Calm Your Body FIRST

CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS to reduce anxiety after your body has calmed down. This is much easier to do than trying to change your thoughts first. Learn how to change your thoughts. Learn how to calm your body.

Relaxing your body first before changing your thoughts reminds me of something researchers found about depression. Antidepressant drugs and cognitive therapy in combination work better than either alone. Most depression is caused by a combination of circumstances and mental habits (mental habits that make those circumstances unusually depressing). Sometimes drugs alone for a period of time will help, but the mental habits remain, so when bad circumstances come along again, the possibility of another depressive episode is pretty high.

Cognitive therapy works to change mental habits, making depression less likely in the future, even if bad circumstances happen. However, there's a problem: One of the thought-mistakes depressed people make is assuming their situation is hopeless and cannot be changed. That is one of the mental habits that help cause depression in the first place: Thoughts such as, "This bad stuff is permanent, and I am helpless to change it." Given that frame of mind, it is hard for a therapist to motivate a client to work to change their thinking habits. The client has already concluded nothing they try will work, so they aren't motivated to try.

By combining drugs with therapy, the client feels hopeful enough they are willing to try. With some work, those thinking habits can then be changed. Then the drugs can be discontinued and the new thought-habits remain. Studies show this is the most effective way to reduce or eliminate depression.

Calming your body before changing your anxious thoughts does something similar. Before trying to change your thoughts, first bring your body to a calmer state. Then it is much easier to change your habits of thinking because your body is not continually pushing you back into another anxious thought the moment you argue yourself out of one.