Transcription
Most people with anxiety are told the same thing: that it's caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and that the solution is a medication to correct that imbalance. It sounds scientific and also reassuring, but there's a problem to this. No one has ever actually proven that anxiety is caused by a chemical imbalance that these drugs fix. That's why there's no blood test for it or brain scans that doctors do. Yet, millions of people have been told this explanation for decades.
And many of them end up in a frustrating cycle where they'll start a medication, they'll feel better for a little bit, but then gradually the anxiety slowly comes back as if the medication isn't doing much at all. And that's when people start to wonder, "Why is my anxiety returning? And why didn't the drug fix it?" Well, the answer to this question is because anxiety is not a chemical problem for a drug to fix. Anxiety is a problem of living that involves three essential areas: the first being the body, the second being the mind, and the last one being the soul. And if you don't address all three, most people will continue to suffer and they will not get better.
And so today, we're talking about the three essential steps to improve anxiety without medications. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm Dr. Yseph. I'm a board-certified psychiatrist, former FDA medical officer, and I've spent years helping people safely come off psychiatric medications and rebuild their mental health. And so, let's jump right in.
And let's start with the first one, which is the body. A lot of people are surprised to hear that anxiety doesn't actually begin with your thoughts. It often begins in your body. That's right. Anxiety isn't coming out of your head. It's anchored to how you physically feel. And to share a personal story, I can tell you this: When I used to drink three cups of coffee a day, use nicotine pouches, eat Dominoes, and sleep 5 hours a night, I felt different. I felt tense. I felt restless, and I was frequently irritable. Now, my anxiety and irritability at the time, it was not driven by stressful events in my life. It was driven by overwhelming stress on my body. And being a psychiatrist that works with many people, I see this in so many of my patients.
But let's come to this point: How do you fix all of this? Well, you do it by addressing three main areas. Firstly, by removing anxiety-inducing stimulants. Now, the ones people usually miss are the socially condoned ones: so, caffeine and nicotine. You want to get that stuff out. Other things that you want to be wary of are things like cannabis and recreational drugs. Cannabis is very bad for anxiety when used long-term. And then there's a final group, things that people often miss. These can be side effects of common drugs: things like oral contraceptives, steroids, asthma medications, and even some psychiatric medications can make your anxiety worse. So, make sure you look at all of the substances you're taking and consider whether they're adversely affecting your body and whether you need to stop them.
The second way to address this is by taking unplugged breaks. So much of the anxiety we experience today is by living in a state of chronic stress. And here's what it looks like: You wake up, you work out, you go to work, you have a couple cups of coffee, you come home, you take care of your chores, you've got kids, you're looking after them as well. You watch some TV. In all of your spare time throughout the day, you're flicking through your phone looking at Reels, um, or social media trying to relax. When you live a life where it's just like go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go from the minute you wake up, constantly getting bombarded with stimulation, you're going to fry yourself.
And so for these individuals, we always recommend taking space, you know, making sure you have space in your day. So this can be things like doing, you know, breathwork or yoga nidra. You could do that 20 minutes twice a day to just kind of reboot your mind and get out of that go, go, go state. Or it can also be doing things like nature walks, like, you know, no podcasts or anything like that. Just go out and let your mind decompress. You will be surprised at how much better you feel if you actually get some of these breaks into your day where your mind is not moving a million miles an hour.
Now, the last thing that you need to do is you need to get physically healthy. You need to exercise, move your body, you need to eat clean. If you're overweight, you need to bring your weight down if needed. All of this is going to decrease systemic inflammation. And when you become physically healthy, here's what you're going to notice: You're going to find that your nervous system relaxes and that your sleep improves. And you're going to be surprised at how much less anxiety you feel.
Moving on now. Now that you've learned how to calm the body down, it's time to address the mind. Now, life can be very complicated, and we get thrown a lot of curveballs. And many of us have never been taught the actual cognitive and emotional skills we need to navigate many of the problems in life. These can be things like feeling like you're pushed around by the people in your life. It could also be that you feel highly affected by the emotions of other people around you, often feeling their pain too much. It could be that you avoid things because you've been through traumatic experiences, or that you are a nervous Nelly and you have a mind that just catastrophizes and and things get out of control. Or you could be carrying around bitterness or resentment. If you are someone that's suffering from any of those things, you are not alone because humans have struggled with these problems for eternity.
The good news is is that there's a solution to all of this, and that is psychotherapy. And while there are hundreds of different therapies that exist out there, in my opinion, the ones that make the most sense and the ones that I recommend for most people are the third-wave cognitive behavioral therapies. And don't worry, I'm going to unpack that in a moment. And I say this because with all of these different types of therapy out there, like like psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy and supportive therapy, it can sometimes feel like therapists turn into like paid friendships where you meet for social support, or there's just endless discussions about your feelings and the past, and there's just really limited growth and skill-building.
With these CBT-based approaches, you actually learn something else. You learn concrete skills that you can apply. You get homework. You meet with your therapist every week. They review your homework and see what you've been able to apply in your life. It really is hands-on growth. Now, I'm going to talk about some of these third-wave CBT approaches. And I have to say, they sound highly scientific, but they're really not. Because truthfully, what all of these things are are just organized toolkits of skills that have been designed to treat very specific problems.
Let me explain. Firstly, if you are someone who is emotionally sensitive, you feel the emotions of others really intensely, maybe you struggle with emotional regulation yourself, or you have suicidal thoughts or unstable relationships. If that sounds like you, dialectical behavioral therapy is the name of the therapy that will equip you with all of the cognitive and emotional skills you need to deal with those problems. If you're someone who's experienced severe trauma and it's made you retreat from life, you're going to look for CPT and prolonged exposure therapy. These will give you the skill sets that you need to deal with that group of symptoms. If you suffer from OCD, you're going to look for exposure response prevention therapists. And if you have chronic pain or depression, you're going to look for acceptance and commitment therapy.
Having been at this for a while, I can tell you for nearly every struggle that you can name, there are therapists out there who have spent their careers refining the most essential practical skills that you need to know to address it. And the great news is is that most of this stuff is highly researched and it is already covered by your insurance. And so, if you've never tried one of these structured approaches, you're missing out because so many of my patients describe this as absolutely life-changing. For instance, I've even had patients who have been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder only to find that they actually just needed to learn some DBT skills. And when they learned these DBT skills, they didn't need to be on medications anymore and they were actually able to function better.
So, now let's talk about the final area that often gets ignored: the soul. The soul. And I know this kind of sounds dramatic, but when I say soul, I mean our deep human need for love and meaning. Because I can tell you this: You can calm the body down. You can retrain the mind. But if your soul isn't nourished, you will still feel anxious and empty.
So let's start with the first area. Let's start with love. As humans, we are wired for connection. We feel the safest and most secured when we're surrounded by people we love and trust. No amount of money, status, or career success will ever be able to compensate for the loneliness if you don't have this. And having worked with many very successful people in my career, I can tell you this: Whenever people say things like "money can't buy happiness," usually they're saying this is because they've made a lot of money and they're deeply lonely in their own life, or they have very strained relationships with the people in their life. And so it's true, you could totally be a billionaire, but if your relationships are weak, your mental health will suffer. So I implore you to do this: When you are going through your life, make sure relationships are always a priority.
Now moving on to the second part. This is meaning and purpose. I see this constantly. I see a lot of people making great money. They're working for big law, big finance, but they're waking up with dread because they feel no purpose and connection to what they're doing. They chase these careers for status, but then they later realize that their heart really isn't into serving these corporations. What they really want to do is solve real problems that they care about that help real people. Now, consider this: We spend most of our productive lives working. So, make sure you find work that means something to you, either because you're very interested in it or it creates an impact that you're proud of. And if you're not working in a career, find meaning in your family or in your community. And when in doubt, always try to live a life in service of others.
So, there you have it. That's the three-step solution to fixing anxiety without medication. Because anxiety is not proof that your brain is broken. Anxiety, a lot of the time, it is a signal that there is something out of balance in your body, mind, or soul. And so if you're someone who's listening to this now and you've overcome anxiety, please drop a comment below this video telling the audience what you did that allowed you to overcome it. And finally, if you want to go deeper into why our healthcare system defaults to medications instead of addressing root causes like the ones in this video, and why telling your doctor you're anxious doesn't always lead to the help you expect, you're not going to want to miss this next the uh.