# Stress Control Session Four: 23rd March

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Stress Control Online
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

So, welcome back everyone to session four and we've reached the halfway point. Three sessions down, three sessions to go. And today we are going to be focusing on actions and this has always been one of my favorite sessions because I think you're learning some really solid uh skills in this session. So before we go on to those skills, let's do a quick recap of controlling your thoughts. So we looked at the way that stress affects our thoughts and then the way that our thoughts uh affect our stress. We looked at a radar which is constantly looking and usually finding threats. We looked at grasshopper thinking when as soon as one stressed thought happens it leads to another to another. We spent a lot of time looking at our stressed voice, which is very emotional, jumps to conclusions, sees the world in black and white terms, and compared that to our common sense voice, which is a lot more subtle, a lot more rational, and is more likely to kind of stand back and think things over rather than jump to conclusions. And in terms of the skills, hopefully you'll remember these words, stand back, pull back the blinkers, wait a minute, because those allow us to build the foundation. And once the foundations in place, we can then challenge using one of the big five challenges. And we finish the session by looking at breaking stress up. A deceptively simple term and I hope you remember why there is a penguin going across the screen just now. A very simple deceptive technique that actually I think has quite profound implications for controlling stress. So on to today's session. We're going to look at how stress affects our actions. And then after the break there are three skills. Face your fears. stepping out your comfort zone and problem solving. So, this is where we are on the course. We've seen this slide before and we've ringed three aspects of it. We'll obviously do something about facing your fears and withdrawal. We'll do quite a lot. It's about stopping feeling overwhelmed. And as always, these skills will help us to boost self-confidence and self-esteem. Let's look at how stress affects our actions. Now, what we'll be doing today is, I think, beginning to pull what we've already learned together. So, at some stage in this session, I'll be talking about fight flight. how we best use relaxation, whether it's belly breathing or progressive relaxation. We'll look at vigilance again in this context. We'll look at pulling back the blinkers by building the foundation and using the challenges and breaking stress up. So in other words, we're now moving from learning discrete skills in each session to beginning to look at how we put it all together. And if you think of the jigsaw, I hope the jigsaw is starting to come together. But let's look at actions first of all. And here's Danny. And listen carefully to Danny because all he's going to do is talk about his stress in terms of the way it affects his actions. He won't say anything about how he feels. thinks. He won't say anything about the way stress affects his body. But we'll hear about his actions. And having heard, can we work out how Danny is feeling? — I can't sit at peace. I fidget all the time. I'm always on the go. People sometimes say I talk too fast. Yet at other times, like in meetings at work, I might not open my mouth in case I say the wrong thing. I try to get out of doing things as much as I can, not because I'm lazy, but because I think I'll mess things up. — So, what do you think? Do you think Danny's feeling depressed? Do you think he's feeling angry? Or anxious? Well, I would bet every single person listening to this got it right. That's anxiety. How could anyone be relaxed if they acted like this?

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

So again, just as we did with the body and with thoughts, there's something important here. We know that when we are stressed, it changes our actions. But I'm also suggesting that the way our actions change then feed into the stress, giving us a vicious circle. And if we accept that, then it's good news because it leads on to the next step. If your actions make stress worse, then surely learning how to control your actions should make stress better. So that's why we'll be doing the things that we're doing today. We'll be learning how to control your actions in order to produce a positive circle. And let's spend just a second looking at the big picture because it's really starting to emerge in session four. The vicious circle is clearly weakening now. Before the end of this course, all of these boxes will have turned to gray. And at the end of this course, all of these boxes will now be in color. But even at this point, we can see that the positive circle is starting to gain strength. And instead of us necessarily being overwhelmed, we are beginning, still early days because we have to practice these skills. But we are beginning to get the world under better control. And I want to talk about actions in two ways. I want to divide them into avoidance and then into behavior. But let's look at avoidance. And I think avoidance is such a critical factor in keeping stress going. And we can think about very obvious things like avoiding going near dogs if you have a phobia of dogs. But often it can be a lot more subtle than that. So here's a couple at the cinema. What may have happened here is one friend has phoned the other and said, "Do you want to go at the pictures? " Yep. I'd really like to go. What shall we go and see? And the other friend says, I don't care. You decide. Now, maybe nothing much happened there. But maybe that friend just avoided taking responsibility and making a decision. So, there's a very subtle thing there. Why would the individual avoid taking responsibility for what would appear to be quite a minor thing? Well, let's say that person said, "Let's go and see such and such a film. " They go and see it. The film turns out to be awful. The person says, "Oh, we've wasted so much money. I've wasted my friend's time. This is terrible. " Whereas, if the friend makes the decision to go and see this film, which turns out to be awful, there won't be the same reaction. They may simply have a laugh about it. But that one person may be quite programmed not to take responsibility or to make decisions. So I want you to think about this yourself. Can you think if you are doing that in any kind of subtle way so subtle that you might not immediately think about it and it might be worthwhile if there are people around you who know you well and who you can trust having that discussion with them. What do I avoid doing? And you might be surprised at what they've picked up. You might avoid talking to neighbors, not because you are antisocial, but because you are perhaps socially anxious. You So you're having a discussion with a neighbor. Part of you is focused on what the neighbor is saying, but another part of your mind is reflecting on what's happening. I bet she thinks I'm really boring. I bet she doesn't want to talk to me. I bet she thinks that I've said something really stupid. And of course, that's going to really interfere with the conversation because half of your mind is busy focused looking at what's going on instead of just going with it. You may avoid driving. Now, you may avoid driving completely, but I think more commonly uh people will make decisions about where to drive and where not to drive. So, you might not drive on motorways, during Russia, you might not drive uh down certain streets, but think about whether you're avoiding driving and think about why you're avoiding driving. The common one being in busy places, so uh supermarkets, large stores, football matches, pubs, restaurants, etc. And

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

it's not the fear. I think I said this in a previous session. It's not the fear of the supermarket as such. It's the fear of what might happen to you. It's the sense of threat and you not feeling that you've got the resources that will allow you to cope with that threat. Well, we saw this image way back uh earlier in the course. And you may avoid socializing probably for the same reasons that we talked about last time. That one of those uh men at the back feels very uncomfortable, feels that he doesn't fit in, feels that the others don't really want him to be there, is terrified that he's going to open his mouth and say something quite silly. You might avoid reading about illness. Now, of course, this is one of those signs of stress that can go uh to either extreme. So, you may be on the internet looking at Dr. Google all the time, but you may completely avoid particularly certain buzzwords that you're particularly scared of. While you might try to avoid being alone, now this may be because you're terrified that something bad is going to happen to you. What if I were to have a heart attack and there was no one here to help me? But it tends to be uh not that straightforward. So some people find even if they're with a dog or a small child, in other words, child is unable to be able to phone 999 and get you an ambulance, but they are comforted by the fact that there is another uh creature beside them. Lifts being in enclosed spaces, so you avoid using lifts. Now, this may be okay if you just have to climb, you know, one set of stairs to get to your flat, but maybe you live in a high-rise and you live on the 10th floor. What do you do? Are you able to get into that lift, or are you walking up 10 flights of stairs all the time? Well, those are just some signs of avoidance, but think about what the effects of avoiding these situations would be. First of all, you're telling yourself you can't cope. You're withdrawing. You're seeing threats everywhere. And a phrase that I quite like on stress control is you're measuring your life by what you can't do. Now, none of us can do everything. None of us is Superman or Wonder Woman, but it's much better to measure your life in terms of what you can do. And if you're doing this, if you're telling yourself you can't cope, think of the impact this is going to have on your self-confidence, think of the impact it's going to have on your self-esteem. You're withdrawing. You're avoiding challenges. Well, that's avoidance. But we also have to talk about its close cousin. And its close cousin is escape. And this is where you don't completely avoid. You go into the situation, but you take precautions. So maybe you go to the cinema, but you don't take any seat in the cinema. Maybe you'd very deliberately book a seat that is in the back row right next to the door because you're always looking for the exit. And what you're really saying is, look, I can't cope. I've got to take these precautions. There's a very strong link to phobias uh with this and when we come to look at stepping out your comfort zone again we will see the relationship between escape and staying in your comfort zone. And let's look at the other aspect of actions and that's behavior. So this is the way that we act when we get stressed. Well, we tend to become more angry. I really like this clip. If we get angry, it affects relationships. And as we'll see in session six, we really want relationships to be as strong as possible because that will help us control stress. It does tend to result in us taking longer to do things and also we tend to make more mistakes. Let's have Homer on the screen at this point. Now if you are in a job where making mistakes is quite a significant issue then that can be quite serious. And if it's taking you longer to do things perhaps because you know you feel you're winging through trile in terms of your brain but you're also checking and doublechecking and triple checking then that can have quite a significant impact

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

on your performance and you might end up being pulled up at work for this reason. The other way your behavior changes is you might drink more, smoke more, use more drugs, whether illegal or prescription drugs. Uh that of course in itself can become part of the problem. You would tend to do things like cry more easily. So people would be more aware of this kind of linked to anger, but you might just find yourself generally more irritable and kind of picking fights for no great reason. Again, think of the impact that's going to have on your relationships. And sometimes, you know, we can work out that someone actually is suffering from stress because they are reporting just being really angry all the time or getting into trouble when normally they would not be doing so. You may find that your behavior changes in terms of you're just always rushed, you're always about the world, and perhaps not really getting anything accomplished. And of course you reach the end of the day and you're absolutely exhausted because you have no time to relax during that day. Something else which has become apparent uh fairly recently in the research is that when we are stressed we tend to take more risks. So the images here first of all it's a car. Uh it seems that when we're stressed, oddly I think uh we are maybe more likely, for example, to overtake in situations where when we're calm, we would feel this isn't an appropriate time to overtake. And the bottom image would relate to something like drug use. So, it may well be that if you're at uh some kind of gathering and someone has some kind of drugs, but you're not sure what these drugs are, normally you might be a bit more cautious about what you take, but when you're stressed, you're more likely to take a risk uh and take something that you're not quite sure about. Often trying to do far too many things at the same time. And because you then don't achieve anything, there's no sense of satisfaction and a feeling that you know when you wake up tomorrow, all of these things are still going to be there. And something you don't really see all that much in the books, but I'm sure is absolutely true. Uh is I I'm positive you're much more accidentrone when you're stressed in very minor ways. So, for example, uh I think when you're drying the dishes, you know, you've got the dish here and simply because your mind's not really on things, you let that dish drop and it breaks. So, you know, think about that. Think about just things about the house if you're more accidentrone. And generally, you might find yourself cleaning or checking too much. Now if that gets quite extreme then we would start to talk about obsessive compulsive problems. But I think just in general levels of stress you might find yourself uh doing this. And what are the effects uh of these behaviors? Well, very similar to the effects of avoidance, but these ones would tend to make you very self-conscious because while you're doing these things, you will tend to be so aware that you're doing these things. And if you're aware of them, you feel that other people might be aware of them as well. And you will see these as signs of you not coping. And what's that going to do to your self-confidence? Exactly what avoidance does. And what's it going to do to your self-esteem? So, we really want to do something about avoidance and behavior. Let's go back to our nervous speaker because remember in the last session uh we said a big word was vigilance. Now, the way that we did that last time was it was vigilance pointing out the way. So, her nervous speaker uh whose radar was highly acute was scanning her audience looking for signs that she wasn't coping. And then she spots one, namely someone yawning. When you're stressed, you're vigilant out the way, but you're also vigilant in the way. In other words, you are so conscious of everything that you're doing. So, I want you to think about whether that affects you when you're stressed. So, you're maybe talking to someone. Are you incredibly aware of the way you're standing or what you're doing with your hands or whether you're able to get eye contact with the person? I think the

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

chances are a lot of you might well recognize that as a sign of stress. And what that means is we've created a vicious circle. So think of the effect of your actions on your thoughts, right? Because we pick them up, we're so vigilant, we're so aware of it. And think about the impact of our actions and our thoughts on our body because the more stressed uh we are in terms of actions and thoughts, of course, the body is going to react to that. And yet again we have a vicious circle where our body and thoughts and actions are feeding themselves. Hence the importance of breaking up this vicious circle and replacing it with a much more positive circle. Let's continue into part two the skills. And the first thing we're going to look at is face your fears. Remember what we said in session one? What do you do if you fall off a horse? Well, everyone knows the answer to that. The answer is you get on that horse and you ride the horse. In other words, you face your fears. The problem is, of course, that it's really difficult to do because when you face your fears, you experience more stress in the short term. So, you can see why people don't want to do it. But if you do that in the long term, you will find it easier and easier. So, although facing your fears is a critical thing to do, you have to expect that it is hard to do in the short term. But in the long term, that's when your self-confidence grows and that's when your selfesteem grows. A lot of people feel they're using their common sense by saying, "Look, I can't do that thing now. I can't face up to this fear just now, but once I feel more confident, then I'll do it. " It's entirely the wrong way round. Our feeling as cognitive behavioral therapists is that your confidence and self-esteem will only start to pick up after you've faced your fears. So facing your fears is absolutely crucial. And you can make that easier by combining the skills you already have. So think of the weapons if you want to think of it in that way. Think of the weapons you now have. You've learned about breaking stress up. So before you face your fear, you can prepare. You can plan for how it would be best to face your fear. You can use some form of relaxation. Whether it's belly breathing to slow down your autonomic nervous system or progressive relaxation to help relax the muscles and slow down the autonomic nervous system. You can build the foundation. You can stand back, pull back the blinkers, wait a minute, and then challenge your thoughts using one of the big five challenges. Using breaking stress up, you can then review what happened. So even if facing your fears didn't work, you can learn from that. What went wrong? How can it be better next time? And doing that, combining all of those skills, that will help you go from this, which is I'll just not think about it. Well, let's remember session three and what happens when we don't think of a skateboarding penguin. It suddenly appears. So, not thinking about something isn't a good strategy. We decided when we looked at breaking stress up that thinking about it makes a lot more sense. And when we do that, we are facing our fears. we're just peeking out through our fingers because it's still scary. But that's when the self-confidence and self-esteem can start to build up. But we can also make it easier by learning two other skills. Stepping out your comfort zone and problem solving. And that might be a good time to take a break. So, let's do that 10 minutes and when we come back, we'll start to look at our comfort zones.

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00)

What do you think? Mhm.

### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=1800s) Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00)

Oh, hey. Oh yeah. Hello. Welcome back. Uh I hope you're refreshed and we are now ready to start on the two

### [35:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=2100s) Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00)

major skills. First one being to step out of your comfort zone. So just to recap, I said earlier that when you face your fears, it tends to make you more stressed in the short term, but makes you better in the long term. And psychologists like me would really push that idea. We are absolutely certain about this that when you face your fears in the long run you will feel better. But the problem was people would say to us but I am facing my fears and I'm facing them every single day but I'm not getting better. And that was a bit of a problem for us because we weren't absolutely convinced by the theory. So why were these people who were genuinely trying to face their fears not getting better? And it was because unwittingly they're staying in their comfort zone. And what's your comfort zone? It's the place where we go to try to stop bad things from happening. And this is quite difficult to explain. So let's really focus on this bit. And uh let's look at two footballers uh and see what they did because they stayed in their comfort zones as well. And I'm sure most of you recognize these footballers. It's Gary Lker and Peter Crouch. Well, Gary Linkker had these, you could kind of call them superstitions, I suppose, that when he was playing, obviously the highest levels, when the players were out warming up before the game, Gary would never shoot at goal. So he would pass, he would header, he would do all the usual things, but unusually for a forward, he would never try to score against his own goalkeeper while they were warming up. And the reason he wouldn't do that is because he said, "I might use up my goals if I do that. " He would then play the first half. Here's his Barcelona top. He'd play the first half, but if he hadn't scored by Halime, when he went into the dressing room, he would change his top because he said, "Now I'm more likely to score a goal. " And Peter Crouch, when the footballers had their lineup at the start, just before they all shake hands, what Peter used to do was jump up and down as if he's heading an imaginary ball. and he was saying, "This is how I'm going to score a goal today. " But he had something else and he's read his book. It is just tremendous. He had a pair of lucky pants. So these were a pair of pants that his wife had bought him. And Peter Crouch decided that as long as he was wearing his lucky pants, he would score. And he tells the story of one day they were in Newcastle to play Newcastle United at St. James' Park and he realized he'd forgotten his lucky pants. He was so concerned he phoned up a taxi company to take his lucky pants from his house to Newcastle. It cost £600 to do this. But that was how important it was for Peter to have these lucky pants. I don't think he actually mentioned whether he scored in that game or not. I hope he did. So these are kind of superstitions, but it's the idea of staying in your comfort zone. So it's where you go to stop the bad things happening. And what are the bad things for Gary Lker and Peter Crouch? So, if Gary had shot into goal and scored against his own goalkeeper during the warm-up period, if he hadn't changed his shirt at Halime, would he then have failed to score? Would he have wasted all his goals up? Would Peter Crouch be useless if he wasn't wearing his lucky pants? Well, the answer is they don't know because they never took the chance. They stayed in their comfort zone. So, what would they have to do to stop playing it safe and step out their comfort zone? Well, actually, it's pretty straightforward. Gary Lker would have had to shoot into goal during the warm-up. At Halime, if

### [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=2400s) Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00)

he hadn't scored, he would have had to keep his jersey on. Peter Crouch during the lineup would have stayed firmly rooted to the ground and also wore a different pair of pants. What do you think would have happened if those two footballers had done that? Bearing in mind these were two phenomenally talented players, the chances are really high that Gary Linkker and Peter Crouch would have continued to score goals, but they would never have found out unless they take a chance and do those things. Well, you might be asking, what have these, you know, relatively minor superstitious behaviors got to do with stress? Well, it takes us back to this word that we've used so often on the course so far and the word is threats. That when we feel that we are surrounded by threats, we often tend to try to protect ourselves. And we protect ourselves by playing it safe and staying in our comfort zone. And I'm suggesting that just as Gary Lker shouldn't change his top or Peter Crouch shouldn't wear his lucky pants, we sometimes have to take a risk. We have to step out of our comfort zones. Well, let's look at some examples that affect people who are complaining of stress. Now, a lot of people when they're getting really, really uptight will use some form of distraction. So, for example, they will start counting down from a hundred or they'll start to think about, you know, somewhere where they feel safe, for example. And that seems to be good common sense. But their thoughts here are, if I don't do this, I'll go mad. something terrible will happen. So they stay in their comfort zone and of course they never know what would have happened had they taken a risk. So what would have happened if they hadn't counted down to 100? Would they have cracked up? Pretty unlikely, but they're not going to go know that unless they take a risk. are some people who maybe lack uh assertion. They're in a conversation and someone in the group is saying something they maybe profoundly disagree with, but they're unable to say so. They're unable to put forward their own point of view because they're terrified of provoking a possible disagreement. Or again an example of maybe being in a group and someone's maybe really quite anxious being in that group and there's a natural lull in conversation and this person feels it's their responsibility to jump in and fill the gaps. Or here's one. This is a the modern one and it's the way that we use our phones. Now, phones are wonderful pieces of kit, but sometimes they can be a really useful way for us to play safe. So, when we're in a public place, we stick our phone up in front of our uh face and that means that maybe people won't talk to us because I don't think I can cope with conversations here. Or the example we used earlier, when you go to the cinema, you deliberately sit at the end of the row right next to the door. You are taking a precaution. You are staying in your comfort zone because you think if I were to move anywhere else, something awful might happen to me. Or maybe you carry a bottle of water about with you everywhere. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. But maybe this is a fear that if you meet someone, what if your mouth gets dry? You won't be able to speak. Well, you can see almost that there's a common sense element there. But what you're actually doing is staying in your comfort zone. Much better to take a risk and see what happens. Here's someone who says, you know, in a group of people, "Oh my goodness, you know, I'm so hot. I wonder if, you know, I'm getting a bit ill or is it really hot in here? " What she's afraid of is blushing. So, she gets an excuse in first. Actually, it probably just makes the blushing worse. Now, here's an example. Well, many years ago, I was running a stress control class and I was talking about staying in your comfort zone and suddenly it was

### [45:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=2700s) Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00)

quite a large group. I think there was more than 100 people in this class and a woman who was sitting right at the back, I noticed she stood up. She'd walked along the row. She walked down the aisle towards me. Actually didn't know what was happening. She came up to me, lovely smile, and said, "Would you mind if I spoke to the class for a minute? " Okay, on you go. She turned around, she produced this bottle of dasipam. It had two tablets in it. She held it up and she said to the class, "Do you know for the past 5 years or so, I won't go out the house unless I know I have this bottle of dasipam with me. So if I'm going to my work, if I'm going down to my mom's house, the supermarket, before I leave my door, I check that I've got this dasopam with me. " And I get to my work mom's and I get to the supermarket, but I come back home and I say, "Thank goodness I had my dazipan with me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have managed to do that. " And then she said, "You know, just because of what we've been talking about today, I think a light bulb has lit up in my head and I've suddenly realized why my confidence isn't building up. is because for the last 5 years every time I have a successful outing instead of saying I did that I've achieved something I've given the credit to a bottle of dasipam a bottle of dasopam with two tablets that have never been taken. She has not once in those five years actually taken a dazipam out of the bottle. And she realized that had she taken a chance and left that daipan bottle at home, she would still have got to her mom's house, work. She would still have got to the supermarket. But when she came back, she would have said, "I did that. I achieved something. I faced my fears. " And at that point, once she steps out of her comfort zone, at that point her self-confidence and her self-esteem would have risen. So once she truly faced her fears, it would have worked. Her confidence and self-esteem would have built up. She then turned to me. She handed me the bottle of dasipam and said, "Take it. " She walked back up the aisle to phenomenal applause from the class because she had just described the situation much better than I have ever done in my life before. And I hung on to that bottle of dasopam and I used to use it in my stress control classes. I would hold it up and say, "I'm going to tell you a story about this bottle. " So think about that. Is there something that you are doing just now which appears to be the right thing to do but in fact means you are staying in your comfort zone. And if you find something like that then please instead of playing safe it might be time to take a risk. Whatever your equivalent of that dasapam bottle is, can you leave it behind? Because the problem with staying in your comfort zone is it feeds your sense of threat. So this lady said, "I couldn't have coped with the threat of being outside unless I had this bottle. " So the threat seems severe and real and you feel that you've got to protect yourself and that makes you feel more helpless than you may well be and that keeps your stressed voice in control. So of course you do these things to protect yourself but they simply end up becoming part of the problem. So this lady was carrying about this bottle for 5 years and instead of truly facing her fears and getting the self-confidence up, simply having this bottle with her was enough to keep the sense of threat going. And I'm going to show you a cartoon. I think this really sums it up rather nicely. Here's a really scared wee bird and he is terrified. He is terrified that he can't fly. So

### [50:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=3000s) Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00)

what has he done? He's taken a precaution. He's strapped a parachute to his back. So, if things don't work out, it will be okay because I'll pull the rip cord and I'll be safe. And his friend, the bluebird, he's a lot more sensible. He knows this is a bird and if birds have one great skill in life, it's the ability to fly. He suggests to his friend, "Let's ditch the parachute. " His friend is never going to know if he can fly or not unless he steps out the comfort zone, takes a risk and jettison the parachute. And if he does, two things can now happen, right? Firstly, he'll plummet to the ground, or secondly, he'll fly. But the only way he's going to know that is to get rid of the parachute. And between plummeting to the ground and flying, he's a bird. His experienced friend thinks, "This is going to be okay. It's well worth getting rid of that parachute. " At that point, our yellowbird will have truly faced his fears and will have no need for the parachute. So, are you doing something that is the same as our yellow bird there? Is there something you're doing to take precautions because you feel the sense of threat so strongly? And if so, can you stop doing this? Let's give you an example of panic. Here's Stevie. Now, Stevie has had, in his words, hundreds of panics over the years, and he's just not getting over them. Every single time. Every single time Stevie has a panic attack, he thinks he's going to faint. And when you ask Stevie, "How often have you fainted? " He says, "I've never fainted. " Well, you might think, you know, Stevie just being a bit dafted here. Why doesn't he learn that he doesn't pass out? Well, Stevie isn't dafted. Stevie is a perfectly intelligent man. But the reason he doesn't learn is because he does something to play safe. And what he does is every single time he feels the panic creep up on him, he sits because he thinks when he sits down, he's going to be safer. And of course, what happens is the panic hits him. The panic eventually goes and he hasn't passed out. And Stevie says, "Thank goodness I sat down there. " So, he never learns to take a chance and he's still having panic attacks. And every single time he has a panic attack, he thinks, "I'm going to pass out. " So, one of the problems here for Stevie is that he clearly has the blinkers on. So, let's build up the model again. The blinkers are on. His radar is looking for signs that relate to the threat. Maybe he's feeling really lightaded. Maybe he's feeling dizzy. He fears that he's going to faint. Of course, he doesn't want to faint. No one wants to faint. His stress voice is completely in control. Steviey's a bright guy, but he's staying in his comfort zone. And he knows there are other ways to think about this. There's more common sensical ways. For example, I've never fainted. But they relate to his common sense voice. And the problem is his common sense voice is on the wrong side of the blinkers. Therefore, it's hard for Stevie to really grab hold of his common sense voice at this point. So, how does Stevie do this? Well, he's almost got to run an experiment. turn himself into a scientist here. And he's got to stop playing safe and take a risk. And in Stevia's case, that's pretty straightforward because he plays safe by sitting down all the time. And when he takes a risk, he stands up. As he feels this panic coming on, instead of sitting down, he stands there. And I think this is the only jargon term I use on stress control. It's called reality testing. He tests

### [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=3300s) Segment 12 (55:00 - 60:00)

the reality of his fears. And if he stands there and the panic hits him, two things can happen. One is Stevie will faint. And the other is he won't faint. Well, sitting down's really not going to protect him all that much. He's had hundreds of panics in the past. He's never fainted. The chances are pretty strong. That he's going to feel horrible, as we of course do when we have a panic, but he's not going to faint. And once that panic goes and he's still literally on his feet in his heart of hearts, he will realize that he's made too much of the threat and that there is no need to play safe in the way that he's been doing. And if in his heart of hearts he believes this, at that point he has truly faced his fears. He has stepped out of his comfort zone. And we know that once the blinkers are pulled back and the common sense voice is there as in the model blinkers on the text feeling lightaded fears fainting stress voice completely in control he knows there's other ways to think about this but he's staying in his comfort zone. What does he have to do? Well, he has to build a foundation. and he has to stand back, pull back the blinkers and at that point the challenge is the better ways of looking at this. He can actually pay attention to and that's his common sense voice which will start to shrink the fears of fainting as he realizes there are better ways to think about this. So, so go back to our examples. Was it your responsibility to keep the conversation going? No. There's other people in the group. There's nothing wrong with a lull in a conversation. Would you have gone mad if you hadn't focused on something? Well, the only way to know is to be a scientist and run that experiment. Don't stay in your comfort zone. Don't count down to 100 and let's see what happens. Two possibilities. One, you'll go mad. Or two, you won't. Would you have coped without the dasopam in your pocket? The lady at stress control many years ago knew the answer to that. And that's why she very confidently handed me that bottle and walked back to her seat. So, you don't know the answers to any of these unless you challenge your fears and step out of your comfort zone. And how do you do that? Well, you first of all work out what is it you're doing to play safe. Are you hanging on to the dasopam bottle? Are you sitting down like Stevie? And do they help or hinder? Well, the lady at stress control felt that the bottle of dasipam helped her. But then when we spoke about stepping out your comfort zone, she realized this bottle was hindering her. So in order to step out the comfort zone, she does three things. She prepares to get rid of the prop. She faces up. So she goes to her work. mom's without the dazipan bottle. And then once she gets back home again, she reviews how it went. Well, preparing, facing up, reviewing. We've seen that before because in session three we looked at breaking stress up. So it's exactly the same skill, but let's look at it in action. So think of preparing where we work out a plan. Think of then doing it, taking the risk and then reviewing it. And of course we can make those things easier by now looking at the third skill in this session and that skill is problem solving. Now this is my favorite skill on stress control. I've used this for so many years. And the nice thing about problem solving is it works fantastically with stress. But you can use it for any problem in your life. If you a really difficult task at work and you feel a bit overwhelmed by it, you can use problem solving. And the way that this works is that you break each problem into six more easily manageable bits

### [1:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=3600s) Segment 13 (60:00 - 65:00)

bite-sized bits if you want. And when you do that, it results in a greater sense of control and greater resilience. And it boosts your self-confidence and your self-esteem as you no longer feel as overwhelmed because you've divided the problem up into more manageable bits. Problem solving divides into six parts. I'll quickly go through the parts and then we'll look at an example in some detail. So step one, clearly state the problem. Step two, what if I solve the problem? Now if the answer to that is well not much changes then it's probably not worth doing it. But if the answer is this will push me forward it's well worth doing something about it. Step three is something called brainstorming where you simply try to come up with as many possible options as you can and then you choose uh what the best option is. In step four, you work out a plan or you prepare. In step five, you do it or face up. And in step six, you review it. And we've seen four, five, and six before because they're exactly the same as breaking stress up and stepping out of your comfort zone. So, this makes it a lot easier to understand because we're using essentially the same skill here. We have to define the problem exactly. And just as a hint, it can be quite useful to stand back, pull back the blinkers, wait a minute, and really grab a problem. So here's quite a poor step one. This house gets me down and I'm so badteered. Well, why are those bad examples? Well, take the first one. It's not specific enough. What is it about the house that gets you down? Is it too small? Is it too big? Is it too expensive to heat? Is it in the wrong place? Is it because of your neighbors? You've got to real drill this down until you've got a very specific problem. And I'm so badteered. I'm a badtempered all the time in every situation or with certain people. Again, you've got to drill it down so that you've got much better ones like this. So, for example, this house gets me down actually might have been the dampness in our son's bedroom is getting worse. That's what is getting you down. Or, I can't afford to keep the car on the road. I'm drinking most nights to get to sleep. And the one that we're going to work on is this one. My son has no time for me now. And this is an example that again I got from a stress control class. This again many years ago at the end of session six. People often come up at the end of the class to thank you to tell you something. And this chap came up at the end of the session and he said he he'd found the course really useful. but in particular he had found problem solving hugely beneficial and we kind of chatted about it for a while and he said look I've written down all my notes about this if you wanted to use this in the class please do so I do I still use it to this day of course I've changed names and some details about this but this is an example that came from someone who attended a stress control class many years ago and this involves of Sam. — My son has no time for me now. — Sam wanted to work on a problem he was having with his young son, John. Essentially, he felt that John didn't want to spend time with them, that they were just not having a good father and son relationship. Well, you know, nothing all that unusual about a nine-year-old boy not necessarily wanting to spend much time with his dad, but there were really quite significant things going on here. If you ask Sam to describe himself, he would say, "I'm someone who's been depressed all of my life. I've always been a glass half empty person. And I've always found it hard just to find life easy. It's always been a struggle for me. And he also thought there was a reason for this. The reason he thought he'd grown up like this was because in his early childhood

### [1:05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=3900s) Segment 14 (65:00 - 70:00)

he felt his dad had no time for him. So they didn't do anything that he would have wanted to. His dad never took him down the park to kick a ball. His dad never took him to the football or his dad didn't play with him in the house. And Sam from an early age decided that his dad didn't really like him all that much. And if your dad doesn't like you, then maybe it's because you're unlikable. And from his early years, Sam started to just suffer badly from depression. Now, we'll come back to that, but that's a really important factor. And it's a really important factor in why Sam should use problem solving. So, he asked himself the question in step two, what do I think will happen if I solve this problem? And this is what he said. I feel so guilty that I'm not the father I dearly want to be. This guilt sits heavy on me. If I thought I was doing the right thing by my boy, I could get rid of this guilt. I would think I was a better person than I am now. Me wife might gain some more respect for me. I doubt she has much just now. This would help us both out. — Now look what Sam's written here. So he's saying that he feels so guilty because he is not living his life according to the values that he has. Bear that in mind for session six when we come back to look at values. But also suddenly the problem has widened. He says my wife might gain some respect for me. He doesn't really know. But what it suggests is that whatever difficulties he's having in his relationship with his son, there's also difficulties wife. So we're learning more about this. But clearly at step two, the answer is it's well worth carrying on with this. So we carry on to step three where we brainstorm. So Sam has to come up with any possible solutions to this problem. Then go through each of them looking at the pros and the cons and coming up with the best option or options. This is what Sam came up with. — I was the same with my dad at his age. Just leave him. He'll come round. I'll save up and buy him a TV for his room. I'm so wrapped up in my problems. I've not spent any time with him for far too long. We used to do a lot of things in the past. I could change this. We eat in front of the TV. We could all have our meals at a table. This would let us talk. Me wife says I'm like a bear with a sore head. I just shout at him all the time. No wonder he stays clear of us. I'll ask me wife if she's any ideas. John talks to her. So Sam's come up with six possible solutions to this problem. And I think as you heard him talk through these possible solutions, you were making your own mind up about what ones might work and what ones might not. So Sam's task is to do exactly that. Option one, just leave them. It'll come round. He looks at the advantages, the disadvantages, and comes up with a decision. Remember when we were talking about the court case in session three, he has to weigh the evidence, weigh the pros, uh weigh the cons, and come up with some kind of balanced verdict using his common sense voice. This is what Sam said. Pros, I still talk to me dad now. Cons: I still resent my dad for not trying harder with us. I swore when John was born that I'd not be like that with him. Will it work? No. Ditch it. — I remember Sam telling me that the first time he held his son in the hospital just after he'd been born. He gave his son this solemn oath that he would be a better father to his son than his father had been to him. This was a very solemn oath that he'd given and now 9 years on he feels that he's broken that oath. He feels he has almost becoming the kind of father that his father was. So you can imagine the sense of guilt and why the depression would really be piling on with Sam. But at the end of this he decides to ditch this. This is not a

### [1:10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=4200s) Segment 15 (70:00 - 75:00)

good solution to his problem. So he looks at the second option. I think we all know the answer to this one. — Pros, he wants a TV for his room. Cons, you cannot buy love. Will it work? No, ditch it. — Exactly. Let's ditch this. So, the first two options have gone. How about the third option? Let's see what Sam reckoned with this one. — Pros. I could pick him up from the cubs on Tuesdays. He loves going fishing. We could head up to the river on a Saturday. I could just ask him how his day was. I don't even do that. Cons. It sounds great, but will I do it? But if it works, it could help the both of us. If I felt him come round to me, I'd feel less of a failure. Will it work? Yes. Don't aim too high, though. Take one step at a time. — Now, we've got a possible solution. And suddenly, Sam is coming up with very specific ideas to push this forward. And you get the feeling that he's also picked up on stuff he's learned in session three. Take it one step at a time. But remember, we had that in breaking stress up. So, we keep option three, but we go to option four. eat our meal at the table. Well, this is what Sam thought of this idea. — Pros, we could all talk. We are either like ships in the night or we sit in front of the TV all night. This could help change that. Cons: None. This is good. Will it work? Yes. I know my wife wants to do this. — So, again, this one stays. This one, this one sounds really sensible. And we said earlier that there does seem to be a problem in the relationship with his wife as well. There's a s a suggestion that this could really help that relationship as well. Option five, I'm like a bear with sore head. I just shout at him. No wonder he stays away from me. So the possible solution of course is to stop shouting all the time. And this is an interesting one from Sam. — Pros, this would be great. Cons: I try not to, but I can't stop it. I have to work at it. Use the stuff on controlling me thoughts. Try to relax more. Work out why I get angry and tackle that. Will it work? Maybe. Easier said than done. Don't aim too high, but keep it in mind. — He's not as positive about this. He knows that he should do this. Shouting is not going to achieve anything. But the feeling here, I think, is that this is beyond him at this point. So instead of just having failure, he maybe keeps it in mind, but it's let's go with the other options just now. We'll see what happens. And the final option is ask my wife. And Sam says this — pros. She's just about given up on me as I don't try with John. This would show her that I'm trying. She might know some good ways to help me with him. Cons: None. This is good. As long as she knows I'm genuine about this, will it work? Yes. I think she'll help me all the way if she feels like I'm trying. — So again, this looks good. This looks solid. We should certainly keep this. So Sam's options now are I could spend more time with him. We could eat our meals at the table and I can ask my wife. He also doesn't ditch stop shouting because it's an important one, but he kind of places it on the back burner. So he goes to step four where we're into breaking stress up, preparing, facing up, reviewing. And here is Sam's plan. Me wife asked John if he wanted to go fishing. He was really keen and he said he missed going with his dad. That gives us courage to do it. I'll speak to him tonight. We'll get the rods out and we'll check them. I'll meet him from school on Friday and we'll go to the shop for some bait. We can pack up the gear as well. The two of us will do it together. Me'll come with us. I've told him what I'm trying to do and he's really good at keeping us calm. He'll bring his son. He gets on really well with my boy. We'll be quiet when we fish, you know, so it's less pressure on me. I'll not expect things to go

### [1:15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=4500s) Segment 16 (75:00 - 80:00)

perfect, mind. I'm sure things are bound to gone wrong. I'll do the relaxation thing in the morning and I'll not have anything to drink the night before. — And my goodness, isn't that a detailed plan that he's come up with there? But also remember I said earlier on that in session four we should start to pull the course together uh and start to combine the skills that we've been learning in previous sessions. Sam has just given us a really good example of that because he is using relaxation and he's using of course preparing from breaking stress up and can also just say you know whenever I teach this part of stress control I just always think to myself is this note the most beautiful accent I just absolutely love it on to step five where he simply has to do it he's got to put the plan into action. And once he's action, he's got to review how it went. So he would be asking himself questions here like, did it work? If it didn't, then can we learn from our mistakes here? Can I improve to make it better? And of course, move on to the next problem. In fact, this is what Sam said in his review. way. It's rained all day and we didn't even catch anything. That put a bit of a dampener on things. I spent too much time talking to me mate as well and not enough time speaking to John. I shouted at him as well for spilling the bait. I shouldn't have done that. He's only a lad and it's only bait. — Now, at this point, it's a failure. Sam starts off by telling us all the things that have gone wrong. And if the blinkers stay on like this, then it's been a disaster. But what Sam's got to do at this point is to pull back the blinkers so that he can see what else happened. What can his common sense voice come up with? And luckily, he clearly did pull back the blinkers. And this is what he said. — Those were the bad things. I can learn from this and not make the same mistakes again next time. You know, on the plus side, John said he had a good time. He wanted to know if we could do it again. I think he was a bit wary of asking us in case I got angry or something, but I said I and I told him I'd had a good time being with him. And so I did. Me wife was pleased, but she wants to see signs that I'll keep it up. And that's fair enough. On a whole, I'm pleased with how it went. I've taken a step forward. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. And as it happens, I stayed in touch with Sam and you know, one success like this isn't going to get rid of the problem entirely, but it started him on the right road. Very basic stuff. He would chat to his son John every single evening, chatting about school, chatting about football, chatting about what was going on TV. And over the months, his relationship with his son steadily improved. His son, of course, continued to want to go out and play with his pals, as he should do, but he was much happier chatting to his dad. Sam's relationship with his wife improved because she felt that he was trying and that he would continue to try. And as that relationship improved and as his relationship with his son improved, Sam for once started to feel that he was a much better man. He was the kind of man that he had always wanted to be and that he had swore he would be to his baby son in that maternity hospital. Because his values of being a good dad were now being met by the way he was acting, his self-confidence and his self-esteem in particular started to build up. And after a few months, the depression that had plagued Sam throughout his life was starting to recede. Life began to become a bit easier for him. So that's quite a profound uh example there of problem solving. And if you can think of anything similar, any problem that just seems like an overwhelming obstacle to you just now, think of problem solving, dividing the problem up and going through those six steps in the way that Sam has done so. But I think problem solving can also be

### [1:20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E70WYrviH0&t=4800s) Segment 17 (80:00 - 82:00)

used to ask yourself the really big questions in life. How is your life going? Are you living the life you want? Are you making a go of this? And that's why in session six, we will look at values. And we will come back to problem solving as a really good way to make sure that your values are consistent with the way that you're leading your daily life. And we'll do that by looking at a skill called setting your compass. So we've reached the end of the session. We've learned a lot. And the homework for this session, first of all, think about what you are avoiding. Is it places? Is it activities? Try to work out ways to face your fears, but think about combining the skills. Think about, are you staying in your comfort zone? Now, some people don't. So, if you search and you feel that you're not staying in your comfort zone, then fine, you're not. And this won't be particularly relevant to you. If you are someone who does feel you're playing safe a lot of the time, can you think of how you could step out of your comfort zone? Can you think of a problem to solve? And my suggestion in the coming week is actually just to get a minor problem. So a problem which you know if you solve it isn't really going to change the world to any great extent but it gives you a chance to practice. And once you've practiced and got the hang of the skill, then try it with a significant problem in your life. And of course, continue working on your mind and body skills from sessions two and three. Next session is a busy session, but I think it's a really good session where we'll look at panicky feelings and then we'll look at some really good ways to get a good night's sleep. If you can, could you read both of the session five booklets in advance? It just means you'll pick up a lot more from the next session. Thank you again for coming to the session. I hope it has been useful to you and I really look forward to seeing you shortly at session five.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/34332*