
case is because
we're coming together as communities to
try to stop this so you've got that
sense of
shared identity with your community um
solidarity if you will
but also people are doing a lot of
creative online connections
for example we've got this webinar going
on uh grandparents are jumping on face
times and so on
and we're still trying to connect in
other ways which is incredibly important
for us
so we're relating a lot but we're just
having to do it safely
if we focus on the distancing and the
fear i saw this fantastic meme
on the internet we can start to see each
other as being potentially a real risk
and so we want to keep away stay away we
can be paranoid
that the virus could be anywhere and we
might get it
so anybody could be a real threat there
was a really amazing study actually done
at the university of chicago by jordan
and colleagues this year
that tried to look at ways we do
messaging and public health
to get people to engage in these safe
behaviors
in particular washing your hands not
shaking or hugging
and also avoiding touching your face and
they had three
messages a personal message so
everything exactly the same in these
flyers except for these wordings here
so this was a personal messaging so
follow these steps to avoid getting it
this is a public one avoid spreading it
or
a personal in public avoid getting end
spreading
and they were looking at what was the
most effective at getting those
behaviors started
and i would have thought it would have
been personal that would have been my
guess
because uh i thought that would give the
most urgency to engage in the behaviour
but the most effective was the public
messaging and that's really important
because it shows that we care about
other people
and promoting pro-social motivations are
important
they matter partly because we rely on
other people
but also we know from
big meta-analyses with tens of thousands
of
participants that we copy pro-social
behavior as well if we see someone act
pro-socially we will act pro-socially or
we're more likely to act
pro-socially i should say so how we talk
about this is really important because
can have a big impact on the behaviors
that we do and ultimately it's the
behaviors that we do
relating safely with each other which is
going to have a big impact
for how we spread the virus but also how
we feel during this time as well in our
mental health
and so it's important to remember that
during this period it is very
easy to focus on the frightening things
as i said you just have to hop on
any of the social medias or a newspaper
or tv
and you will be bombarded with danger
danger danger
and when that comes up we'll get anxious
that's just how it works
and the media does a great job of
trading and tragedy um
just some of the stories you hear of the
terrible things that are happening to
people
it's constantly keeping us in this kind
of threat zone if you will
it's really important for us though to
remember that thousands and thousands of
health workers have returned to work i
read one study in the uk
where they had 50 000 health workers
return to work
in order to help people who who are
suffering with covert 19
and there's been hundreds and thousands
of volunteers in all walks of life and
domains of areas
that have gone and given up their time
to help whether it be
delivering meals and transportation or
helping out at hospitals
not only that health workers are working
overtime but not just them
a lot of other workers have been working
overtime you know I've been in awe
of what staff have been doing at schools
at supermarkets and so on
and they've really had to deal with some
very challenging behaviors
again that no one asked for and no one
predicted
but people are doing a lot and trying to
stay engaged with their work
so that they can help others as best
they can
so when we do the safe relating it's
important for us to remember that
many are showing we just don't live for
me me me me
we're not you know we can be extremely
self-focused but right now we're
actually seeing
a huge focus on the needs of others and
there are many people in this world
who are putting their lives at risk in
order to help others it's extraordinary
and it's important even to you know
recognize
how many have given their lives to help
save others i mean it's terribly sad
that
it's important for us to understand what
that means we live in a world in a
society
where people despite the real danger the
real risk
wanted to go to help others so when you
if you were really sick
and there was a chance that they could
get sick as well they still thought it
was important
to go out there and help you to live in
a society like that
it's incredible it's amazing
and to recognize that and come to
contact with that yes there's a lot of
danger
but we also live in a world where people
do care about each other and want the
best
for each other and that's extraordinary
so i've touched a little bit now on
anxiety and anxiety in the
in the context of covert and i've really
pointed already a little bit towards
what the function of anxiety
is but i just want to expand a little
bit more on the function
and kind of bring the function into
beyond just anxiety
but our threat emotions in general so to
understand emotions really means you
have to understand our motivations or
what we need as being human and all
animals have motivations or motives or
needs
so they seek out things that are
important to them so food shelter
relationship status statuses can be very
important in hierarchical groups
reproduction and so on and what happens
is
emotions guide us as we're moving
towards those motivations and goals so
if we're succeeding
being we'll feel happiness or we'll be
excited by that
um if they're being threatened or
they're being impeded
that's when we can start to feel anxiety
and anger so those emotions act as
signals letting us know
how we're going with our pursuits of
these motives
and you can look at the emotions in
isolation but it can sometimes be more
helpful for us to group them
in terms of their function and in the
work i do
in others we group these emotions in
terms of three
big areas the first major area is
on emotions that help keep us protected
in times of threat
the second lot focused on helping us
achieve and do things
in the final lot those emotions that
help us
get that sense of peacefulness
contentment that being in a calm
place so they're the three major
emotion regulation systems that i'm
going to talk about now and
we're very creatively referred to this
as the three circles model
so in this three circles model we
firstly have our threat system the red
circle we just call it
and in the red circle it's all about
threat self protect
so as you can imagine the emotions that
go along with this circle of things like
anxiety that we've been talking about uh
fear
anger as well disgust and all of these
emotions are letting us know
that there is potential danger and we'll
need to protect ourselves
in some way now this is our default
setting
you know this is the one this is the
system that's going to hijack
any other system so we might be busy
doing something
but as soon as a little bit of threat
comes in bang our attention
will come straight back to whatever that
is whatever the danger is it's going to
focus in on that
so that's what we that's what we need it
to operate as
in order to keep us alive of course so
that's the the red circle we then have
our blue circle and in the blue circle
this is all about
wanting and doing things it's very
incentive focused
and we can want and pursue many
different things a lot of us want and
pursue
a good house for example a partner
we want to do well at our jobs and get
promoted
do well on exams and so on um to elevate
us to status because
the higher we are up the more access to
resource we can get as well and that's
particular that can be particularly
helpful for us
and when those things going well we have
those great emotions that come with it
we can have real joy
excitement and satisfaction and they're
wonderful pleasant emotions to
experience
uh now they're positive and they're very
intense positive emotions we can also
have
less intense emotional responses
um and these are still positive but
they're more about being
a sense of calm a sense of safeness
which is different to safety
so in the red circle you're trying to
get to safety because you're threatened
you have a safe you have a freedom just
to be to be open
and you're content and we call this the
the green
circle very creative again now these
systems will regulate each other
um and often what we will do in therapy
after we've explained this
to a client and gone through this with
them um
and we'll ask them just draw your
circles
with how much time you spend in it so
just draw them in proportion
and often what we'll get is something
back like this
they're there because they're very
stressed and anxious even angry with
what's going
on um and right now all of us i suspect
would have a very big red circle because
of what's going on in the environment
around us
the drive systems are usually still
pretty big
because they're still wanting and doing
things i mean part of coming to therapy
is a want
to not feel the way they're feeling but
their green circle is always
relatively small sometimes much much
smaller than this
there's not often times in the day where
there's the sense of just being content
or
peace or at peace or calm
and as i mentioned there are many things
in our environment they're just going to
kick
this red circle off so coverts one of
them so covert is going to kick that red
circle off despite if
everything else is going really well
it's still going to impact
that red circle and we don't just hear
about once a day we hear about it many
many times over during the day so it's
continuously activating that red circle
but we can also learn that relationships
of course can be dangerous
we can learn from a very early age this
idea of rejection and not being wanted
by others
and that's an archetypal fear that we
have as humans to not be wanted by
others or
not be seen to be included or feeling
like we belong with people
um is a very dangerous thing for us
because we rely so heavily on others
so we can become quite scared of other
people and you can't help but think
as we return back to work and
hopefully other events social events
that there might be some of that fear
there around the social relating people
who are usually the source of comfort
have potentially started to become more
of a source of fear
and it's interesting to think about
those who have had covert and recovered
are they seen in a different light
perhaps than those who never had it
and we're constantly being evaluated and
that constant sense of evaluation can
bring a lot of worry in for people
and it can constantly be triggered and
we can feel like we're being evaluated
constantly on our
body shape body appearance our image
just our facebook pages for example are
a lot of
impression management that people can
evaluate us on
and of course the exams and so on and my
heart goes to a lot of the grade 12
at the moment who are going through
really difficult times
with exams as they transition
into university life now what can happen
is
you experience these emotions these
threat emotions
particularly around anxiety that's what
i'm focused on mostly but then how we
relate to that anxiety becomes very
important
and so i just have a little kind of
analogy to this
to to kind of demonstrate how it tends
to work so a zebra there's nothing that
zebra likes to do more than greys in the
savannah or graze all day
took this photo actually in africa and
uh
they'll graze all day but if the zebra
was to hear a little rustling coming
from the bushes
what's the zebra do well it becomes
alert and it bolts right
it's the better safe than sorry
principle and we tend to work and
operate in a similar manner
but they bolt and they get to safety in
the savannah and then when they're in
safety what's the zebra do well it goes
back
to grazing doing what it loves to do so
if we were to graph the zebra's
emotional trajectory
across time what we'll notice is yes
there will be immediate rush
of sympathetic drive or fear or anxiety
for the zebra
as it tries to get out of harm's way but
then
as it's in that safety part of this
event the arousal will drop
now if you put a human mind in that
zebra if you even put my mind
in that zebra what we tend to do when we
get to safety
is we tend to go over it we start to go
oh my god did anyone see any lions how
many were there
god could you imagine being eaten alive
it would be so
painful apparently they go for the neck
and suffocate you just be a tragic way
to die
and then we might go to sleep and then
we might wake up at 2am oh
god what if there's more of them
tomorrow
and then what can happen of course is we
can start to criticize ourselves
you idiot why did you let yourself be
seen by these lions
um and what that does is it keeps your
emotional level
elevated for a much longer period of
time this is really important
because the external threat's no longer
there it's gone
but what we tend to do is bring that
external thread
internalize it play it over in our minds
and that keeps the body's stress
response system
constantly going and then we can start
to criticize ourselves
so how we relate to experiencing anxiety
and if we come in with criticism
we just compound it even more and we can
make life very difficult for ourselves
there's no fault of our own this is just
typical of how we will react to
different situations
and stanford biologist robert sapolsky
actually wrote a book on this very
issue called why zebras don't get ulcers
indicating that it's our capacity to
hold this threat in mind even when the
threats aren't there
that causes us a great deal of
physiological stress but also mental
health stress
so when we have this system operating
and
in this way we've got an overdominant
threat system
we tend to regulate it by trying to push
ourselves harder
so just say if you've experienced some
kind of
disappointment failure or setback
because you're still striving for your
goals and the things that are important
to you
if you have some kind of setback like
that
what do you do well you regulate it with
your red circle typically
and you start to criticize yourself so
you direct the
anger towards yourself because that's
your most dominant system
so if things are not going as well as
we'd like
we can often compound it by getting
critical or angry
with what we've done or haven't done and
we can even start to call ourselves
names and that can make things
quite difficult for individuals and as
kirsty mentioned
right at the beginning i do a lot of
work with individuals who struggle with
self-criticism and shame
and usually they criticize themselves
for the emotions that they're
experiencing
for their reactions to stressful events
um and it's the criticism that comes in
after it
that causes all the damage which is very
painful for individuals
that's because the the most the
common way they regulate their emotions
is through through these two systems
so what i usually do in in my work and
this is what we're doing
at the university of queensland is we
try to take a compassionate orientation
and the compassion orientation is really
directed
towards developing this green circle
you're never going to be able to get rid
of any of those emotions
and knowing now that it's there to help
protect us from danger why would you
want to get rid of those emotions
but most often when a person comes into
therapy and they're
really struggling with anxiety when i
ask them what would you like from
therapy
the the response is usually to get rid
of my anxiety
now that's just something we cannot do
and it's no one's fault for experiencing
it
but we just have to understand what the
purpose what the function of it is and
start to validate
people's reactions to it as opposed to
getting into those critical shame cycles
that can occur so commonly so what we
try to do is develop that green circle
as i mentioned so we've talked about
anxiety covert and the function
of anxiety i now just wanted to spend a
little bit of time with the time we've
got left
introducing some exercises that could
potentially be helpful with your anxiety
now there's
hundreds of different strategies that
you could use for anxiety
you know going for a run reading books
talking to friends
but i'm going to take us through some
specific compassion
based exercises that have been shown
through the research that not only we've
been doing but others around the world
have been shown to be very helpful at
reducing
your anxiety because it's very important
this is something i kind of missed
your red and blue circles are linked
into your sympathetic system which is
all about activating your body for
defense
right to either run away or fight
whatever the threat is
so it's very stimulating of the body
whereas your green circle is much more
linked into your parasympathetic system
which is about a calming
and a groundedness of your body so what
we try to do
for individuals is try to strengthen
their parasympathetic system so their
body can support them
in times of stress because what happens
in times of stress the mind is racing
with thought
and if you're feeling anxious and
stressed and you turn to someone and
they say to you
just calm down that often doesn't work
very well
and just even getting you to think about
it from a different perspective is also
extremely difficult
so that's why we say let's get into the
body first and if we can ground the body
that will start to free up the mind a
little bit but first we just have a
little look at the nature of mind
and then we do a couple of exercises
just looking at your body posture
then working on a breathing technique
called soothing rhythm breathing
and then we finish uh with just a tiny
little bit of compassion i'm going to
bring in
there's a tiny little bit of compassion
because i have to because it's fun
so first thing first is to sort of just
do a
very quick exercise looking at the
nature of mind so as i say this is the
part where i'm asking you to engage in a
practice or a little exercise
if you feel like you don't want to of
course you don't have to none of these
will be
stressful it i'm sure it will be fine
but if you prefer just to sit back and
enjoy your dinner or something please
feel free to do that
but the first exercises is for the next
20 seconds
you are to think about absolutely
nothing so your instruction is
to think nothing for the next 20 seconds
okay it's not quite 20 seconds but
what typically happens after that
experiment very brief on mind you is
we recognize that it's very hard to do
nothing so we
some of you may have distracted yourself
towards something you may have just
focused on your breath for example
others may be saying to themselves don't
think anything don't think anything
so we learn very quickly when we tell
our mind to do something
it can often do the exact opposite and
we can do this again
this time i don't want you to think of a
white polar bear or a pink elephant you
can't think
of either of these two creatures a
polar bear or a pink elephant so for the
next 20 seconds you cannot think of
these two
images
okay well um not quite 20 seconds but
again i suspect some of you
would have learnt very quickly that it's
hard to keep those images out and you
you do think about they do come back not
only that if you did manage not to think
about it
during that short period of time you
would have been through some kind of
distraction strategy so okay i'm going
to focus in on something
again it could be the breath but it
could be something else or you could try
to bring something else to front of mind
now you can do that for the short term
that can work a little bit but to do
that and hold that for a longer period
of time becomes very difficult
so what we start to notice is what we
tell our mind to do
the mind will do the opposite so if you
tell yourself don't think something
actually what you've done is you've
created a rule where it's more likely
that you will experience it
but so often in times of stress we tell
ourselves don't think it don't worry
about it
forget it but what we're doing is we're
increasing the likelihood of it coming
back up
and if it does come back up the thought
or whatever it is we're trying to put
out of mind
it can actually make things uh quite
difficult for us because when it comes
up we can think to ourselves ah what's
wrong with me why can't i keep it out of
mind
so that's a really important part just
recognizing how jumpy the mind is
the next step is then to bring in this
little breathing technique
and so this will take about uh maybe two
two and a half minutes just to let
everyone know and then we'll get into
the q a but i just want to spend just a
couple of minutes on
this breathing technique um and it
brings in the compassion then i'm then
i'm done
so with this breathing technique what's
important with breathing
is setting your body posture up so this
is all part of the step two
so the body posture should be one where
your feet are flat on the floor
your shoulders are back your chest up
your chest is open
and what this does is this body position
helps open up your diaphragm
and then you leave your your hands just
flat on the top of your legs
and this is the position that we want to
try to breathe in
now if you'd like and if you can just
move your hands forward down your legs
over your knees
down your shins and just try breathing
from this position taking a couple of
deep breaths
and then just come back up have your
hands back on the top of your legs
shoulders back
chest open and just breathing from this
position
what's the easier body posture well that
one
but it's very important because when
we're anxious our body curls in
right we'll curl straight in whenever
we're worried or stressed
the body will curve in we'll feel a lot
of tension in our shoulders even get
tension headaches and get tight jaws
a lot of us will spend a lot of time
like me at the computer and again your
body's curled over or just even driving
now when your body is in that position
it is unable to activate the diaphragm
and you will not see improvements in
your parasympathetic system
so that's why we spend a lot of time
emphasizing the importance of the body
posture so you can engage your diaphragm
and strengthen your parasympathetic
system which you can do
which we've found you can do um in
studies here at uq
so you get into that body posture
position then we're going to get into a
style of breathing where you breathe in
for five
and out for five and you want to have a
smooth breath so it's not a hold
and then collapse of the breath it's a
smooth and smoother now i'll do
countersink for five but
uh if you find five five too tricky uh
stick with the rhythm that works for you
the key
is to keep the same pattern so if you do
four
in four out stay with four four if you
prefer a slightly longer out breath
that's fine
so you can do a three in four out or
whatever it might be just play around
with the different patterns for yourself
but then once you've found one the key
is to stay with it that is when you will
see
an impact on your parasympathetic system
so i'll just guide us through this
exercise now so just
get into your chair sitting upright
shoulders back chest open opening up
your diaphragm
and if you'd like just close your eyes
or you can cast your gaze downwards
and to begin just become aware of your
breath don't change anything just become
aware of the coming and going
and now i'm just going to gently bring
in a count and just follow this count of
breathing
in two three
out two three
in two three
four out two
three four in
two three four
five out two
three four five
and just go with that pattern for the
next minute
play around with your different breeding
patterns but once you've found one stay
with it
if your mind wanders just notice what it
drifted off too
you can even just label it okay that's
dinner or that's hunger or boredom
and then just come back to your breath
seeing if you can start to notice a
slowing down in the body
and a grounding in the body
and just to finish
exercise will just do a small
compassionate wish
so just bring to mind someone you really
care about
so just bring to mind and create an
image of them in your mind
as if you're seeing them or someone you
really care about
i suspect there are hundreds of people
you care about but just pick one for
this evening you can do the others later
and just notice how this person who
you've picked
is trying their best in this world
they have their strong points their good
qualities
they also have the things that don't go
so well
and they can struggle from time to time
it's just the ebbs and flows of life
and you might like to just wish this
person the following compassionate
wishes
may be safe
may be peaceful
may you be healthy
may you live with ease
just letting go of that person now and
if you can
just bring yourself into your mind's eye
and just recognizing that you just find
yourself here as part of the flow of
life
and you have your really strong good
qualities and you can also experience
things that don't go
so well it's just part of the ebbs and
flows of life
and just offer yourself those four
compassionate wishes
may i be safe may i be peaceful
may i be healthy may i live with ease
i'm just starting to let go of that
imagery now
saying it better start to get a better
sense of the
world around you and the contact your
body's making with the chair
and when you're ready just come back
into the room
and that finishes up those exercises i
know i've gone for a little bit longer
i just wanted to get those exercises in
if you're interested in any of those
exercises
you can hop on our website there in the
school or just type into google
compassionate mind
research group that's my lab there where
we do all of our research at uq
you know the campus well um but if you
go there there'll be a link that you can
click on
the compassion initiative and if you
click on that there's a whole bunch of
different resources but all the tracks
that we use
that can be helpful for stress and
anxiety are there you can download them
for free or listen and stream them
straight from the website so they're all
there for you but thank you very much
and
i think there's time for some questions
now
thank you for that james that was really
fantastic
um i feel very calm now even after
just a few minutes
yeah i'm here are you there i'll just
end my show
frustrating
okay it should be working now you can
hear me
no oh no let's go
here
okay
all right james yeah there we are gotcha
there we are
here we are well thank you uh for that
that was great
um i'm sure many of us took a lot from
that
um those tips really helpful and that
practice even
just a couple of minutes was really
calming
so thank you for that um we have a few
questions so i might jump straight into
those yep
um we've had somebody ask um how
accurate
is this particular questionnaire to
determine if
someone is suffering from anxiety and
depression and
they've put a link up to
openpsychometrics.org
and it's the desk so the depression
anxiety and stress scale
yep i mean it's a useful tool it it has
cutoffs it's been used
in tens of thousands not hundreds of
thousands of people so we've got a lot
of data on that particular scale
and it will give cut off so give us
cutoffs of typical ranges
mild elevated ranges moderate but it
can't be used in just isolation so it's
just
one tool you would use to help guide you
to give you a sense of how i'm
experiencing my anxiety
but it would be used hand in hand with
clinical
assessment as well so seeing someone for
it as well is extremely
important great
um so someone else says also asked um
how much you build
resiliency in children um they've
specified particularly children under
five
okay um i mean it's not it's not the
exact focus of what i was
talking about tonight but it is a very
important question being asked i mean
part of it is just
being supportive so i do a lot of work
in parenting research
and the best way we can help our
children through these difficult times
is to be there for them
to be a sense of uh support warmth
encouragement
uh to help them during these difficult
times i mean the
the key the clear fact is um none of us
are prepared
for these kinds of experiences that
we're going through so to help the child
through that
the best to be is is responsive warm and
compassionate to them
wonderful um somebody else has asked
what is the physiology behind the chest
pain associated with
anxiety what is it that's actually
hurting
right so i mean part of it is it's just
an incredible rush
that's happening an incredible intense
rush
that's occurring at that time where your
heart rate is just going
really so it's gone from what is a
typical resting heart rate up to the
to the fastest it can possibly be and
that can bring about the pain
okay um somebody else has asked is it
okay to do
the breathing exercises and meditations
lying down
or do you need to be sitting on a chair
for that sure it's a great question now
for some people it can be very difficult
to engage the diaphragm
and so lying down can be useful to begin
with you can even put a hand
on your belly just to see is it rising
and falling
and i don't go through any of that
tonight um but lying down can work
now there's important to think about
what your aim of breathing is if your
aim is to feel relaxed
lying down and doing it is absolutely
fantastic it's great in fact it could
send you to sleep it can be so relaxing
but if your aim is to become grounded so
you can do what you need to whatever
that situation might be
sitting up right chest open uh shoulders
back
is the preferable position to help
engage your diaphragm
great um i think this is a question that
a lot of us
probably have um how do you bring
yourself to actually sit down
and meditate um when you're super
anxious and your mind's jumping around
and
it's you're very stressed out yeah sure
it's a great question
i mean importantly what we did just then
with breathing was not a meditation it
was just controlling the breath
so i did i said close your eyes because
it's often useful to do that but of
course you do not have to
um i often say when we do that exercise
i asked someone how was that for you and
someone would always say oh yeah i felt
uh
really tired sleepy actually so that
probably is important information you
probably do need more sleep
but equally my response would be if
that's the case you do notice you become
sleepy or tight as you do this do with
your eyes open
and do it standing because we're not
doing it for relaxation we're doing it
to develop
our parasympathetic system and ground
our bodies so that we can
engage in what is stressful uh events or
interactions or whatever the the goal
may be
um it's like the diver on the 10 meter
platform they take a breath to compose
and get an element of poise to go into
action
and that's what we're really trying to
do with that grounding exercise
the other part of working it in i mean
i can't persuade you it's up to you
right
part of it is start to create tiny
habits as best you can
so what would be the smallest amount you
could do and can you pair it with
something you do often
so can you do your breathing perhaps
every time you go to get a cup of coffee
right or standing in line waiting for a
cup of coffee
pick a moment that you'll associate and
you just do it for a tiny little bit
but ultimately it'll be up to you if you
can work it in and i of course
understand that there are many time
pressures i've got two kids myself and
it's incredibly difficult to find the
time
those are great tips though uh someone
else has asked
is it useful to try to make friends with
anxiety by understanding the positive
use of it as you described earlier
yeah that's about validating the anxiety
100
uh if you start often what can happen
with these threat emotions
is we can get angry or frustrated that
you're experiencing the anxiety and of
course
then you've got these emotions and
conflict with each other
and that can cause a paralysis or a
sense of just being too overwhelmed and
i just can't i just can't
just gotta walk away from it so part of
it is you don't have to
you know be best friends with your
anxiety but you're understanding and
thinking okay thank you for letting me
know that something's going on
okay something's obviously a danger uh
invalidate that
validate that emotional experience and
then try to go okay
what can i do now that could be helpful
and part of that i would suggest is
getting into
a grounding of your body as best you can
um using those compassion-based
strategies but um you know
there are different approaches to going
with it though but yes being
validating and understanding your
anxiety is there for a reason is
important
great um somebody else has asked
can ongoing and high levels of anxiety
lead to other medical problems
oh well i mean that's a tricky one
because that's going to be very
dependent on the person
and if you're experiencing a lot of high
anxiety often
there partly is then a factor of are you
around a lot of danger perhaps a lot of
uncertainty
and so there's a a number of
contributing factors that could
certainly lead to health complications
but um
there will be a surrounding environment
in which that occurs um
which will be very dependent on the
person so just think of someone who's
like a first responder or a paramedic
they're going to have a lot of anxiety
in that job as they rush to get to help
the person then they're going to see
a lot of tragedy as well
as they go to help people now there'll
be heightened anxiety there but you're
also being exposed to a lot of potential
trauma as well
um and a lot of these factors with night
shift as well can start to impact our
health
true okay um oh we've got lots coming in
so
um what is happening when physiological
systems of anxiety so for example the
fast heart rate the sweating the heavy
breathing
um happened before threat is even um
front of mind
yeah that's like a panic attack really
just comes in out of nowhere and that's
what's most scary about them
there seems to be no threat no trigger
and so we become very worried about oh
goodness when's this going to show
and then we can start to avoid things a
great deal not go out at home for
example because
having a panic attack around people for
many people is a
is a worst case scenario you don't want
the attention to begin with
let alone to experience all of those
unpleasant emotions as well
so it's just something that happens for
us from time to time
we'll notice that it just comes in and
you can't pick the trigger
and then we'll drive ourselves through
this intense
laborious investigation trying to find
what it was
what is the trigger what is the trigger
and that's just part of the anxiety loop
and worry that can occur of course
you problem solve try to get a sense of
what it could be what is going on in my
life
um but after you've done that and done a
reasonable job of that
and if you can't identify anything and i
would suggest there's probably
a range of life events that are
occurring and if
only one thing was happening that'd be
great they'd be fine you'd be no dramas
but if there are a number of things
happening well then these things can
just kick off unfortunately it's just
part of being human
definitely um can you expand upon the
difference between
safety in the threat system and safeness
in the soothing system
yeah that's an excellent question i kind
of rushed through that
um so when you are feeling threat you'll
try to seek
safety so you try to get away from the
threat so your body's still very
activated
so you still have a lot of sympathetic
drive some people seek
safety by locking themselves in their
own home and at its worst we call that
agrophobia
you're afraid of leaving your home base
because you're afraid you're not going
to be able to escape another context
so that's a safety a safety is i have to
stay here or if i've got this with me
i will be okay so a lot of people have
safety objects
you know people have safety blankets for
example
but that's a sense of safety so another
to use an analogy like a rock climb or
their safety strategy will be the
harness and you want that because you
need that
in order to engage in the in what the
threatening event is which is scaling
the cliff
uh safeness on the other hand is when
you feel an openness
and a freedom to explore your
surroundings
so when you feel a sense of safeness you
can go out and do what you'd like to do
you can have the freedom that comes with
that a lot of people don't feel that
feeling
and that's what we try to do a lot in
therapy try to create a place for them
where they do feel
safe and it is freeing for them to be
playful
to be free and that is what safeness
allows
yeah i think that's a really important
distinction um
we've got time for just one more
question so this is the last one and
sorry to
those that we didn't get around to um
but how can we achieve the zebra mindset
when the human mind tends to think and
do things exactly the opposite of what
we want
oh it's a pain isn't it uh no one asked
for this
uh of course no one asked for this
particular design but this is what we
got
it's very hard the key is you can't so
if you go in trying not to experience
what happens
with the human mind conversely to the
zebra
um you're setting yourself up for
something which you can never achieve
uh i mean at its extreme the dalai lama
still meditates every morning for four
hours
i mean i would rather sleep for that
four hours but
part of that is to help the monkey mind
you your mind will just be jumping
around constantly
and the idea is we've got to give our
mind something to do and if you can give
it something to focus in on such as the
breath but there can be many other
things you choose to focus in on
that can help slow down the jumpiness of
the mind
which can bring about that sense of
feeling more at ease more calm
for example but yeah it's impossibility
to get to where zebra is
um unless of course those tragic
circumstances
when people do have brain injuries and
so on and
things like that can happen but ideally
it's just starting to become
aware of the jumpiness and when you
start to become aware of it you can then
choose where you want to go and where
you want to direct
your attention and your thoughts that's
great it sounds like some of those
exercises might
help people to get a little bit closer
to being zebras
um okay well that's all we have time for
i would say so thank you again james for
sharing your insights with us
i'm sure that many of us have a lot to
take away
and some exercises to look up so
for more information about the UQ alumni
programming you can visit
alumni.uq.edu.edu
and you can follow UQ alumni on social
media
this recording will be available on that
UQ alumni website
later this week probably tomorrow when
you exit the zoom you'll be
redirected to a short survey so if you
have any thoughts or feedback you'd like
to share
please fill that out but that concludes
the event this evening so thank you
again james for joining us
and to everyone else that stuck around
pleasure thanks Kirstie.
