The Everyday Awesome Project
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The Everyday Awesome Project
91: Anxiety: It's NOT All In Your Head - Your Body Keeps the Score
More and more of us are feeling serious stress and anxiety in these turbulent times. But your anxiety isn't just about worried and confused mind thoughts—it's likely living in your physical body as well. When your gut health is compromised, blood sugar fluctuates wildly, or hormones are imbalanced, your body sends distress signals that your brain interprets as anxiety. This physical-mental connection explains why traditional approaches focusing solely on thought patterns often fall short. Coach Sam and Polly are here to help!
This week we dive deep into how everything from that morning Frappuccino habit, to poor sleep quality can trigger real anxiety responses. The science is clear: mental health IS physical health. Your vagus nerve, gut microbiome, and endocrine system are constantly communicating with your brain, creating what you experience as emotions (feelings). Understanding this connection can give you empowering tools to address anxiety at its root cause, like all dis-ease and unease human conditions. There is hope and help here.
Most surprisingly, many anxiety solutions are remarkably simple and often free. Regular movement (especially dance), nature exposure, proper sleep, blood sugar stabilization, and gut healing can dramatically reduce anxiety symptoms. Rather than seeing anxiety as a mysterious mental condition requiring medication or years of therapy, we explore how addressing physical foundations can create profound shifts in your emotional experience.
The most empowering aspect? You likely have significant control over many anxiety triggers. While genetics play a small role, environmental factors and daily choices have much greater impact. By understanding which factors in your physical body might be creating anxiety, you can make targeted changes that bring genuine relief. Stop wondering if it's "all in your head"—discover how addressing your body can transform your mental wellbeing.
Let's heal together,
Coaches Polly & Sam xoxo
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hey, superstars welcome back, paula here. Sam pruitt in the house.
Polly Mertens:What's up, beautiful humans right, wow, this is a lovely topic we've chosen anxiety. Dude, it's not all in your head anxiety.
Samantha Pruitt:It's not all in your head. Why? Because it? Because it's in your body, people in your body. By the way, your brain is connected to said body. We're going to get into that Exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah people get an idea. It's just like thoughts and it feels like that. It feels like ruminating thoughts and all that stuff. But many people, most people, with like real anxiety, I've had it, I've experienced it. I'm experiencing a little bit of it now recently. I'll share later. But you can feel it physically as a vibration, as a heart palpitation, as a breathing, you know, because if you're paying attention to your physical body, you'll feel it in there. There's a reason and we'll tell you why?
Polly Mertens:Well, and I just want to start this off by saying we are not like, when I think of this topic, it's like I don't want people to go into the doldrums, like we are here to empower, right. Like the things we're going to talk about are things you maybe aren't looking at, things you know, insights, things that we've discovered, things that you heard recently on a podcast. You're like that's, that's brilliant, you know. And it's like we want to bring that to the listeners here and say, like yo, let's talk about this, like let's not just walk around in the state of anxiousness, if you ask me right.
Samantha Pruitt:Exactly, exactly. Well, I mean we're. Everything we do is about empowerment, and this particular episode to me is like um, helping people understand what we know to be true, which is that mental health is physical health and physical health is mental health. So these two things are linked. You cannot break the linkage, okay. And they're so entwined in the impact around how one part of what you think as a separate part of you, how it's operating, affects the other, and vice versa. Okay, first of all, you're a whole person. The body, mind, spirit, soul is a whole person. This is all together inside this vessel.
Samantha Pruitt:you walking around doing this thing, called humaning, but how the health of one really impacts the health of the other. I think that's really like at the core of our message today. For sure.
Polly Mertens:For sure. Well, let's kick it off. Where are we going?
Samantha Pruitt:Well, so this podcast oh my gosh, I just forgot her name right now because she wrote a book, so I'm just going to look it up real quick. But basically I want to talk about on my journey. I'm doing root cause medicine, which is functional medicine. It's an integration of Western and holistic therapies to heal my gut dysbiosis and my gut infections and so forth, and so anxiety has been coming up for me. So for me to understand, wow, because my gut was so dysregulated, of course my nervous system would become dysregulated and I would start to feel a wave of emotions, which I talked about in a prior episode when we talked about detoxing, but then also thoughts and emotions and how they're anxiety based when your body is in a position or a, you know, functional level of dis-ease. So, however you want to look at that, unease or dis-ease, anxiety can often manifest. It's a normal part of it.
Polly Mertens:So I guess the mind starts to go what's wrong? What's wrong, what's going on here? You know, yeah, exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:Okay, ellen Vora V-O-R-A is her name, ellen, dr Ellen Vora, and she recently wrote a book, but you guys should check her out. Dr Ellen Vora V-O-R-A. Okay. So whole human wellness, whole human medicine, actually involves looking at the whole person. So, really, my core belief system is that you should be looking at all of those things. And so today, when we talk about anxiety, I think we're going to break it into two chapters, if you will that we're going to cover, and one is how it can manifest physically in the body, and then what to do about that, okay, and then how it can manifest in the emotional body or in the mental state of the human, and maybe some solutions for that. Now, we are not therapists or doctors, but through our own personal experience, which you know, we've been on the planet a while and we've been through some things, okay, but we're always learning, we're always curious, we're always learning, always investigating. This is where these concepts are coming from that we're going to share today.
Polly Mertens:Yeah. So keep doing your own homework too. You know like we're here to share things, that like you have watched and listened to this podcast recently that sparked some new ideas I've had. I was surprised when I did my hypnotherapy training to find out how much the blood sugar dysregulation in the body and protein dysregulation can affect your state.
Samantha Pruitt:So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, we're going to talk about that, okay, so let's so. Anxiety is a stress response in the body, right, and it can manifest in the brain too. Some of the causes, so I do want to sort of like outlie them at the front, because there is some causes of why this happens. There can be a genetic predisposed component to it, but it doesn't mean that it's in my genes. Everyone in my family is anxious or depressed or fill in the blank, and so therefore, that's it's going to be me, right? That's not how it works. Um, epigenetics is how you have a gene package and then things in your environment, in your upbringing and experience over time, in your daily experience who do I hang out with? What is the food that I eat Like? How do I live my life? That can either activate or deactivate genes. Yeah, that's genetics, definitely. I mentioned environment, right, social, psycho and spiritual experience, so that will have a big impact. You know, how do you see yourself in the world?
Polly Mertens:How do you?
Samantha Pruitt:relate to others, how do you relate to the world at large, like on a social level, past illness or injury? That's kind of interesting to me. So I had an experience yesterday with my chiropractor I'll share with you which was kind of tripped me out, because both of us had this light bulb at the same time and I was working on a back hip issue. I have then, of course, unresolved trauma which lots of people are very familiar with. The nowadays there's so much new science around trauma in the body and it being stored in the body on a cellular, energetic level, but then also how that can impact your response physically to that and then emotionally, mentally. So there are reasons that this happens and that should be very empowering to people, because then it also shows and tells you that there is ways to resolve it Nice.
Polly Mertens:There's core root Exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:A small percentage is derived from genetics.
Polly Mertens:Exactly, Exactly. A small percentage is derived from genetics and you have something to say about that, because epigenetics says you put yourself in places, whatnot, but largely it's things that we're doing. You know things that we're causing, or you know impact, maybe trauma, you know, might be something happened to us or whatnot. But a lot of this is in our own two hands and so we were at the driving seat of like where this goes.
Samantha Pruitt:Right, yeah, yeah, too many people like to blame genetics for lots of things. So I've been studying disease, different kinds of diseases, and in general like it tends to be there somewhere around a 30 or 40% kind of number around genetic predisposition to something, any name, name, any ailment. That leaves 60 to 70%.
Polly Mertens:That's up to you, whatever I do next?
Samantha Pruitt:I'm in charge here.
Polly Mertens:And these are empowered people we're talking to. So, yes, so we are going to give them more tools. You know, like if this is showing up for you, remember you do have the power.
Samantha Pruitt:Totally, totally. So the first one I know you're going to want to talk about at length, which is basically listener people pay attention, get curious. That's where it starts.
Polly Mertens:Yeah.
Samantha Pruitt:So what's your experience there with getting curious about your own experience? You?
Polly Mertens:mean if you're having anxiety, right, well, first is like, if it's just like one time, right, or is it? Are you commonly or repeatedly or chronically anxious? Right, you know? And one of the things we talked about before we went on air is you know, are we talking about stress or anxiety? Right, and we're like no, we're going down the anxiety route because you know stress is that.
Polly Mertens:You know, you think about in the brain a 2 million year old brain. It's like fight or flight, fight or flight, right, and so I like it a little bit of anxiety, especially when we talk about the mental component to the worry track, right, so, like brains can go down a worry track, right, and what it is is we're thinking about the worst possible outcome. So it's like you know, when I hear people like I'm anxious about it, I'm like so what are you thinking about? Right? So it's like you know, when I hear people like I'm anxious about it, I'm like, so what are you thinking about? Right? And it's often they're like worked up about something. So you know there's infinite numbers of potentiality in the world of how, where, from this moment to X moment in the future, right, you can achieve or anticipate People that aim for their you know, anxiety or worry route, are seeing the worst possible outcome, right, and so it's no wonder that they're having experience in their body of fear or dread or anxiety.
Polly Mertens:Let's call it right. It's like your body's going stay away, stay away. That fight or flight mechanism gets triggered right, and so sometimes it's just the attachment to that worst possible outcome or any negative possible outcome. It doesn't have to be the ultimate worst, but something like that.
Samantha Pruitt:I would say they attach to that, or they attach to just not having control period right, because we have this really kind of hilarious idea that we're in control of things. I mean, we all do this. We walk around all day long, we make decisions to the best of our ability, we gather resources, we do all these things. We're very busy, humans are very busy doing lots of things and we think, okay, I have control here, I'm doing XYZ, therefore ABC is what's going to be the outcome. And then we're shocked when it isn't right, like we're shocked because we thought we had all the control in the world. So I think I've seen both of those kind of being relatively common is, you know, the ruminator of the worst case scenario and that's all they fixate on, or they just have so much fear and anxiety around the lack of control or the pretend sense of control, and then you'll see a lot of dysfunctional behaviors and then coping mechanisms will be also prescribed.
Polly Mertens:Or self-prescribed.
Samantha Pruitt:I should say self-prescribed.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, well, I know we're not supposed to be talking about solutions, but I mean I can't help but speak to that right there in case we don't come back to it for some reason. But it's like so that old beautiful prayer, you know, the serenity prayer, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can change. And I find that often anxiety is put, like a lot of attention is put on the things you have no control over.
Samantha Pruitt:Like you're over here. What other people?
Polly Mertens:are doing, you're working on things. You know like I had this friend. It was beautiful, like when she got it. Like there's something about like she had this worked up notion of trying to not have her friends die. She's a little bit older and she had friends dying, you know around her and stuff. So she was just like worked up around, you know her friends not dying and I was like how are you responsible? You know for them. You know like how, when did you take that on? Like their life is now your responsibility? Like you're going to prevent them from death? Like do you think that's really a winnable game? Whatever, I'm not saying like let your friends you know forget about themselves.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah.
Polly Mertens:But like, where are you putting your power? Like, oh, that's not necessarily a winnable game. So, okay, I'm going to focus on what I can control, what I can win at, what I am good at, where my attention right and it's like this is that faith, you know, like you know whatever you want to call it, but I often find anxiety lives over in people not understanding the two realms that they're playing in. I have control of something I can do literally something about, or this whole realm of things I don't have direct control over something about or this whole realm of things I don't have direct control over Exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:And you'll see, it very common that people will do nothing or they'll procrastinate, or they really won't take agency and control over very simple things. And we're going to talk about 10 really simple things at the end that are almost all free, that people can do, but they won't do that. They don't have any time and they're not going to put energy towards that because they're so busy worrying about these three things over here. You know what I mean and it's just like a drain, it's just a exhausting drain and it really you know rumination and the whole cycle around all of that is really it feels like a trap when you're in it. It feels like it's very difficult to break that cycle and we're saying.
Polly Mertens:The question is do I have control over this thing? Like, can I impact this outcome and, if so, get? About that thing, yeah, and then take two more steps. Can I? Can I impact that thing? And if not, okay, well, we'll see how that goes. So, yeah, okay, keep going.
Samantha Pruitt:Okay, so get curious and listen. So what I mean by this is have a curiosity about it, and these are some of the things we just talked about, but also the listening is like listening to what is going on in your body, right, and then go ahead Well, but you haven't told them some of the things that impact it yet.
Polly Mertens:Right so we'll get to that. So like we'll come back and say like you know, could you get curious about these areas? Because some people don't make that connection that we're about to share with them, which was surprising to me.
Samantha Pruitt:Exactly, and even paying attention and listening with a curiousness. Yeah, okay, not a, not a making bad on yourself, judgmental People don't need any more of that in their life. We've got plenty of that going on. Like hey, I noticed that when I did these things yesterday with these friends, or we went out, had a drink, whatever, I didn't eat well, I didn't sleep well when I notice those things, when I pay attention, today I feel more anxious. I don't feel good in this skin body that I have. I did some behaviors yesterday that maybe that's not working for me or maybe this relationship is causing me some undue stress, maybe they're a worry wart and they're worry warts spilling onto me. I'm very energy sensitive, so I go into a space and I mean sometimes I want to turn off the empathy.
Samantha Pruitt:Turn that shit down, dude, because I can go into a space and be like Whoa, I gots to go because this is an overflow over here. I'm literally like walking backwards trying to get out of the room. You know what I mean. So, anyway, that having a curiosity around what feels good and what doesn't, okay. And then, of course, sometimes you do actually need physical tests to look at your physical body to see if something might be going on. So I'm going to get specific here. But when I say physical tests to look at your physical body to see if something might be going on, so I'm going to get specific here. But when I say physical tests, it could be a lab test, it could be a appointment with a more holistically minded functional medicine doctor who understands root medicine or mind body medicine, however you want to pursue that. Okay, some of the things that could be going on in your physical body that would be causing anxiety. Are y'all ready for this?
Polly Mertens:I'll be Yep.
Samantha Pruitt:Let's hit it Blood sugar imbalance or dysregulation.
Polly Mertens:Huge.
Samantha Pruitt:So many many people are in that battle of blood sugar imbalance, right, so they're either not eating, not eating frequently enough, not getting enough protein into their body. You mentioned a friend.
Polly Mertens:That was a perfect example of this Mocha frappuccino of all the ice cream whipped cream you know, breakfast yeah.
Samantha Pruitt:And no food no food.
Polly Mertens:You know going through hours and hours and hours without proper nutrition, throwing in thousands I don't know thousand calories, whatever it is, of high fructose. You know just shooting that blood sugar up and then shooting it down.
Samantha Pruitt:Exactly. So if you are, you already know this about yourself, or you don't, and you need to go get tested. So you should know where you're at with this. What is your blood sugar like? Are you becoming dysregulated frequently? Is this a challenge for you? Are you even pre-diabetic or undiagnosed diabetic? So if all of that is underlying issues in your physical body, we got to address those.
Polly Mertens:And I think it would surprise people, like I was literally surprised when I did that blood sugar monitor for two weeks or a month or whatever. It was, like you know, a I have a very strong pancreas, so, thank God, you know, like I don't I'm not anywhere near diabetic or anything like that but I was amazed how much work some meals, some food substances I put in my body make that motherfucker work hard, you know, and like I would be like I'm okay, right, you know some really like I don't eat you know sugary muffins and like, uh, just whatever. Anyway, the test that you, that I went through with this blood sugar thing, was this like you know, I icing on top kind of muffin thing and I was like, oh, I just taste it. I mean I do. Hey, look, I on top kind of muffin thing and I was like, oh, it just tasted. I mean I do. Hey, look, I eat sugar.
Polly Mertens:I'm not saying like don't eat sugar or whatever, but like that, when it caked form or whatever, my blood sugar was like, right, how I felt after that, like the, I felt like the elevator was just going down, but I'm so more sensitive to it and I'm just saying like sometimes you can get yourself to a general homeostasis, that you go from morning latte to mid-morning muffin to whatever, and these leaps you take and your body is just going up and down in this blood sugar dysregulation. And while it's doing that, guess what Anxiety is probably going to be present. And while it's doing that, guess what Anxiety is probably going to be present. You know, if you're not hydrated, if your blood sugar is like up and down like a wedding dress, you know it's like well, you know that's just going to. It's a recipe, I would say for like that'd be the first thing if somebody walked in as a hypnotherapist and they're like anxiety, anxiety. I was like so tell me about your diet the last three days. You know, like let's talk, let's have that conversation right.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, it's totally a roller coaster and it causes a biochemical, physiological response in your body Red freaking alert. But we're doing it to ourselves in this instance, so it is really important to look at that big time. Another is your gut, so dysregulated gut. So that was recently. My experience is I have small intestine bacterial overgrowth. I'm taking care of that. I could have SIFO2, which is the fungus version. So anyway, it's been a long process to get there and to do this and during all of that I felt anxiety like coming up that I never experienced before, like physically manifesting anxiety, like coming up that I never experienced before, like physically manifesting. I was like whoa, what is this? Right, but it's all interconnected, it's all attached. So it makes sense that if there is gut dysfunction in your gut microbiome and the gut brain connection is off, that guess what Again send some signals to your brain.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, exactly, yeah, you want to talk more about that too.
Samantha Pruitt:You've got some knowledge in that space.
Polly Mertens:All I want to say is I think it's like you know I've been I used to say it's been two years now, I think it's been almost five years now that I've just been a deep student of gut, everything Right, and some of the early days, you know, you know I get, I like like go down a freaking rabbit hole and I just remember I so like in the beginning I was like mind-blowing what I was discovering. You know, now it's been so many years, I'm like people just know about it and I think about how many of our episodes we talk about the gut. I'm just like, totally okay, like everything you know, I mean what where I? You know you get different literature and different studies and I know there's still research that we still haven't discovered that is going to come out right, about the gut and whatnot. But I would just say pretty much everybody's got some form of leaky gut. Thank you, monsanto, for Roundup and it's just causing the lining of our gut right which causes this by you know, whatever and all sorts of things.
Polly Mertens:So you know, if you have anxiety, take a damn look at you know, get some gut. Know, if you have anxiety, take a damn look at you know, get some gut testing like you've been doing, right? You can't just, you know, hope for the best. And gut testing is you did several things Right. Some of it's blood, but I did one that was fecal tests and I think it was urine also. I forget, but you've got to ask for those air also. Yeah, ok, next levels, right, forget, um, but you've got to ask for those air also. Yeah, okay, next levels, right. So go to the right practitioner to to check these things out, because, I'm sorry, it feels like almost every episode we do, we bring up the comments. It's like such a yeah, just so.
Samantha Pruitt:I mean because we kind of think that our brain is running this show. There's's a brain in your gut, our gut's running the show.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, your brain. You know, and some you know podcasts and researchers and scientists that I've listened to they say we're basically, you know, keeping, we're the host and we're keeping those organisms alive Like they're running the show and we're just here to serve them, like the impulsives and the cravings that we get are because they've got cravings. You know, I'm like and you're referring to your microbiome- Totally yeah. All the bugs. They're so bossy, they want that ice cream whatever Thyroid or hormonal imbalances.
Samantha Pruitt:So one of the things I learned obviously we know a lot about hormones and thyroid too. Both of us have had hormones menopause, premenopause, whatever all the things and thyroid stuff, and it's can be common for a myriad of reasons, but anyway, have those things looked at by somebody who actually know what's going on? But, um, something that was like Whoa, I hadn't actually thought about that, but there's a massive correlation between anxiety and or depression. So there's a whole spectrum there. And birth control. Oh yeah, massive links now that are all coming out in science, because we're finally studying women's health, by the way. Hey, so glad we got on board with the other five.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah by the way, hey, so glad we got on board with 51% of the population. I wonder what's going on in there. But I'm thinking about myself as a young person and many females friends and you know watching their experience of being on birth control or going off or trying different kinds and whatever, and the amount of emotional disruption. So I'm not just talking about what was happening in their physical body showing symptomatics, bad skin, all these crazy ass things that were also going on weight gain, blah, blah, blah. That's all flags going up in the air too Yellow flags, red flags right, but the emotional disruption.
Samantha Pruitt:So I have an experience of actually had a hysterectomy because I was having all these issues going on. This is pre-menopausal and during my trying to heal from my autoimmune disease and all this crazy stuff. So I was bleeding all the time. Totally, I was really having lots of problems polycystic fibroids, all these things Ended up having a hysterectomy and then after that I was trying to solve to. The next downstream issue was these cysts on my ovaries, because I still have my ovaries I just did now my uterus and I went back to traditional Western medicine. They said, well you, we're gonna put you on hormones, we're gonna put in birth control. I'm like I just had a hysterectomy for many reasons and so this is your solution and I was like wait what? Why?
Polly Mertens:Oh, because it's a lot of hormones.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, we want to like flatline these hormones. It's like no, but how easily they're prescribed and how we feel, as the female species A, that it would be our primary responsibility not to get pregnant. By the way there's last time I checked, there's two people and that we that this is the primary solution that we've provided through Western medicine. So, anyway, there's lots of ways to deal with your hormones, but unless you're actually looking at these things on a regular basis and understanding, wow, I took this thing whatever it was. Or I put this thing in my body and I don't feel like myself, or I feel more anxious, or I put this thing in my body and I don't feel like myself, or I feel more anxious, or I feel more depressed. So, again, it's all this coming back to curiosity and then being able to have intelligent conversations about it.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, and thanks to you know AI, these days you can get way better. You can dive down deeper. You know you can't always trust what you find. So you know, take that with a, but you can get way better answers than used to get on just general web md. Or you know some of the generic sites that are very western medicine driven. You can say show me the holistic implications or show me cures.
Polly Mertens:You know, if I wanted to go to naturopathic medicine or ayurvedic medicine or whatever you can like, pull in that body of wisdom that you know AI can now, you know, pull from what I just want to say one thing about a little bit of the roller coaster of you know, thyroid has been my thing since I was in my twenties, right, so I started hypo. So I was way hypo, had a big old goiter and stuff, and you know one of the symptoms I would say. You know so like fast heart rate. You know high metabolism. You know it's just like go, go, go. You know like I couldn't sit, still kind of feeling right.
Polly Mertens:So you want to talk about some anxiety, right? So yeah, so you know, and you would notice it from that hyperness or you know whatnot, I think at the time, you know, so disconnected from my body, you know, there I was raging, bulimic and all this stuff, so like it was just all about, all I thought about was my waistline. You know, not like you know what else is going on here, you know, like racing heart, hot all the time, that sort of thing so. But thyroid can get out of whack on the lower end. Now I have hypothyroid, not hyper, but hyper can create some sense of anxiety. You talked about the body signal and the mind goes. You know why am I so? Why is my heart racing so much?
Samantha Pruitt:This high peak state, if you will, it would feel like Mind goes ah, and all of these things we're talking about affect the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve.
Polly Mertens:The second thing we seem to be talking about a lot lately on the nervous system parasympathetic again, there's a whole spectrum in here.
Samantha Pruitt:People, a whole spectrum. Humans are freaking amazing. How can we not want to know about this shit, dude?
Polly Mertens:it's so cool so tell them what the vagus nerve is. In case they're just coming to this episode, just give them a little yeah, google that you want to get into ai and it's not vegas like las vegas, it's v-a-g-u-s the vegas vegas nerve right. So it's the connection. It runs, you know, down your sternum, I would say right from your gut to your brain, and it's signaling those two.
Samantha Pruitt:And it's got lots of webs, it's pathways. Keep going.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, well, and it's the sympathetic, parasympathetic regulator. You know it's like parasympathetic, meaning you know you're relaxed, rest and digest. Sympathetic, you know fight or flight kind of, you know like go.
Samantha Pruitt:So yeah, and there's a spectrum in each of those too. So just so people are aware we are simplifying greatly here Because we're staying on track, are we?
Polly Mertens:But are we?
Samantha Pruitt:though, sort of. But there's a spectrum, so there can be unhealthy versions on either end of the spectrum, dysregulation on either end of the spectrum, right, so you can be, so you know, extreme in one way or the other it can be causing other issues. So again, you're looking for balance. The whole body is about homeostasis and balance in all of this, many, many, many systems. So what we're talking about here in particular, with anxiety being like a feeling that somebody's had them, there's just this intricate web going on internally within your body that's coming from all these different pathways and neurotransmitters and, you know, nervous system regulation or dysregulation in your body. There's so many messages coming through the and, of course, chemicals within the body, you know, through the thyroid and through the adrenals and all of that kind of stuff.
Samantha Pruitt:So that's why it's not so easy to just say, oh, you're just stressed, chill out. You know, do more self care, go get a massage, you're going to be fine. Like it's not that simple, right? There really are some physical things that could be going on. So what I also want to talk about are some very obvious things we talk about on a regular basis, which is sleep and nutrition. So we talked about blood sugar regulation. So let's just talk about nutrition quickly. If you are deficient in particular nutrients or vitamins and minerals, highly probable that is going to lead to a stressed state of physical body, right? So, gut, we talked about the gut, but it also trickles down to the rest of your body, your muscles, your brain. Everything needs nutrients, right?
Samantha Pruitt:So if your nutrition is off and you're living off of the Frappuccino way, in the world or the fast food way of being in the world, or whatever, that is going to have downstream implications ultimately all the way down to your nervous system and lead to definitely anxiety or possibly depression that's going to manifest through these portals.
Polly Mertens:I would say, just as we're talking about vitamins or supplements. So when we, when I looked into it, it was so magnesium and vitamin B, you know, are big ones. To just make sure those are, you know sufficient and D. Well, we could go on and on about you know.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, and then there's a lot of herbs and stuff you can take too, but those are the biggies.
Polly Mertens:So magnesium B and D and then and these are easy solutions- yeah, and I don't know, I, you know, we're not here to say oh, just go out and start taking that, you know like we're here to say like you know, get some blood work. Yeah, get some blood work and a simple blood test with a doctor can detect those for sure, for sure.
Samantha Pruitt:So and, to be clear, they might say you're a normal range, but normal range is really wide. So if you're down on this end of the normal range, that is not normal it means that, based on current society today and, by the way, society is very ill you fall in the normal range. Great, I fall in the normal range of ill people. That's not winning for me yeah, totally um inflammation and the immune system. Lots of things can trigger inflammation, but chronic inflammation from environmental factors, lack of sleep, poor nutrition sugar.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, like all of that will cause inflammation and that inflammation can be an anxiety trigger. So the body just constantly being inflamed and never actually being able to bring the inflammation down. And that is the immune system. So the immune system responding to the triage, just triaging. All this inbound BS and we talked earlier about the immune system being inside the gut, primarily right. So if the immune system is in hyperdrive, then you have a lot of inflammation and that can also be an underlying cause for anxiety.
Polly Mertens:And it can. You know, inflammation can manifest in parts of the body, you know, like it's looking for like a weak link, right? You know I see people with the rheumatoid arthritis right, which is a sign of inflammation. So there's a leaky gut issue that's allowing. You know, the immune system is taking care of the most important part of the body the gut and the organs or whatever, and so something you know else manifests somewhere else, right? So disease can manifest in wherever the weakest link is you know that's exactly exactly what happens.
Samantha Pruitt:And then movement or exercise. So if you're not moving your body, we're going to get into solutions here first, but these are just some of the ways that it can manifest. Physically is like if your body isn't able, your lymphatic system isn't able to move toxins out, if you're not moving your body on a regular basis, again, that lack of movement can be a root cause for anxiety.
Polly Mertens:Well, I mean, just think about you know the body, you know the hormones washing over your brain when you see a nice sunset, or the serotonin washing over your brain when you have a nice conversation on a hike with a friend or something like that. Whatever you do, go play tennis. I'm not suggesting that's it, but it's like those hormones and chemicals soothe the body, right, so we're not in that constant state. So, whatever your physical exercise, you know it's not. You know, some people look at exercise as like this punishment, right, you know, and if you can give you know, I was just talking with somebody yesterday and she's like you know, she's like very close to cancer, like she's a very healthy person, but there's this signals from her body, like she's testing and testing because she's like anyway, and uh, she's like, oh, I have to fall in love with exercise. She says it like it's a job, like like, you know, like me, send her to me. Yeah, exercise.
Polly Mertens:I was like, well, you just need to find an exercise that you, you can fall in love with that you, that you like, you know, and it's I didn't like Pilates. Maybe I'll go back to Pilates. I'm like, okay, but don't stop. Like you know, keep going. I was like, and she's like, yeah, she lives right now. She's living in Mexico. So she's like, yes, I went swimming in the ocean. I was like, oh my God, salt of the ocean. I was like, keep doing that, girlfriend. I hope you fall in love with that, right, awesome, anyway, but yeah, so, so yeah, movement. Not having movement, it just doesn't allow those chemicals to get and do their job, which is like wash over the brain with, you know, happiness, chemicals and well-being.
Samantha Pruitt:you know chemicals Totally do, totally, totally, and a resetting of energy. We're going to save that for the 10 things you're going to do. But real quick, let's talk about. So these are physical, um, possibilities of the manifestation of anxiety, right? So there are also are mental and emotional, um. Some of those things could be just pure overload. Okay, people, you know, if you're freaking overloaded, do people not know? I mean, it totally intrigues me and I'm so guilty of this. I've done this a thousand times in my life and I still do it now, cyclically, cyclically, yeah, when I am in a heavy work period of my life. So I might be on an event, traveling international, in another country, working 10 days a week, whatever, like there's periods. I'm really like holy F bomb. Am I on overload, right?
Polly Mertens:Well, you'll do like three weeks, so you'll take like three weeks of travel. You know, and you're like over here, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, you know, and you come home and you're just like I'm not.
Samantha Pruitt:Exactly so. You can't always not have some periods of overload, but you sure the hell better be aware. Okay, so again waking up to, is my life just simply overloaded? Is my plate too full? Do I really feel like I just don't have the bandwidth for another thing when my girlfriend says, hey, you know it's your birthday, let's go out? And I'm just like, oh, one more thing, you know it's like, come on. If there's no room for joy and room for rest and room for quality nutrition, you are overloaded and you need to get a grip.
Polly Mertens:Get a team. You need to get a team. You need to have the people around you start lifting some weight. You know y'all need to like. You know, can y'all do some curls back there? Well, I just you know, since I'm in this team management leadership program, I can't tell you how many of the moms enroll their family and, excuse me, fucking stepping up and playing like a team. You know, like they. It's like like let's, let's work as a team here, not just mom, the solo, get it all done-er. You know it's like oh, like they, they start to enroll their family and teamwork.
Samantha Pruitt:So, yeah, everyone else in the house, by the way, can cook, they can clean. I mean, I'm being sarcastic but I'm not because, like I know, that was a big transition for me when I became more and more empowered as a human. Like I need to be empowering you all. I don't know what you're doing here. You want to eat? You want to clean laundry? Well, hey, that's how the washing machine works, you know, you know whatever?
Polly Mertens:like all of those things no-transcript this you know how can I spread the love? You know don't have to. You know the mantra of like doing it all my own, I'm totally empowered you know some of that. Whatever like, okay, put that aside and allow people to help you.
Samantha Pruitt:I know it's not a weakness, okay, and being disconnected from your purpose and values Ooh, what do you have to say about that?
Polly Mertens:Make me a little anxious.
Samantha Pruitt:That would make me a lot anxious, like how do I even get out of bed? Actually, it would make me depressed but also anxious. Yeah, well, I think you and I the hell am I here in the world? I have no idea. I'm just going to wake up every day and go through the motions. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Stop y'all.
Polly Mertens:So that might be one place to look. You know it's a place to look, you know, if there's just this out of congruency that you feel in your body. You know, I gotta say like we, we know when we're out of integrity, out of authenticity, out of alignment with, not I would say, what we're supposed to be doing, because not everybody, everybody's got different definitions of that. I'm not going to go into my definition of that, but it's like you know, when you're like, oh, this doesn't feel right, doesn't feel right, right, so you're anxious because you're calling yourself forth to do something that is just like a no for you, right, or something better, or something over here is calling you and maybe you've, maybe that served you for a while.
Polly Mertens:Right, you know, one of the things I'm teaching in my come alive program is follow your path to the highest excitement. Like what excites you? You know, like, instead of, oh, I gotta do this because I've always done it, or these people are counting on me, or whatever the jargon is that you tell yourself right, it may have come from a past decision that you made that you may need to like, step into now and go okay, here, now, what am I choosing and exactly where's my highest excitement? Where is my highest joy? This, you know. How can I bring team to this Y'all? Do this now, right, or or maybe I need to uncommit from something where you really feel disconnected from what's happening there.
Samantha Pruitt:It doesn't feel good in your physical body in these spaces. Reassess pronto.
Polly Mertens:Wow, that's like me. I get anxious. If I've been anxious in my life, in my work, it's because I'm not traveling enough. You know, like I can remember, you know, five years at this one job and I was was just like I'm just seeing the same walls all the time. You know, and my, my body is just like you're not meant for the same. Four walls for 25 years, like some people are 30 years or whatever.
Samantha Pruitt:And thank you for the golden handcuff parachute, whatever I guess to go, people need to maybe study the evolution of humanity. I mean, in their spare time just might want to take a look at that. Right, it's just not how we're supposed to be living, like it's, and the artificial lights and the artificial everything. It's just not reality. Okay, a big thing is fear and control, or lack thereof. We talked about control at the onset, or people feeling like oh my gosh, you know I have no control over this and I'm going to go cray cray. So what about fear? What's inducing fear in people and why is that causing anxiety?
Polly Mertens:Well, you know there's like, if there is a, you know, a mountain lion chasing you, okay, yeah, that's your body signal. Like, get the hell out of there, right? If there's a person in the other room that is dangerous to you, that's your signal. Like do something about that, right? Um, a lot of this stuff, that. What is that quote from? Um, something like you know, 99 of the things that I ever thought were going to happen never happened.
Polly Mertens:You know, I wish I could remember the quote anyway, but it's like we get all this worked upness about things that never come to pass, right, you know, like, what if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if that thing happens didn't happen? What if? What if? What if? What if, what if? About the next thing? Right, and I would say, focus on that section that you have control over, focus on that section that you can impact. That is, you know you have agency over. If you don't have agency over it, yeah, send it some love, pay attention to it as much as it makes you feel good, right? Otherwise, let it go.
Polly Mertens:Like you know, like this whole, you know there's a whole swath of the world that I am not paying attention to right now.
Samantha Pruitt:Exactly, exactly.
Polly Mertens:And more of us, you know, if we find ourselves paying attention to areas of the world, whether it's or far, far away, like I can't and I'm sorry, I'm gonna throw my mom under the bus for a month, she like contacts me and she's like oh, I'm worried about this and I was like why are you pulling these things out of? Like well, they're being sent to her on facebook, you know I was gonna say they're coming through media yeah that's still thin air.
Samantha Pruitt:I call the internet thin air. Anything that is coming through tv, uh, the internet. This is thin air.
Polly Mertens:People are just making shit up anyway go ahead, finish your story well they love to you know I'm like mom they're curate they're exactly they love to bring you. You know, I'm like I'll tell her. You know, oh, there's a fire over whatever. And she's like oh, I hear there's three more fires over, oh, and I, okay. Well, does it help to like think about them or talk about them? You know, there's so many fires going on right now that I am not thinking about and I don't feel anxious about them, right?
Samantha Pruitt:Right.
Samantha Pruitt:And if you want to be empowered, you go learn how to fight a fire. I just saw a whole show on that yesterday and I was like wow, there's so few fire men and women that they're training average citizens. I'm so into this. I don't live in a fire zone, I live in the middle of the desert. It's not going to be a fire here anytime soon, but I was just so fascinated by this. They're training just average people. So look into this if you're curious in your community to fight your own fire in your neighborhood and with your house. And I was like hell yeah, empower the freaking people.
Polly Mertens:Wow. So the fear you know fears often is, you know, states of disempowerment. Anxiety is focusing on what you don't want, right? It's like that terrible thing happening. So you know what else?
Polly Mertens:you know one of my favorite phrases like oh, I wonder what's trying to happen here you know like if I don't have direct impact control, I can't adjust this outcome and I just let it go like I wonder what's trying to happen here. Okay, I'll see it when it unfolds and as it unfolds, and I just take take the anxiety out of it, I take the charge out of it and go okay. I'm doing what I can where I can. Is there any more I can do?
Samantha Pruitt:no, okay and I would just add one last thing before we come move on to some solutions is you know if people are triggered by things. So you know a trigger can come from a lot of different areas and there's different scales of that right. A lot of people are triggered by old traumas and different things, relationships, whatever. So if you communication like we talked about, if you find that you seem to have a lot of triggers or you have a particular trigger also, so either one very specific one or a series of them on a favorite basis a favorite.
Samantha Pruitt:If you will, then you need to take a look at that. Yeah Right, you don't just keep feeding it. I'll just tell a brief story. I got jury duty Yay me and I went in and usually I get excused and whatever. And then it turned out that I didn't. They called my name, so then I had to actually go into the courtroom where they vetted more and then they eliminated more people and then somehow I'm still in now. I'm out of a hundred people. I'm down to the last 20.
Samantha Pruitt:I shared this with you the other day and I couldn't believe how triggering it was for me to be in that courtroom and listen to the six pages, six pages of things that the were related to the case. I can't give any details or whatever, but just that coming into my ears and also in my line of sight, and the people and the different thing, and I was like holy hell, okay. And then I kind of looked around at the other people. I was like anyone else getting triggered and literally I saw one person crying. I saw people physically reacting, having physical reactions, and I was like whoa, dang Cause it's hard subject matter. I'm not even in the trial, by the way. This is all preempt.
Samantha Pruitt:I haven't technically been chosen yet, but I immediately left there and called a person who's very skilled in this area and works in the professional and that kind of stuff and just re-educated myself to some things. So I could like go whoa, why was that so triggering for me? I need to have a conversation about it with an intelligent human. So I picked up the phone and I and I feel fine. But if I didn't and I just kept internalizing what was coming up for me, holy hell, talk about a spiral. So you know again, it's awareness, it's leaning on resources, it's having conversations and let's get into that. On that note, let's get into you know.
Polly Mertens:I just want to give one example like what you're talking about. So I was coaching this girl yesterday about, um, there's a lot, what's the word? Hyper vigilance, like a like this hyper vigilance about people's needs and not upsetting people and not wanting to hurt someone's feelings and not wanting to send that so that person. And it was just this hyper vigilance about people and not wanting to hurt someone's feelings and not wanting to send that, so that person, and it was just this hypervigilance about people. And I was like whoa, and like, talk about the like, constraining your ability to express, you know, let alone like I mean all the things that the mind must be chirping on.
Polly Mertens:Exhausting, exhausting, yeah, yeah. So this hypervigilance, so what? You, so what? Well, I don't know if we're going to go into answers, you know, or solutions.
Samantha Pruitt:We are now. What do you want to say, you?
Polly Mertens:can go get started because I've got a whole list. Well, so there's a root belief underneath, you know. So there was an experience, or multiple experiences I, you know everything's childhood right, okay. Or multiple experiences I, you know everything's childhood right, okay. Let's just say, like there was experiences back then it sure is that taught her a pattern of being hyper vigilant.
Polly Mertens:Right? So, like she just has this pattern running in the background, locked in place by a belief whatever or a couple of beliefs. Right, so, until you will first notice, you know, like she's like, oh well, I did it. And I was like, oh, you really care a lot about, you know, getting it just right with this person. And then this person, you know, because, like, as the more I got to know her, I was like, well, so you really cared about how you did this and then really cared, I was like, wow, there's kind of like this wall of hypervigilance out there that she had.
Polly Mertens:It wasn't just like one relationship, it's, you know, all around her. And it's like, okay, so how can you begin to look at? What would I have to believe to? You know, to act like this? Right, because then you can start to get those beliefs that are hidden in the subconscious out in front of you and begin to work with them. Right, and we don't have time to go into, like, all the ways you can work on, you know, limiting beliefs and stuff, but number one is just becoming aware. Exactly, it is like magic, you're like holy crips, Because once it's, I tell you, once the behavior A, once the behavior is identified too, once the belief or the strategy or whatever's driving it.
Polly Mertens:Or, even better, if you can remember what caused it. Because if you can do the work on what caused it, you can release that right. That's where you can hypnosis or whatever you know. You can do all kinds of work around that you go. That wasn't even true, you know, type of thing, but anyway. So I just wanted to mention that if you've got this behavior, hyper vigilance, like just right, you're like I don't want to say the wrong thing, like she was afraid to go to this place, because if she said this and then and I was like you're gonna control, I was like good luck controlling that yeah yeah, so.
Polly Mertens:So just if you've got a hyper vigilance kind of good thing going on, um, am I describing that right? Do you get it like? I totally get it, I totally get it's landing, okay it's this very primate thing that's going on.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, because at the core of like hypervigilance is like survival, right, but there's this protective element of the hypervigilance activity you know there is a level of.
Polly Mertens:So I think every human uh well, maybe this is too sweeping, but humans come out of their family of origin with a, you know, understanding that the parents and a lot of parents are like my word, you know, this is how it is kind of thing, right? So we have this way of behaving, that we got trained by the two primary people in our life that what these two people say matters very much, or?
Samantha Pruitt:or whatever caretaker was actually feeding you and keeping you alive.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, yeah, so liken that, you know, translate that to your origin story, whatever.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah.
Polly Mertens:And so we get this pattern of like looking to that person, because it's our source of love, it's our source of wellbeing, andbeing and security, and you know all these things right, and you know connection, all this stuff.
Polly Mertens:So if I don't behave, if I don't deliver what that person wants, or if that person is out of alignment, you know, like I had the family members that were erratic, let's say, and I can't figure out what they're doing, and I deliver the wrong message, or if I come at them at the wrong time, or something like that, right, you get different results, right. So that level of training gets indoctrinated to most of us because we have these parents or caretaker, if you will. Right, I have a feeling there was some level of strenuousness of caretaking that required that level of hyper vigilance, right, or she just applied it to everywhere, you know? You know, I'm not quite sure well, it might have gotten compounded.
Samantha Pruitt:It does, for many people once they went into school and then had a similar experience with authorities in school and then then they went here to the relationship world, right, and then they have so that, and so it just keeps like layering and layering, and layering the indoctrine or the neural pathways, the responses, all the ways of being yeah the ways of being in the world contort.
Polly Mertens:I told her. I was like well, just noticed, you know you're doing these emotions. They said there's probably a way. When you start to contort, you know like we do depression, it looks a certain way. You know, we can get really into depression by putting our body there. We can get really excited by putting our body in that state. Like I have a feeling, when you start to contort, you know like you're going to contort a text or not saying or doing something. Your body has a way of doing that. Like you're, you've got an emotion that shows up to tell you oh, be careful, like hypervigilance, you know, alert kind of thing.
Samantha Pruitt:So anyway, let's give people some solutions. We got none. Sorry, you're stuck with it. We got nothing Good luck, we'll see.
Samantha Pruitt:Bye. Now the number one solution that has come out of the actual scientific research. You know how happy this makes me Exercise. So again, people can go and study scientific research. Just, you know there's a thing called the internet. Use it in a positive, productive way. So exercise but what was fun about that is secondary to like actual exercise and normal modalities was dance. Well, that's exercise. That's exercise which is a form of exercise, and shaking the body. So the shaking and letting out which you know leads us to the conversation around trapped energy, which I'm a believer of. You know, cellular health, mitochondria, all the energy systems of the body, and then that getting trapped in there, emotions getting trapped in there, trauma getting trapped in there, but definitely anxiety can get trapped in your body. And if you want to move it out of the body, just like poop and pee and sweat, move the body.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, and you know, as you said, dance was like. You know, I think of my friend who was like, oh, I have to fall in love with exorcism, like what the hell. Turn on some music you like and, you know, enjoy yourself for a little bit. I mean, I think about all the years when my twenties and whatnot, going to dance clubs and stuff, you know, like yeah, like get a great workout and we, we didn't even know we were going to therapy.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah Right, we were going to therapy. We were with our friends, having a social experience in community to music and number two is music, by the way, damn and we were dancing our bodies.
Polly Mertens:We basically were going to therapy dude, I would, I would double clip.
Samantha Pruitt:Oh so true, like I think about how much you want, you come out of a nightclub and you're just like you're high as a kite and you didn't smoke a thing, you didn't drink a thing, you're totally like so in the zone yeah, or your best music festival concert, whatever.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, that was amazing, right?
Samantha Pruitt:yeah, I wish people would go there more sober to see, like, what the full experience is. But don't get me started on that, okay. So music and energy, um, nature. Obviously we are big fans of nature and being in nature and the energetic experience there and what it does to your brain. But also it's it's shifting perspective. So it's going out away from your current space in the house, in the office, on the computer, whatever the thing is on your phone in your'm looking out my window right now at these fricking mountains that are unreal. So every time I drive home and I live here for a reason and I look up at those mountains, or I drive somewhere where there's magnificent nature the beach, the desert, whatever I'm literally like oh, that sigh Can't be anxious, can't be anxious.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, and I think one of the things I pick up on so much more in the last years is frequency. Right, and I noticed the frequency of the planet at, or in my local area, let's say, because there's different time zones, right, so like Australia is up when I'm sleeping or whatever, but like in my local area, you know, if I go out for a sunrise walk and there's like very few humans moving right, you talk about that busy of our planet. That's that frequency that gets you know and so that energetic hum that we get into our car and we go get into traffic and then we get into the grocery store and then I gotta get to, you know, all these things that we're out doing. I would just say you know, nature doesn't have that um, it has a totally different frequency that it's operating at Right and so, yes, there's a visual. I would just say you don't have the reverberation of other energy coming at you.
Polly Mertens:Nature's like, yeah, leave it all here, have at it. We got a big old playground. You can leave all that negative. You know we can you know it's like.
Polly Mertens:What do they say? The mushrooms these days underneath are doing the carbon recycling. You know like they're the best CO2. It's like yep, just leave us all your negative frequency, we'll recycle that for you it's freaking miraculous?
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, it's miraculous. And then we wonder why, in confined spaces or where there's a lot of people, or like I was expressing you know being sensitive to other people's energy earlier in my comment I'm defending myself from the other energies and that's really exhausting.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, or violence. Yeah, violence is higher. Yeah, totally, totally.
Samantha Pruitt:Sleep and light. Whoa Hello again. You have to sleep, everyone has to sleep and everyone has control over turning the lights on and off.
Polly Mertens:Let's just assume our people yeah they, they get this. You got to get those, get those Z's, get those Z's.
Samantha Pruitt:And restrict the light. Okay, we talked about food being nutrient dense and also being aware of your gut microbiome. So again these are you have to eat. You get to choose what to eat. Right, we're not saying that you have unlimited resources financially to eat whatever, whatever, but you can get back to foundational nutrient dense whole foods. Yeah, and watch those blood watch.
Polly Mertens:You know I would. So one of the things that I started doing with you know AI and stuff is a low glycemic right. So just searches or recipes. Low glycemic is one way of saying I don't want to like I have a blood sugar spike, right. So if you want to research that and look towards low glycemic dietary options, that will help regulate your blood sugar better as well.
Samantha Pruitt:And build your gut microbiome. Okay, connection, so connection to the self and others. Again, we have to connect with humans anyway and last time I checked, I take myself everywhere, so I might want to be friends with all of this and it's. It can be hard, it's been a journey, like you know this didn't come naturally to us, unfortunately, because of our environments and all of the things how we raised whatever to us, unfortunately because of our environments, and all of the things how we raised whatever, whatever. But we're doing the work now.
Polly Mertens:We're committed to being on that path now and also with our fellow humans. You know what just came to me? I hadn't put this together until you started saying like yourself and whatnot. So I don't remember how many years ago now, it's maybe been 10 to 15. I started, you know, my morning routines, right, and it's changed over the years, it's got various rituals and whatever. But what I started to notice when you said that is it's like a commune with myself. Like a commune with myself right, like all self, not just like little s, but big S, and I think if I went too long without doing that, I could see how a frenzy of life and out there.
Polly Mertens:So I have an every morning reset, you know like, every like at night, great reset, you know like, and the brain washes, you know all the stuff from yesterday and whatnot. And then in the morning I reconnect, I like get charged back into my battery source, if you will, and then I go out fully charged, you know, because we talk about capacity, right, and so sometimes I think lack of sleep, poor food habits, not exercising, not taking care well, you can just decide, you know that I have control over that, or I don't. When you don't have a lot of capacity, you feel like you don't have control over a lot of things, Like I'm not resourced, if you will, and so when you begin to level up those sleeping you know, taking care of these hygiene items that keep your capacity at a good level, then you can manage the things that come out of you in life, if you will, and make those mindset choices right. Drifting into I have no control over that, I'm not going to think about that or you lean into and you know I would say I noticed one day last week I had gotten just like crappy sleep whatever. Like I was just moving, moving, moving and just like a long night, whatever I can remember. I like crappy sleep, whatever. Like I was just moving, moving, moving and just like along that, whatever I can remember, I went into, like you know me, I've been traveling a lot, so like sometimes I don't have a great, I don't have whole foods nearby, let's just say that.
Polly Mertens:And so I go into this like market in the middle of nowhere and I was like, and I noticed how I made poor food choices Like, and I noticed how I made poor food choices, like I grabbed like Pringles like jumped out at me. I was like, oh, I got Pringles in forever. I was like Pringles, you know, Comfort food Exactly, and it's like those lower. You know when you're burnt out and whatever the body's just like. I've made the you know bad food choices, so you know anyway.
Samantha Pruitt:And that, you know, double clicks on the relationship with self, but also the relationship and connection to others is a big part of this too. So loneliness is a real thing, right, people feeling isolated and disconnected is incredibly painful Emotionally, can cause a lot of anxiety, of course, and angst around not feeling like you have belonging. So we really want to encourage people to find belonging in their community with people that they trust in safe spaces. Right, but it can be as simple as one person and one point of contact. It can be a circle of people that share your values and share your interests. Right? Maybe it doesn't exist in your home, maybe it doesn't exist in your workspace Like, you have to go seek it out.
Samantha Pruitt:It's not going to necessarily be delivered to you. They're knocking on your door. Hey, you are so cool, you should hang out with me. Right, like you have to make an effort for these things. I, throughout the day, weave into and I'm famous for weaving into these places of connection for myself. Right, so it's my coffee shop that I frequent and those people, those beautiful humans, it's my gym space and those incredible humans. Right, like so I have my little places for connection and then, of course, I have my rituals of self-connection as well out in nature. But everyone needs to find this. It's like the fabric at the core of our being For sure.
Polly Mertens:So see what resonates for you, just knowing that you know that frequency, that we talk about that buzz of society, right, how can you unplug from that and plug back in or just you know, kind of disconnect for some while. Whatever it is, you know, and there's lots of techniques breath work, getting outside, yoga, whatever your thing is.
Samantha Pruitt:And then the last thing is to and this is comes back to awareness, to like whatever you're putting into your brain, your eyeballs, your ears, your body, right, so this is all the things we kind of covered today, but, except for this, like obvious, factor two is like, if there is, you know, coming into your auditory or your eyeballs through news, through media, through sound, through words, et cetera, if that is, if there's a disruption in that for you, you need to stop those things. And I can't really think of many things that that's not the case in modern society today, with our news and our media and our online and all of our things. I mean we really have to guard ourselves against it. We didn't used to, but now I feel like every time I turn around, I'm like what is this I'm hearing, what is this I'm seeing, like I'm having? It's a barrage, almost.
Samantha Pruitt:So if you can at least have awareness of those things will absolutely be anxiety inducing and you creating just awareness around. Wow, that doesn't sound good to me. That doesn't look good. That crime show I've been watching every night, or that type of music I've been listening to, or that podcast, or that scrolling, or that scrolling, the doom feeds and the crazy, weird behaviors online is absolutely going to cause anxiety. I mean, that's what they're there for, that's their whole goal, so don't let them get one over on you.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, don't be the next statistic. Yeah, yeah, check out from that and check into the other things that light you up. Know there's so many go out and play, yeah, and there are good channels. You know like sometimes people just fall into. You know channels of jury and destitution and what's wrong in the world you know, yeah, you can turn it and guess what.
Polly Mertens:There's some really nice options. You know there's people out there making beautiful. You know, I found some beautiful musicians that just like are out in nature and I'm just like, look, go for it. You know, like my happy place. Whatever, you know, if you like interior design, watch interior design, you know, watch things that lift you up and make you feel good. I think generation, generationally before us, was heavy on being informed, right? You know, like being an informed constituent type of thing, and you know they don't want to not be informed and it's like, yeah, but the news has changed too. You haven't noticed, like what used to be, what used to be news is like reporters reporting on what's happening. Now it's like the oldest slant is like reporters reporting on what's happening. Now it's like the oldest slant. How can we like spin it and traumatize it and bring you the worst of what's happening, not just newsworthy? You know? Yeah, so that's I think. Yeah, our audience knows that.
Samantha Pruitt:They know they best by now, or they haven't been paying attention, okay. So anxiety, it's not just in your head, yeah, it's in your body.
Polly Mertens:What's so yeah?
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, and you can do something about it.
Polly Mertens:And I would say there's a what we tried. You know we, you know you guys don't have the visual of this, but what we try to convey is all the areas that you have agency over doing something about. You know the muffins in the morning and the things you're putting in your body, places you're spending your time, are you taking care of your sleep hygiene. You know all these things that. And then you know some simple checks with yourself. What am I giving my power over to? You know what's running in the background of my mind, or do I have? Can I do something about this? If not, let it go. You know, don't you know? Just see how it's going to go.
Samantha Pruitt:Totally, totally. To me, that's the biggest takeaway I want to, you know, reiterate is that how much what's going on in our physical body's health, or dis-ease, or unease, is going to manifest in anxiety. And so, again, not just thinking about it as if I could just get my thoughts under control, if I could just medicate my mental state or whatever, or self-medicate my mental state, then that anxiety is going to go away. If there's physical issues going on in your body and there's a state of dis-ease, then it's going to manifest in a myriad of ways. Anxiety is probably going to be one of the big three.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, mine would be. You know, I just was so surprised by blood sugar, you know. So if you're not aware of your blood sugar and regulating it and you know, like just be aware, just look into that. You know, if you're like I have a good mochaccino frappuccino, you know thingy, or a muffin and whatever, um, you might be causing that blood sugar roller coaster that could be leading to anxiety unknowingly so.
Samantha Pruitt:Cool all right, beautiful humans. Remember what we say. How your life feels is more important than how it looks and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
