Marie Vakakis: [00:00:00] 

Hello and welcome back. This week I am re-releasing a listener favorite and I thought it was a really timely episode for the current climate. I know there’s been a lot happening with. Politics and elections and a whole bunch of stuff happening, not just in Australia, but around the world.

And we can spend a lot of time worrying about things, worrying about people around us, worrying about things that are out of our control. And if you are someone who finds yourself stuck in loops of what ifs or replaying old conversations, and this might be just the episode that you need, I chat with clinical psychologist Dr.

Lillian Nijad about worry, how it’s different from anxiety and there are loads of misconceptions about anxiety. I actually need a little bit of anxieties. Good for us. It keeps us motivated and accountable, but too much, not super helpful. And there’s a difference between worry and anxiety. We’ll talk a little bit about that.

In this episode. Lillian shares some practical strategies, some powerful mindset shifts and talks about her app called Contain Your Brain, which if I’m not mistaken, is free at the moment. So check that out. That’s really great app. I [00:01:00] use it in my clinical work with, uh, with clients all the time. So I hope you enjoy this episode about worry.

before we get started, I wanted to introduce our guests. So Dr. Lily Nijad is a clinical psychologist with over 25 years experience helping people work with anxiety and stress. In addition to her private practice, she has founded Skills for Life, an online portal for mental health resources and programs that help build skills to manage anxiety, stress, and get some rest.

Lillian has recently launched an app called Contain Your Brain to help people worry less and worry better. She’s also the author of two books about stress and anxiety and insomnia. She has recorded three collection of mindfulness and relaxation exercises and hosts the podcast Life Skills for Leaders about mental health in the workplace.

Lillian is also an Australian Open super fan sports photographer, wannabe and passionate supporter of the arts. Here’s my chat [00:02:00] about worry with Lillian. Hello and welcome to this Complex Life. Today I have, uh, Dr. Lillian a Jad with me, a return guest of the podcast. Welcome. Thank you, Marie. It’s great to be here.

And today we’re talking about worry. It’s a term that I hear used a lot. It’s sort of used interchangeably with anxiety, but what are some of the. Maybe how do we define worry? And then what are some of the kind of misconceptions that people have about it? 

Lillian: Well, worry is basically our thoughts, expression of anxiety.

So anxiety is kind of the emotional physiological re response that we have, whereas our worries are actually cognitive. So it’s like what? What we’re thinking, and they often start with what if. Know what if this happens? What if that happens? It’s what might happen in the, but very much skewed to. On [00:03:00] the other hand, it can also be overly about, overly about the, if only, so, if only I did this differently or if only that.

So it, it can be really focused on past behavior and potential regrets that people have had about the past. And often that’s sometimes called rumination. You know, when we can’t stop thinking about something that’s happened that we wish gone differently and we just. Running it around and around in our mind.

So essentially, yeah. Worries are our thoughts when we’re feeling overly stressed or when we’re feeling anxious about something that’s happened in the past or something that could happen in the future. 

Marie Vakakis: Yeah. So if someone was to say, I feel worried it’s not correct. Right? Because that’s not the feeling.

Worry’s not a feeling. It’s. Thought process. Process. 

Lillian: Yeah. Technically yes. So if, you know, like if someone said that in a psychologist’s office, you might say, well, worries are thoughts, anxieties, feelings. He’d say, I [00:04:00] feel, I feel anxious. And the impact of that is that I worry. 

Marie Vakakis: Okay. I don’t think many people would know that distinction.

I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it to articulate it that way either myself. 

Lillian: Hmm. And here, the, the other thing I think that most people don’t really think about. Is that worry serves a purpose and a function. So if worry doesn’t have to be this kind of negative thing, you know, that happens to us and we just like, anxiety doesn’t have to be right.

So we, we have anxiety for a reason. It’s to help protect us. And so worry as an extension of that means that we have worries to alert us to potential problems so that we have that. ForSight to be able to, you know, prevent those problems or to solve those problems or be more prepared for those problems.

It’s just when worry starts to become dysfunctional, when it doesn’t lead to problem solving. [00:05:00] Or there aren’t any solutions. So you’re just left with continued worry with no possible resolution. ’cause it might not be something that’s actually in your control. Yeah. Or if it’s just so frequent and lasting, you know, so long that it’s, you know, impacting your life significantly and it can really have a massive impact on.

Your ability to focus and concentrate, for instance, or your ability to fall asleep or stay asleep, your ability to achieve, like what you wanted to achieve that day. You know, if you’re overly in your head thinking about all the bad things that could possibly happen, or thinking about all the things that happen in the past that you’re not happy with, or that you feel anxious about, function at your, you know, at your best.

Yeah, absolutely. Consuming. It can be and it can really affect your relationships as [00:06:00] well. You know, if, if you’re always worried, often you’ll express that, but even if you don’t express it, you know your energy will be anxious and that can impact the people around you. 

Marie Vakakis: I do wanna ask a bit about, I’m gonna make a note.

So to, I thought earlier you saying around. Thinking about what we can and can’t control. What would be an example? So for you? Like sometimes I draw on like the whiteboard with, with clients, like I put like a little, a beautiful stick figure, an illustration in the middle. Mm-hmm. You know, to represent them.

And then the different things around us that we can and can’t control. And I often use the example of the weather. So let’s say we’re planning, you know, my birthday’s in July, here in Australia, that’s the middle of winter and I might wanna plan an outdoor picnic. And I might be preoccupied from now about is it gonna rain?

What’s the weather gonna do? How would we, like, at what point does it become worry? And at what part do you start to think, [00:07:00] well, how can I focus on what I can control? It can be undercover. I can get a heater. Mm-hmm. I could tell people to bring gum boots. Like how would you use either a similar metaphor or an example to help people understand what’s the bits that they can control and worries useful, and when is it unhelpful?

I 

Lillian: think that’s an excellent question. I think that it is really important to understand how to address your worries effectively. And the way that I kind of like a helpful way that I think works well is putting it into categories. So I have these like three categories that I think are really useful. So like one is.

Solvable. So, and that’s, those are the ones that are under your control. Those are the ones that you can actually do something about. Your example was great, like can you do something about whether it rains or not on that day, no. But the aspects that you can solve are like, you could have a plan B, you know?

Right. You can’t control the weather, but you can control [00:08:00] what other options are in place in case. So in that way, worry can be really helpful at saying this is a possibility that could happen. So I am going to prepare myself for that potential possibility. Unsolvable things are. Look, let’s face it, we’re not always rational with our worries.

So some of our unsolvable worries are completely outta left field, right? Yeah. And they’re not necessarily realistic. So that’s one group. Another group of unsolvable worries are just things that you just don’t have control over, whether is one, um, another common one might be. Um, you know, let’s say your loved one is on a flight, you know, from LA to Australia, and you worry about, you know, something bad happening on the flight.

Well, can you do anything about that? You can’t. So that would be [00:09:00] potentially an unsolvable worry. Another unsolvable worry might be, you know, worries about. An asteroid hitting the earth, you know, like something like that. What movies have you been watching? Like, but there are like, you know, some people, yeah.

Like we have all kinds of thoughts. I think that’s the other thing that if you don’t know this, then you start getting worried about your worries, right? So we have, you know, thousands up to maybe 80,000 thoughts a day. And so our mind is not actually gonna be able to attach. And even be conscious of every single one of those thoughts.

Mm-hmm. And it often is practiced at paying attention to certain kinds of thoughts. And a lot of our thought, because we’re human and anxiety’s really important for our survival, a lot of those thoughts are cautionary or anxiety, um, related. And so if you know that, then you might think that your thoughts are wrong, shouldn’t have those thoughts start.[00:10:00] 

Of having those thoughts or something bad’s gonna happen if I keep thinking this way, which just adds to worry and anxiety and stress and all the things, and then just maintains it and it’s, it becomes this vicious cycle. So I think part of it is really understanding your thoughts or thoughts. 

Mm-hmm.

Lillian: And they don’t have special powers that will cause external events to. If you can recognise which of your worries are helpful and that you can do something about which of your worries are potentially unhelpful because you can’t really do anything about them. 

Mm-hmm. 

Lillian: And which ones are the ones that are kind of nagging worries that you have all the time, but they end up solving themselves in the end anyway without you actually having to do anything.

So, which, which ones are. Probably can let go because [00:11:00] they solve themselves. Or if they actually do happen, you’ve actually coped with it better than what you imagined you would. 

Marie Vakakis: Yeah, I like this. I, I mean this concept that we worried about our worries, and I think that’s one of the biggest myths around anxiety and, and worries and other thinking patterns that come with that is some people think, if I feel it.

Then I’ve got an anxiety disorder or something really bad’s happening instead of knowing that’s a normal, healthy part. So if you had no anxiety and you had no worry, you know, you could be planning an outdoor picnic in the middle of July and not even consider the impact of that. Like we need some of this in our lives to motivate us or to think through possible.

Lillian: Scenarios. I totally, I totally agree and I think sometimes, um, people are sold this promise that they can have a stress-free life or like they can get rid [00:12:00] of all their anxiety and you’re just setting your them up to feel like they’re not. Working hard enough or not thinking, you know, as effectively as they should be.

If you know we’re meant to, to be anxious sometimes, just like you said, we we’re meant to have a certain level of stress and anxiety in our lives, and part of being human is I. Experiencing the full breadth of emotions. Mm. There’s a great animated movie about that called Inside Out. Have you seen that?

Marie Vakakis: Yes. I I actually said it recently for somebody as homework. Yeah. I’m like, so between 

Lillian: now and the next session, you need 

Marie Vakakis: to watch this because it, what I’m telling you is not making sense. 

Lillian: Yeah. And they articulate it so well. You know, it, I mean, it’s really all about not, you know, trying to shove away distress and they focus on sadness, but it’s really the same.

Yeah. With any other kind of unpleasant emotions, 

Marie Vakakis: do people ever feel like, so you were saying about accepting it and knowing [00:13:00] it’s there, and if we think of it, one of the modalities I like to work with is through acceptance and commitment therapy. So if we think of sometimes our worries might be signposting, what’s important.

So that example you use of the flight from LA to Australia, we can’t control that. But how would we use that from that sort of. That framework of thinking, this is telling me what’s it telling me that that person’s important, that I love them, that maybe I’m, you know, like how could we use that as information rather than just focusing on the worry?

’cause we can’t control the outcome, but there are things that we can do. 

Lillian: That’s right. So I think that, like you said, one of the things that you can do is focus on your values rather than on your worries. But the other thing is that’s also relevant to accept. Acceptance commitment therapy is, is mindfulness, is just to notice that you have that thought and also recognise that this is a thought that often [00:14:00] happens when someone you love is on a flight and accept that that’s a normal way that your brain operates when this happens.

Mm-hmm. And just let, let yourself. I think those thoughts without attaching to them and without putting a lot of meaning and attention on them, just, just that concept of, you know, letting your thoughts flow through your mind naturally, just as they will, and so that you’re not afraid of your thoughts and you’re able to experience whatever you’re experiencing without judging yourself for with.

Over evaluating it, overanalysing it. And you’re also not really stuck in this anxiety bubble until that person, you know, lands. 

Mm-hmm. 

Lillian: You know, wherever they’re going, because I think that that’s what happened. People hold their breath, you know, like, [00:15:00] well, I’m, if this person’s really important and, but this is the other thing that I think can happen.

I think that worry can, for some people, be an expression of care. So if you have the belief that if you don’t worry, that means you don’t care, then there actually might be this need to hold on to maintaining worry as a way of coping and showing that you care. 

Marie Vakakis: I was actually going, that’s something I was gonna ask you is I see it a lot with with parents and some are sort of.

Maybe accidentally shame another without meaning to, but saying, why aren’t you worried about letting them go on camp? And they’re like, right. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them, but I have trust in the system. Or that’s actually, I’ve thought about that, but I’m okay with it. Like, I think you’re right. I think some people can hold it as if I’m not worried that it means I don’t care.

If I take [00:16:00] my dog to the vet for something and I’m not sitting there like biting my nails and really stressed, it means I don’t love him, or, you know? Right. 

Lillian: Exactly. And I think, you know, we might call that, we might wanna evaluate that belief and say, well, is that actually true? Because yeah, people, if, if that is your belief, then you’re much, you’re very unlikely to make any changes to that because it’s serving you, because it’s serving you, it’s making you feel like you are a loving, caring person.

Now what it could be doing to your relationships though, is people might not wanna tell you things ’cause they don’t wanna worry you or they might get annoyed with you because you’re always worried or a whole range of other things that aren’t really helpful for your relationships. Um, the other thing that could happen is that you’re modeling anxiety and worry.

For instance, to your children. So they kind of learn that in order to [00:17:00] care you have to worry, or it’s important to be anxious when it comes to things that have to do with your loved ones. 

Marie Vakakis: Yeah, I, that’s a really good thing to get people thinking about is what’s the impact on others. And I hear it. I mean, I work a lot with adolescents and parents will often say this, you know, I worry because I care.

The way it manifests, it has all of those implications that you said. It’s, they’re like, well, I don’t wanna go to you because 

mm-hmm. 

Marie Vakakis: I feel then responsible to contain your feelings. 

Right. 

Marie Vakakis: I keep more from you because. It’s not helpful for me ’cause then I have to worry about your levels of distress. And I had a young person recently, they were telling me something, they told their parents.

I’m like, what was the reaction from one to 10? He’s like a 12. And so that has meant that in periods of distress, he doesn’t go to his parents because he doesn’t wanna have to be responsible for helping them cope with

Lillian: Right.[00:18:00] 

Marie Vakakis: It then puts a bit of a wedge between those two people. 

Lillian: Yeah. You’ve shut down, you know, communication channels because they’re, they think you care too much, almost like you’re carrying in a way that is causing more harm in a way, because now you’re not gonna be able to support that person because you’re, you’re no longer their go-to.

Of how you kind of handle 

Marie Vakakis: your distress. Yeah, yeah. So it doesn’t, it’s not received as care, even if that’s the function or the intention for the other person. 

Lillian: Yeah. And well, I mean, if you think about worry, it’s a thought, right? Whereas care is more active. 

Mm-hmm. 

Lillian: So if your worry actually leads you to do something that’s helpful, then it’s functional, right?

If your worry [00:19:00] is not leading to any solutions or any helpful actions or behaviors, then it’s not functioning as it should ideally, and it is a good idea to evaluate, for instance, how you want to demonstrate care. Uh, that’s what I would, I guess, uh, encourage people who have that belief. The other thing I think that sometimes, um, people think is that they can’t control their worry.

God, they’ve been thinking this way for many, many for their whole life. That’s how their parents, you know, also probably modeled it for them as well. Or, you know, sometimes you can just be. You know, more, more empathic than other people. And so you might be prone to worrying more than others. Mm-hmm. And so you think, well, that’s just me.

I can’t actually do anything about it. But the truth is, and we know this being people who are involved in the change process, [00:20:00] that you could change pretty much anything if you want to, and if you believe you can. If you have the right supports and skills to do it. 

Mm-hmm. 

Lillian: So worry is something that you can manage better.

Yeah. And 

Lillian: you can reduce and you can effectively deal with and still care at the same time. 

Marie Vakakis: So what can people do?

When do people know, or what can they look out for that might indicate it’s having a negative impact? So whether it’s on their physical health or mental health, like what are the warning signs that it’s, it’s more than a helpful level of worry, or that anxiety is no longer sort of helpful. Like how do people know that there’s more or they need more support or [00:21:00] it’s sort of, it’s crossing a line of.

Helpful. 

Lillian: Yeah. Well, there is generalised anxiety disorders, probably the one disorder that focuses on worry as the main issue. Mm-hmm. And to receive a disorder like that, it, it’s about how long you’ve been worrying and also the impact on your physical health. So if you have a lot of muscle tension. If you’re having a lot of trouble sleeping, you know, those kinds of physical and behavioral markers can be a sign that you might need some extra support.

Mm-hmm. 

Lillian: Worry really. Is one of the main reasons why people have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, and it’s probably the one that’s least talked about. 

Mm. 

Lillian: You know, you hear about blue light glasses and you know the [00:22:00] importance of having a cool room, which are really poten. Well, I don’t know if they’re all really helpful, but they’re potentially helpful.

But if your problems have to do with stress and thinking and worry, then. That’s not gonna do anything for your, your quality or quantity of sleep. So I think it’s really important to understand that worry can, can impact lots of areas of your life. So we talked about physical health, we’ve talked about insomnia.

It can also really affect your work. 

Mm-hmm. 

Lillian: If you’re really worried, whether it’s personal worries or professional worries, it’s gonna be really hard. Gonna be really hard to concentrate. It’s gonna be really difficult to be productive or perform at your best. So it can affect your ability to achieve your goals, the goals that you want at work.

And that would be the same with your goals that you have, [00:23:00] you know, with your family and your social life as well. And I think ultimately, I. The main thing that it affects is just your own peace of mind. 

Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. The family one is something I’d be keen to unpack a bit more. ’cause I think we do see the impact in tangible like productivity or, you know, proofreading something, or not handing an assignment in because you’re worried it’s gonna get wrong and then that.

Overlaps a bit with perfectionism, but often when I see really anxious people and, and lots of worries, they’re really empathic, highly attuned, really care, like you said it, it’s caring and they really struggle to maybe even articulate the impact that has on a relationship. So they might feel isolated or feel like they’re always getting in arguments with their partner or their, and they’re really kind of confused by it because in their mind they genuinely doing all of this because.

And other people in their lives are finding it irritating, [00:24:00] frustrating, withdrawing, maybe getting combative. Mm-hmm. What do you notice? Like how do you help people spot that? Maybe that’s actually hap some people have, don’t know that that pattern’s happening. 

Lillian: Yeah. I think that one of our kind of main roles.

When we’re guiding people through this process is to help them understand the patterns and make things that seem unpredictable, predictable, because I think for a lot of people when, when we’re, you know, this would be for anyone when we have a problem or a conflict or challenge. Or we feel a certain way, sometimes it can feel like it’s come out of the blue and we’re like, I don’t know why I feel this way.

I don’t know why this happened and I don’t get it. Or, why did she react that way, or, you know, and everything seems confusing. So I think one of the best things we can do as therapists is to make that whole process less confusing, and that that does involve some work on the part of, you know, our clients and.[00:25:00] 

Often have to monitor their behavior. Like what, what are, what’s, you know, if we’re, we’re focused on one, if we’re focused on one behavior or one particular pattern that’s occurring that they don’t think is particularly healthy or effective with their child or their partner, then it’s like, well, how, if you were able to record, for instance, you know, a situation where, and what you were feeling and what you what.

You’re able to do that for, you know, a couple of weeks. What you’ll find is a predictable pattern often emerges, you know, and, and the predictability might be in the types of situations that it happens in. It might be in the way that you’re feeling that day. It might be, you know, the vulnerabilities, like you didn’t have a good night’s sleep, or you were really hungry, or you had a bad day at work.

You know, or it could be [00:26:00] the behavior that you’ve chosen to display. You know, as a, as you know what, what did, for instance, if you felt anxious and worried, what response does that usually lead to? And once you kind of know what those patterns are, then you know where you can intervene and make some changes and adjustments so that you can potentially.

Change the way you feel or change the way you think, or change the way you behave and respond so that the outcome will be different. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, you experiment with that. Yeah. You see, you know, you see what works and what doesn’t work. But the, the point of it is that you don’t wanna keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting 

the outcome 

Lillian: to be different and taking some responsibility and accountability that it’s part of that interaction is you.

And that’s the. So that’s the part to focus on. 

Marie Vakakis: Yeah. Does it ever become like a self-fulfilling prophecy where, and I, I think of [00:27:00] someone sort of saying, oh, I just asked my, my partner or my kid how their day was. I’m like, what did you say exactly? And they’re like, how was your day? Did you sit with anybody for lunch?

Did you get, and the questions, it’s like this vomit of questions because they, and yes. But their behavior consistently over time has actually led to the opposite. Like, how else can that actually get you further away from what you want? 

Lillian: It’s a, I It’s such a good point. I think it’s not just about what you say, it’s how you say it.

In fact, that’s the most important part. So, yeah, I think it’s, IM, it’s important to really understand. Your social signaling and what the way you’re delivering is what the impact is. You know, I see the same thing with things like reassurance seeking [00:28:00] or people pleasing, you know, those kinds of behaviors where you’re always.

Saying yes to everything and always doing stuff with people or, or you’re always worried about what other people think. So you’re like, did I do that? Okay. Or you’re preemptively apologising all the time. Yeah. And that drives other people nuts. Sorry, just in case. Sorry. Just, just to, and all of that is in service of caring, right?

And keeping your relationships like. But what it does is the opposite. Yeah. It’s like, well, people get sick of you apologising all the time, or, or you feel resentful because you’re saying you’re doing all this stuff and you don’t get anything in return. So all of those things that you think are serving a relationship are actually potentially causing rifts.

And you’re not necessarily aware of it until you start really looking at it objectively and maybe from a little bit of distance and say, well, this is what I’m doing and this is what ends up happening. As a result, what part of what I’m, what part of this pattern can I [00:29:00] actually shift so that I can make the outcomes better?

Not just for me, not just for the other person, but also for the relationship. 

Marie Vakakis: So folks listening are starting to maybe identify some of this in themselves or a loved one. What are the next steps like I know in a previous interview we’ve talked about, you know, people going, I think you were saying 15, or like the average age to get help for anxieties, like maybe 15 years.

So people wait 15 years of experiencing it before they seek help. Mm-hmm. You could be having all these worries and not have generalised anxiety disorder. It’s, they’re just their worries. But what can people do? What are some things they can do on their own? And, and at what point would you suggest that they reach out for other services?

And we’ll put any of these resources in the show notes as well. 

Lillian: I think there’s a number of things that, um, people can do. I think one, one thing. That can be really helpful that maybe many people may know that’s [00:30:00] out there but aren’t practicing it yet are just relaxation techniques like abdominal breathing or progressive muscle relaxation.

Because what though, if you do that consistently, what will happen is you’ll lower your overall levels of stress and anxiety, which will make you less prone to having these kind of worry periods. So I. One thing that is really helpful is just get your overall level of stress and anxiety down. So when you have challenges that occur, you’re, you’re better equipped to handle them.

So that would might be relaxing, relaxation techniques. It could also be healthy lifestyle stuff. You know, make sure you get your sleep, make sure that you’re eating well. Make sure that you’re.

Is helpful. Helpful, and it’s called worry time. That was something that was developed by a group of researchers in the eighties, and it [00:31:00] involves setting aside time to worry and in. So instead of wor letting your brain kind of worry all day and get, you know, interfere with all aspects of your life, you set aside a time, generally half an hour or less.

Per day to start with. And you only worry in that time. So it’s, you’re, you’re basically making your mind habit of worrying all day. And you are turning it into a mind habit of worrying at one particular time. And ultimately the goal is to worry for 15 minutes or less. And the recent research that I’ve read are a lot of worriers.

Are worrying like over two hours a day if they would kind of count up all the time. I actually thought that was quite low. I, I would, I would have thought that it would be even more than that. So I, I’d be really interested in look delving into that [00:32:00] further. But what you want is you, you don’t want everything in the environment to be a queue for you to worry.

So by containing it to one time, it becomes like the only cue for for worry, and then you’ve got that time to effectively deal with it so that you can put it in those categories, like which ones are the ones that are solvable and which ones are the ones that are unsolvable. The way you get there is anytime that a worry actually occurs during the day, you just jot it down.

So there’s an old school way that, you know, we’ve been teaching for like the last 30 years, which is like, you just write it down in pieces of paper. You stick it in a container that’s in your worry place, and then in your worry time you go there, you open the container and you take them out 

Marie Vakakis: and then you can sort, I still 

Lillian: do that with kids.

We have worry jars and we spend all this 

Marie Vakakis: time and decorated a jar and they have colored notes. They stick them in and then at the end of the day with their parents, they go through them and sort them out. 

Lillian: Oh, that sounds amazing. And I think that, that, that would work really well with kids and also with adults who like to [00:33:00] write, like still, like some of us still like to write on pieces of paper.

Most of us are actually addicted to our phones and spend No, I dunno what you’re talking about. So more recently, I was talking to a client and, and I was telling him this concept and he. He just, it looked like he wasn’t gonna do it because the idea of writing things down a little pieces of paper and sticking it into a jar box just wasn’t gonna happen.

And so I had this idea of if, if it was an app, that potentially he would be more likely to do it. So what ended up happening is. A year down the track, the app was developed. I got myself a digital design partner and we developed an app called Contain Your Brain, which is essentially the worry time technique, plus the strategy of sorting it into categories and having tips that correspond to the category that you’ve chosen.

And that just for those people who don’t like to write things down or, or people who are concerned about privacy and wanna [00:34:00] make sure that whatever they write down, you know, it’s completely just theirs and very secure and private. An app can be a really helpful way. It’s also something you carry all the time.

So if you have a worry, it’s really easy to just dot down or. Or voice in as well. So that’s, so I think that this is a strategy that isn’t very well known, just even though it’s well known amongst health professionals, it’s not really well known amongst the general population. So I think that worry time can be a really impactful strategy for people.

Marie Vakakis: So that’s something they can download and use themselves. At what point would you encourage someone to either take that app with them to like a gp, to a therapist at, when do you start to say, there are things we can do on our own? Just like with physical health, like we might get a cold, we know we can get these over the counter things from the chemist, and then we know, oh, this is when I think I might need [00:35:00] antibiotics or this is when I, I kind of level it up.

At what point would you encourage people to start. More than, than the DIY self-help. 

Lillian: Yeah. I think that there should be different touch points and different levels of support depending on what’s going on for a person. I think if you, you’ve been worrying for a long time, it certainly doesn’t hurt to see a professional like sooner rather than later.

I don’t, I think that all the self-help options aren’t in place of therapy. They can definitely be helpful on their own, not certainly. As well and some of the, some of the things that you would wanna look out for that would, you know, maybe lean more towards having some one-on-one help with a therapist or going to an anxiety group or something like that, is if you are finding it is.

Too frequent. It’s lasting too long. It’s significantly impacting the way you feel, think, [00:36:00] behave. You’re finding it really hard to work or study. It’s affecting your sleep. So you, you know, you can’t sleep and so you’re very tired or grumpy and irritable and, and you’re feeling like you’re not able to live your life the way that you.

The other, and obvious, the obvious ones would also be like, if, if it’s causing you to feel depressed and if you’re, you know, feeling really low or you’re feeling an overly stressed and starting to feel burnt out at work, what we really recommend, I think for most people, if they’re wondering if they should see someone or not, is, is whatever’s happening within you?

Is it significantly and. Aspects of your life that are important to you. And that’s often your, your relationships, your work life, your social life, and your physical and [00:37:00] mental health. And if the answer is yes, then there is really great help out there. It can be hard to access sometimes, and it has been over the last couple of years because.

Lockdowns and pandemic and all, all of us became booked out and it was really hard to see someone. I think that that’s easing up a bit. So if that’s something that you know, concerns you, that you’re gonna have to wait a long time, then I would say don’t let that be an obstacle. Just put, you know, call a few people.

Put yourself, you know, find out what their waiting lists are. If they have waiting lists or often, like if people call me and I don’t have time, I’m always happy to find someone. Yeah, and I, and I’m pretty sure that most health professionals would, would be helpful in that way too, because we know that it’s actually hard to make that first phone call and ask for help.

But it’s probably like the bravest thing that you can do. And probably one of the [00:38:00] most effective strategies for dealing with anxiety is to ask to be, to ask for help. 

Marie Vakakis: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. It’s very interesting to narrow down just on one thing of worry, and even that we could have really just even gone points here about ruminating or different types of 

yes, of worry.

Marie Vakakis: I think it’s just so interesting and a lot of people I don’t think really know that it serves a function that it is helpful. So I think that’ll be really interesting to hear people’s thoughts on as they start thinking about it. Maybe even asking people like, I know there are some people in my life, I’ve sort of said, you’re such a warrior, and they’re like, no, I’m not.

I’m like, you know, I don’t. Sometimes we dunno because we think, especially if you are a warrior, because you made that link of, you know, because they care. They don’t see it as worry. They see it as care, so to say, you worry a lot, they’ll be like, no, I don’t. Yeah, you do. 

Lillian: Yeah. I mean, and it can be in [00:39:00] service of so many other, it can be in service of perfectionism as well, like wanting to be seen, you know, in a certain way.

There’s all sorts of things that it serves, but I think ultimately, like it’s really helpful to know is it actually serving you? Or, and then what do you do about it? 

Yeah, 

Marie Vakakis: absolutely. So if people wanna learn a bit more, how can they get in touch? You mentioned the Contain Your Brain app, so that’s on, is it both Android and iPhone?

Lillian: It’s available, yeah. On both kinds of phones. And actually there, our website contain Your Brain com has a lot more information about worry. Yep. And how it can, how uh, a strategy like this can help with worry, but also how other strategies can help with. And anxiety and, and insomnia and stress and, and those sorts of things.

So it’s probably the best resource. 

Yeah. And you’ve got 

Lillian: your a couple of other courses as well. I do have, um, courses that help people with anxiety and stress and insomnia, [00:40:00] and they can find that on dr. Lilian naja.com. Great. Awesome. 

Marie Vakakis: And I’ll put links to all of those in the show notes. Thanks so much for this.

This was really interesting and I’m gonna spend the rest of the day 

Lillian: worrying about if I got the interview, I’ll be doing the same thing, Marie, and then we can write it down and worry about it later. Exactly. Perfect. 

Free audio post production by.com.