661: How to calm your nerves when it seems like the world is ending

This week on the Anxiety Slayer Podcast, we’re responding to a listener question from our private Facebook Group about the panic and anxiety that comes up over the things we hear in the news.

“I just want to say how much I enjoy your podcast your wisdom and overall energy is so powerful. I’ve had anxiety for many years and recently I’ve been having lots of panic over the things I hear in the news, such as; aliens, solar flares, basically anything “world ending” causes me to have massive panic attacks. I would really appreciate it if you could talk about this.”

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Points covered in this episode & Recommended Reading 

Stop Reading the News by Ralph Dobelli

Digitalization has turned the news from a harmless form of entertainment into a weapon of mass destruction, and it’s aimed straight at our mental health. We need to get out of the way.

You Are What You Read by Jodie Jackson

Food is to the body what information is to the mind. The information that we imbibe will turn into emotions, thoughts, actions and behaviors. The consequences are less visible but just as potent.

Ayurveda on fearing the worst

Ayurveda says the news is like junk food and gives us mental heartburn and indigestion. We need nourishment, reading that inspires our mind and keeps it well fed with good things to think over and talk about.

When the mind has an excess of the air element it feels churned up and ungrounded. We experience overthinking and anxiety and our mind easily falls into worst-case scenario thinking.

We can suffer with constant negative “what if” fears, and any challenges we are trying to face feel bigger than reality.

Thankfully, we can build peace and resilience in the mind and feel more settled and grounded. We cover this in-depth in our new course: 7 Keys to Calming Anxiety with Ayurveda at the Anxiety Slayer Academy

Teaching: Stephen Covey Circle of Concern and Influence

From the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” 

This teaching is shown as two circles, one inside the other. The outside circle holds the things we’re concerned about like the things we hear in the news: conflict, environmental concerns, aliens, economic worries, all the things that come at us from the media. Big worrying things that we usually can’t do anything about.

The inside circle is our area of influence - the things we can do something about for example: our actions, and behavior, taking care of our mental and physical health, choosing what information we take in, and how we spend our time.

When we’re overwhelmed by our circle of concern it means it has more power over us, it’s the bigger circle and it’s pushing in on us and constricting us. We feel more anxious and we might feel helpless.

When we bring our attention to the circle of influence and take action to develop it, we gain some hope and breathing space. As we continue working on the things we can do something about our circle of influence grows and pushes out against the circle of concern.

Download a PDF of the circle of influence here.  It’s a helpful exercise to draw your own diagram and fill in the things you’re worried about but can’t change on the outside. And the things you can do something about in the inside circle.

In other words … Focus on what you can control, instead of what is outside of your control.

How to start feeling calmer

Avoid the source of anxiety. If it’s the news, take a break.

Avoid stimulants like caffeine that can increase heart rate and provoke anxiety.

Start using calming practices daily to help you feel more settled in the present.

Pick something that appeals to you, for example, guided breathing practices, or a body scan, visualization, restorative yoga. We have several guided practices with relaxing music available on our Patreon.

Try EFT Tapping Tapping is easy to learn and very effective for this kind of anxiety.

Introducing, 7 Keys to Calming Anxiety with Ayurveda 

An introduction to the healing wisdom of Ayurveda for soothing stress and anxiety.

Explore the course today at anxietyslayer.teachable.com