Anxiety and Your Energy Budget

10/21/24 • 27 min

In this episode of 'Calm Your Caveman,' Dr. Twitchell discusses the concept of managing your energy budget to alleviate anxiety. She emphasizes this is a situational strategy with indirect influence on anxiety regulation. The limits of situational strategies are discussed, given that people are notoriously bad at predicting their future emotional states, a concept known as affective forecasting. This often leads to overestimation of how happy or sad future situations will make them feel. With this understanding established however, situational strategies can be effectively leveraged as one of the many tools available for anxiety management.
Drawing from her personal experience with chronic fatigue during long COVID, she explains how overspending your physical and mental resources can lead to heightened stress and anxiety. The episode details how to be mindful of energy expenditure, prioritize essential tasks, and ensure sufficient rest and self-care to maintain a healthy balance. Listeners are encouraged to understand their personal limits and make conscious choices to support their overall well-being.
[00:00:00] - Introduction to Situational Strategies
[00:00:47] - Foundational Strategies Recap
[00:01:52] - Understanding the Process Model of Emotion Generation
[00:04:06] - Types of Situation-Focused Strategies
[00:06:35] - The Role of Appraisal in Emotional Experience
[00:07:57] - Misjudging Future Emotional Responses
[00:14:41] - The Energy Envelope Concept
[00:19:49] - Managing Your Energy Budget
[00:25:06] - Conclusion
For full show notes including resources mentioned go to: www.calmyourcaveman.com.

Previous Episode

Know Your Context: Foundational Anxiety Management Strategies (Part III)

In this episode, Dr. Twitchell discusses the second foundational strategy for anxiety mastery, which is understanding and knowing your context. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing different levels of emotional distress and matching appropriate strategies to those levels. The episode explores how high cognitive load strategies can be practiced during low anxiety periods and how strategies can become automatic through practice. Dr. Twitchell also introduces concepts from Veilleux et al. and Dr. James Gross, discussing automatic appraisals and the need to practice strategies proactively.
Key Points Covered:
1. Understanding Context and Emotional Intensity (1:31 - 4:30)
- Explanation of how different strategies are suitable for different contexts.
- Importance of understanding the level of your emotional distress.
2. Cognitive and Physical Response Strategies (6:01 - 7:30)
- Overview of cognitive reappraisal and physical response strategies.
- Introduction to the concept of the "thinking threshold."
3. Practical Applications and Strategy Selection (7:31 - 12:00)
- How to select strategies based on your emotional intensity.
- Importance of practicing strategies during low-stress times to make them automatic.
4. Diagram and Concept Review (18:01 - 24:00)
- Explanation of a diagram illustrating emotional distress levels and appropriate strategies.
- Recap of key concepts: emotional intensity, strategy selection, and practice.
[00:00:00] - Introduction and Recap
[00:01:16] - Understanding Your Context
[00:04:05] - The Thinking Threshold
[00:08:08] - Appraisal and Practice
[00:13:34] - Diagram and Practical Strategies
[00:21:53] - Conclusion and Upcoming Topics
For full show notes, including resources mentioned, go to:
www.calmyourcaveman.com.

Next Episode

Arrange Your Living Space for Minimum Anxiety

In this episode, we explore the strategy of arranging and exercising control over your physical environment as a method to minimize anxiety. The discussion includes a deep dive into how modifying your living space can influence your emotional responses indirectly by affecting the appraisal processes.
Key points covered include the benefits of proactive and reactive strategies, the importance of bodily movement in reducing anxiety, and how tools like cleaning and organizing can serve as therapeutic actions. The episode also examines the evolutionary aspects of our environments, highlighting how our modern settings differ from our ancestral ones and identifying 'discords' that contribute to stress. Practical advice is given on using sound, light, nature elements, and fractals to create a calming home environment.
[00:00:00] - Introduction to Situation Modifying Strategy
[00:01:14] - Understanding the Process Model
[00:02:38] - Proactive and Reactive Strategies
[00:04:34] - Physical Calming Responses
[00:07:18] - Evolutionary Adaptation and Modern Mismatches
[00:12:17] - Acoustic Comfort in Your Home
[00:14:29] - Importance of Natural Light
[00:18:18] - Incorporating Elements of Nature Indoors
[00:21:24] - Fractals and Their Relaxing Effects
[00:26:23] - Using Fragrance to Create a Calming Environment
[00:27:10] - Conclusion and Final Thoughts
For full show notes, including resources mentioned, go to:
www.calmyourcaveman.com.

Calm Your Caveman - Anxiety and Your Energy Budget

Transcript

Hi again, and welcome to another episode of calm your caveman. We are going to talk today about a specific situational strategy. But before we get into that, we're just going to talk a little bit about situational strategies in general. Now as you remember, we talked about two foundational strategies that are really important for your anxiety mastery. The first was find your why. The second was know your context, which really has to do with understanding the degree of your emotional distress,