Ep. 188 2 Proven Coping Skills to Interrupt Midlife Anxiety Before It Spirals

Is your anxiety hijacking your mind before you even notice it?
You’re not alone—and you don’t have to stay stuck in the cycle.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1.     How to identify your unique anxiety signals before they take over

2.     Why grounding your body in the present interrupts anxiety faster than thinking

3.     A 90-second coping skill you can use daily to stay calm, focused, and present

🎧 Take 10 minutes to stop anxiety from running your day—you’re worth it.

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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

Transcript

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:00

in this episode, you'll discover how to stop anxiety from hijacking your mind. Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the podcast where you and I tackle stress and anxiety in midlife so you can stop feeling like crap, feel more present at home, and thrive at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 50,000 hours of therapy sessions and 32 years of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness. Welcome to the podcast If anxiety tends to sneak up on you or spiral fast. Today's episode will show you how to catch it early and interrupt the cycle before it gains momentum and makes you feel like crap. I'm gonna walk you through two powerful coping skills. First, how to notice anxiety the moment it begins, and second, how do you use your body to ground yourself in 90 seconds or less? In this episode, you'll discover the importance of being able to identify anxiety as it starts and what to do to calm it down so your mind. Doesn't run amuck. You know what I mean? back in episode 1 79, we defined anxiety as your mind worrying about something in the future or getting stuck in something from the past. It's time travel for the brain and your thoughts go everywhere except the present. You are applying for a promotion and before the interview, you've already convinced yourself you won't get it, or one of your kids wants to try out for a team and you gently start nudging them towards other activities because deep down you're bracing for disappointment. Take the risk and trust that both of you have what it takes to handle whatever happens. Anxiety pulls you out of the moment and into over functioning. Or under trusting. The fastest way to come back is to reconnect with your body. Why? Because your body is always right there, ready to serve you. Go ahead, check in. Where is your body right now? Yep. It's here. Right here in the moment. And what does it need? Well, when you're anxious, it needs about 60 to 90 seconds of your attention. It might be hard for you to believe that pausing for 60 to 90 seconds can stop your anxiety from morphing into a catastrophic story, not rooted in fact. And that leads me to coping skill Number one, if you wanna stop your anxiety in the tracks, the first thing you have to do is notice you're anxious. This skill. Noticing you're anxious is powerful and it's simple. It might sound obvious, but many of my clients, maybe even you go hours or days tangled up in their anxiety without realizing it. Why? Because your anxiety disguises itself. It hides in your body. It seeps into your behavior, and over time you get so used to it that it feels normal. Let me share with you the five most common anxiety signals I see in midlife muscle tension, especially in your shoulders, jaw, or neck. Rapid or shallow breathing, or even breath holding. Racing thoughts or doom spirals, difficulty focusing, especially on conversations and tasks. You know, those racing thoughts that just keep looping and looping. Make it hard to move your mind. And lastly, a powerful urge to avoid, fix, or escape through food. Scrolling, snarky comments or going into life coach mode. Take a moment. Which of these anxiety signals show up for you? If you're not sure, ask your partner. When clients do this, they're often surprised at how quickly their loved one can answer. And if that doesn't help, don't worry. Once you start paying attention, your body will tell you. I once had a client who said to me, I don't really experience anxiety. The next session, she asked if menopause could cause insomnia. She was only 27. She had trouble falling asleep and often woke up in the middle of the night with racing Thoughts. During the day, this woman stayed busy enough to distract herself, but at night, the silence made her symptoms loud. So let me pause here and ask a question that's quite related to today's topic. Are you coaching or calming? Another client's spouse came home from a tough annual review. His boss gave fair but critical feedback. He needed someone to listen, but instead his wife, my client jumped in. Your boss is a jerk. You should quit and find something better. Her anxiety couldn't tolerate his discomfort, so she rushed in to fix it. She wasn't calming him, she was coaching him out of her own fear. This happens often. You hear about someone's pain and go into advice mode. Or problem solving. But underneath that, it's your anxiety doing the talking. So I'll ask again, are you coaching or are you calming, not just others, but yourself? A little detective? Work on your part will make your signals easier to recognize, and once you recognize them, you're ready for the next skill, which is coping skill Number two, ground your attention in the body. When you catch anxiety in motion, remind yourself. My mind is not in the present, but my body is. The most effective way to soothe anxiety is not to argue with your thoughts, not to become a fiction writer about the catastrophe that may happen, but to bring your attention to your body. Your nervous system is always scanning. Am I safe? Am I calm? If your posture and breath say danger, danger, your mind will follow. But if your breath and muscle say, I'm okay, I got this. Your thoughts will eventually calm down. Yes, you cannot argue your thoughts into calmness. Research backs this up. Your body sends more information to your brain than your brain sends to your body. Did you hear that? You are trying to think your body into calmness. What I want you to do is calm your body, so your brain settles down, and the way that you do that is you change your breath. Or posture, and that seems like a small thing, but it actually rewires your response. This is mindfulness, but not the monk on a mountain version. This is a cost free nervous system reset, and if time is money, nothing costs more than letting your anxiety run your day. How do you ground your body in real time? Here's how to do it, and it takes less than 90 seconds. Start with your feet. Can you feel them on the ground? And gently say out loud or in your mind, come back, come back, come back. Sometimes I add my name and a little bit of humor because humor is actually a wonderful antidote to anxiety. After you've grounded your feet, move to your breath. Notice. Are you holding it? Can you take one slow exhale. Soften your jaw, drop your shoulders, and let your belly move. Just breathe. If you would like my free MP three on box breathing, send me an email at mj@mjmurrayvachon.com after you breathe move your body gently shrug your shoulders, shake your arms or bounce your legs lightly. This is what athletes do to loosen up, and when you pair movement with awareness, you are telling your body you're safe. You can settle. It's about inviting enough ease to interrupt the spiral of anxiety. Let me share an example that just happened in my own life a couple hours ago, earlier today, I had a tense phone call. During the conversation, I could feel my anxiety rising, pushing me toward a snarky comment. I would later regret I grounded my feet. I took out my earbuds because I've learned speakerphone. Helps me stay more neutral. I softened my body and I took a long, quiet exhale, and then I had a moment of clarity. I said to the other person, I'm sorry for this misunderstanding, and I ended the call. Kindly. I then stood up, took five breaths, and I said out loud, that is one difficult person, and I'm moving on. Then I sat down to record this podcast. Had I not caught my anxiety, I would've carried that conversation into this moment. Mentally and physically, and I'm quite sure that I would not have got this podcast done today. That's what this practice protects you from. When you learn to ground your body in the present, you don't just calm anxiety. You also stop the catastrophic thoughts before they snowball. remember, your anxiety is yours to manage, not theirs, to absorb. Your Inner Challenge this week is simple. Catch your anxiety once a day and try the 92nd reset. Know your signal and name it. Say in a playful way. Come back. Come back. Ground your feet. Notice your breath. And soften your body. You don't have to eliminate anxiety. You just have to interrupt the cycle before it runs the show. In this episode, you've discovered that anxiety pulls your mind into the future or past your body brings you back to the now. The first skill is noticing your anxiety through your own unique signals. The second is grounding your awareness in your body. Using breath, movement and curiosity. And remember, you only need 90 seconds to shift your state. I am really excited for Thursday's episode, which is gonna build on this using your Five senses as powerful tools to remain grounded, present, and calm when life gets loud. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Thursday with more creating midlife Calm.