– [Host] Welcome to Redeem the Commute stress and anxiety course, I am your host. I hope that you enjoy the course today and get a chance to think about or discuss the question at the end with others. Just as a general reminder, the course includes general tips and you should absolutely see a medical professional to understand your specific situation. The course is offered by doctor Kate Witheridge, and here she is now.

– [Dr. Kate Witheridge] Alright, so how do we shift our physical response? So, like I said, we’ve had thoughts, we’ve had behaviors, what do I do with how I feel? So I alluded to this earlier, but anxiety is all about the fight or flight response, right? It’s our body’s way of responding to danger, it’s actually really adaptive. If I’m being chased by a bear, I want all this stuff to happen because I want to run away, or fight back. So adrenaline is released, but often what we noticed with stressors is that our heart rate starts going up, which makes sense. If I’m running away from a bear, I want blood to go through my body a little bit faster. Our breathing is increased, because we want to get oxygen in and that fight peaks that irritability. Right, I need to prepare for danger. We start hyperventilating, which is usually not, not always, sort of like thinking of paper bag hyperventilating, but we start breathing from our chest up, you know. So if you start noticing taking really short, shallow breaths, or if you sigh a lot, or you yawn a lot, you’re probably breathing from this part of your chest upwards, right?

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Question: What goal would you like to work towards? What are the specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time limited steps you can take?