Let's talk about anxiety!

Disclaimer: This is a long read and if anxiety isn't really a topic of interest for you, this may not be the best use of your time. If it is, or you just really love supporting me, carry on.

We all have a connection to anxiety in one way or another. You, your family member, friend, co-worker, etc may have anxiety. According to dosomething.org an estimated 284 million people world wide experience an anxiety disorder. That makes this a pretty real topic to talk about. A topic that should be openly discussed without a black cloud or stigma. Anxiety is real. It's an emotion that I think everyone reading this has felt at one time or another. The word anxiety comes from an old french word meaning "a choking feeling in your throat".

Think about standing in line for the worlds tallest rollercoaster, making your own doctors appointment for the first time (or the 100th, I don't judge), going on a first date, moving out of your parents house, or stepping on to the court for a big game. These are all moments that may ignite a bout of anxiety. Some more powerful than others, moving into my first apartment may cause me a weeks worth of anxiety while making that doctors appointment only has me feeling anxious for a few minutes.

Before I get into all of the behavior analytic strategies I believe could be used with anxiety, along with some research to support them, I want to let you in on some of my experiences. Within this blog I want to discuss important issues in society. Along with that, I want to take some time to be vulnerable with any readers that may be out there. These issues that I discuss are typically significant in my life in some way, that's why they sparked my interest. Anxiety has always been a tricky topic for me. If you ask me if I fall into the category of having an anxiety disorder, I would say no. However, I would also say that I display some tendencies that could be associated with an anxiety disorder.

I'll give you an example. When I was a kid, some days my parents would come home, open the door, and find their house spotless. When I say spotless, I mean all the tedious stuff that nobody actually takes the time to do. The washer and dryer would be completely detailed, cupboards would be completely reorganized, cabinets we hadn't emptied in years would be emptied and washed. You get the point. Along with this the dishes and laundry were done, floors were swept and mopped, trash was taken out, and rooms were vacuumed.

This sounds like any parents dream, right? Well, it was my parents dream too. Still to this day they call me and say they miss my cleaning episodes. Still to this day, I have my cleaning episodes, but now my fiancé gets the benefits of shampooed carpets and new floor plan designs. I call these episodes because they are just that, a short burst of time when I clean obsessively. Don't get me wrong, I am not by ANY means a clean person. Ask anyone who has lived with me, my socks constantly find their way to the living room floor and dishes tend to sit way too long. Then one of these moments hits. As I've grown and learned more about myself, I have realized that these episodes tend to happen when there is a lot going on in my life. One could say this is a procrastination strategy. But I have found that when I'm cleaning, my music is on as loud as it can go, I'm dancing around the kitchen without a care in the world. I'm forcing myself to forget about whatever is on my mind before it has an opportunity to make me anxious. Cleaning has become the ultimate distractor.

Then COVID-19 hit. We were forced to stay home for 21 days. No social gatherings, no movies, no more shopping, etc. Suddenly I went from being surrounded by 20 smiling preschoolers every day to being stuck at home in front of a laptop for eight hours a day. This is when I really started to feel anxious. I lost my routine. There is not only a lot going on in my life, but there is a lot going on in the world around me. The cleaning hit an all time max. I mean there was not a single thing left to clean in this house. It was extreme. So I tried my first online therapy session. I'm not going to go to deep into detail with this, but I will say, if you've been thinking about trying it, DO IT! I left that video call so at ease. We talked about strategies to keep me grounded but we also discussed healthy and unhealthy obsessions. The therapist talked about making sure I was filling all of my cups. I'll give you an example. Maybe I have 5 cups: family time, exercise, cleaning, homework, and my plants. We talked about making sure that each of these cups are getting enough attention but not so much that they overflow. This made so much sense. It was nice to talk; it was nice to brainstorm strategies with someone new, without any judgement. So10/10, I recommend. If you want to talk to someone, do it. Don't think about the stigma, just do it.

10/10, I recommend. If you want to talk to someone, do it. Don't think about the stigma, just do it.

So now you know what my anxiety looks like and why it's been a topic of interest for me. I'd like to take some time to talk about where the field of behavior analysis stands on topics such as mental health, including anxiety. I'm going to be honest, I don't know as much as I would like to know on the strategies currently in place. This is something that I am making a commitment to learning more about. As I learn more, I will post more!

So, here are some strategies that I do know about. I know that there are behavior analysts who are using ACT: acceptance and commitment therapy. This therapy encourages people to embrace their thoughts and feelings rather than fighting them or feeling guilty about them. I plan to post articles and resources if you want to know more about this. BCBA's are also using exposure therapies and systemized desensitization, especially with phobias. But without diving into all of the technicalities behind these therapy techniques, I wanted to give some examples of ways that I personally change my behavior to decrease my anxiety.

Here's a situation, picture finals week, I have 3 papers due along with 50 pages of reading, a video discussion, and a final test. This would typically transition into a spiraling moment where those ceiling fans were going to be dusted for the first time in a year. Not this time. This time I sit up in my chair, I take a deep breath, I push the soles of my feet into the floor. Then I acknowledge that I am feeling anxious. I think about how that feels exactly. It feels like something is moving in my stomach, like my throat is a little smaller than before, and the muscles in my chest feel like I just hit the weight room. I think about how each of my body parts feel at this moment, from my ears to my toes. I move parts of my body, acknowledging how they move. I look around and notice five things I can see, then three things I can hear. I notice how I am feeling now, my chest has started to relax and my throat is no longer tight. I stretch my body feeling each muscle that pulls. I notice the room around me, wow how long have those shoes been in that corner? I bring myself back to the amount of work I need to get done, I acknowledge how my body reacts to this thought.

This was a grounding technique I recently learned in an interview with Lindsey LeBrun at Arizona State University. Lindsey did a great job laying this out as just one way to ground yourself while acknowledging how you feel in the moment. This is something until recently I had no clue how it could affect you. I listened to a podcast on ABA Inside Track on anxiety (great podcast if you're an aspiring BCBA). They discussed a study done where they compared results of two subject groups. One group would find a way to distract themselves when they were feeling anxious. The other group would feel and acknowledge these feelings. Immediately following the study it was shown that the distractor group was more successful. However, six months later when the participants were asked again, the group that acknowledged how they were feeling showed greater rates of success than the distractor group. This stood out to me as a key example of how cleaning the kitchen may feel great in the short term, but it doesn't do much to promote long term mental health.

Well that's as deep as I am going to go into the issue. I will drop some links below for podcasts and resources if you are interested in any of these therapy techniques. As always, I'm an open book always looking to start a dialogue. If you feel that I could have touched on something differently, reach out! Let's talk about it!

MacDonald, J., Dr., Parry-Cruwys, D., Dr., & Parry-Cruwys, R. (2018, February 28). ABA Inside Track-Anxiety [Audio blog post]. Retrieved June 02, 2020, from https://www.abainsidetrack.com/

MacDonald, J., Dr., Parry-Cruwys, D., Dr., & Parry-Cruwys, R. (2018, February 28). ABA Inside Track- Mental Health [Audio blog post]. Retrieved June 02, 2020, from https://www.abainsidetrack.com/

RFT and ACT Interview [Interview by L. LeBrun Dr.]. (2020).

Applied Behavior Analysis in the Treatment of Mental Health Disorders. (n.d.). Retrieved June 03, 2020, from https://www.appliedbehavioranalysisedu.org/mental-health/