So, this is the second module and we are on to the second lecture of this second module. I thought it will be beneficial if I give you an overview of the set of lectures that are going to be given to you, shared with you. This will enable some kind of clarity as we move along. This module of course is centered on the writer's vocation, the changing cultural demands on the writer that is what we would focus on. The first part of this module deals with creative writing in the academy versus writing independently and when we use the word writing independently, we actually are referring to freelance writing. So, we will look at it institutionally. In the second part, we will deal with the work that has been done in IIT Bombay in the course titled Creativity and Creative Writing. The third part deals with our focus on contemporary Indian context and the idea is to generate new possibilities and share new voices with you. So, now I will move towards the second lecture which is titled Creativity, Writing, Creative Writing, Recent Viewpoints. Within this again, what I have done is to deal with emergence of creative writing as a discipline within literary studies. I have also looked at the connection of creative writing to creative studies. That is another field which has started, which has shaped the emergence of this term creative writing and also brought together some of the issues that we had handled in module 1 regarding developmental psychology and its focus on human potential. And so, with these convergences, I have tried to provide you a way of looking at your own creativity. So, it is not merely a report of institutional discussions and terminologies, but it is also a way of helping you understand the underlying issues that impinge on the creative venture. So, now let us look at some of the important studies that have been published very recently regarding the issue of creative writing and its sort of place within the institution of literary studies. When we use the term literary studies, we are referring to the fact that literary studies require critical analysis. There has been a certain tradition of studying literature and it has been more or less an analytical tradition, which goes back to the Greek, ancient Greek philosophical systems of thought. What Paul Dawson has done, however, is to locate the rise of this term creative writing and its ties to this analytical discourse of literary studies. So, obviously, there is tension between these two because creative writing is, you know, focused on creating something new, something new, which is aesthetically exciting, is also a different kind of mode of communication. And literary studies thrives on scholarship analysis, although there are theoreticians who also have defied these boundaries within the critical discourse, especially within the phase of rise of theory. So, I am not suggesting that this is a watertight separation nor is Paul Dawson suggesting that, in fact, he tries to show how these creative writing programs show a very deep tussle within the literary studies establishment right from its earliest formalizations in terms of the creative aspect of literature, that is, the aesthetic aspect of doing, creating something new and analysis of that. So, there has been that kind of tension right from the outset. And therefore, let me also point out that when he uses the term literary studies, he actually refers to the 20th century framework and therefore, perhaps one can say that he is locating it within the rise of formalism, where there was great focus given to the internal dynamics of what you write, how you write, what are the metaphors, what are the rhetorical devices that are used, so on and so forth. So, one of which there was this sharp rise of theory with continental influences. So, he places the rise of creative writing within the rise of theory, thereby suggesting that actually theory, the reaction to theory is expressed by the in terms of the rise of creative writing as a discipline, because it goes back to the creative aesthetic roots of literary studies, that is, that seems to be his contention. Although, you know, subsequently, there are many other issues that have come up and that have influenced creative writing courses. One is the canon debate, the other is also the, you know, notion of culture and cultural wars between different value systems, and then also the issue of institutional location. Where are you located, which country, which kind of academy, what are the possibilities of doing creative work within that academy. So, he has brought all these issues into the discourse, and therefore, it makes his study very, very important and very interesting. So, he has looked at these issues and indicated that they, on the one hand, has been rise of creative writing courses, but there also has been great deal of skepticism about their quality or about their value. And so, I think we will pick up one or two issues that he has identified or one or two metaphors that he has evoked in order to show why there is this gap in terms of dialogue between literary studies and creative writing. He seems to suggest that it goes into or goes back into perhaps, notion from romanticism about the writer and the agony of the writer. I remember one particular line from Shelley, which always hunted me, I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. So, that sort of he seems to suggest that from then on, there has been this separation in terms of the metaphor of the garret and the metaphor of the ivory tower. And the writer is kind of linked to the garret because it is the writer who inhabits the garret and the ivory tower refers to the privileged position of academicians who are somewhat protected from the ups and downs of life and there is a kind of stabilized existence that they lead. I thought it will be useful for you to look at the word garret and also, you know, you can also look at lots of paintings and pictures and we will also refer to some music that evokes this notion of the garret as a romantic idea from when I say romantic idea I am referring to notions from romanticism, this whole literary movement called romanticism. But in terms of the word itself, I have tried to identify some of the connotations. It actually in terms of its concrete meaning, it is an attic or a room in or near the roof of a house. It is a slightly separated space within a house. It allows for retreat for a writer which is and also frees the writer from distractions and it is associated with the writer's necessary distance from the world at large and therefore, it is linked with writing. So, this sense of certain separation that the writer needs whether it is in the mind or it is in the physical space and also therefore, certain amount of deprivation, certain amount of sacrifice that the writer has to make. This is associated with this idea or metaphor of the garret as opposed to the ivory tower metaphor which again, you know, shows a certain heightened ground from which academics is undertaken or is done. So, it is a lofty location. Ivory happens to be a very ambivalent symbol and my sense is that perhaps that is because it is linked to exclusiveness and rarity. It is also symbol of protected activity perhaps at a high price or may be elitism or disciplinary rigidities and it is made associated with academic world actually in general and since we are focused on literary studies and therefore, he seems to suggest that there is this somewhat hostile kind of standoff between these two metaphors and they actually gain a very different sense when creative writing is located in the academy. So, you know, if suppose the notion of the garret existed is because the writer was not part of the academy. So, this is a very changed scenario and he still locates the kind of lack of dialogue that still exists between creative writing as an academic venture and literary studies as a venture. There is not too much of give and take according to him and also some of the recent studies that have come out they also established the same ground. So, now, so far as we see it you know from outside because Dawson is talking about non-Indian institutional locations, I am not suggesting it is only western because he I think also is not exactly placed in the same way, but certainly it is a non-Indian institutional framework. When we look at it, we are interested in looking at what it holds for us. There is of course, distinct difference between the two activities that one would have to admit and therefore, the methodologies of teaching, the methodologies of undertaking discussion these vary and so that needs to be negotiated and again within our institutional framework the split between creative and critical is a sharper one, I feel. And in module one, we have actually examined this issue you know in terms of the lack of nurturance of creative processes within our own academic institutions, but what Paul Dawson is trying to do is to also give us a historical overview of this somewhat new phenomenon of teaching of creative writing. People have always been creative and they have always written what they believed in writing, but it is new location within academic institutions, which means it is now being mainstreamed as an important activity. His he in his book provides a rational historically nuanced reason for it and so this is what I will now share. So, there is this tension that we have already noticed through the metaphor of the Garrett and the ivory tower, he is trying to suggest that it should not be such a compartmentalized scenario because the two are deeply interconnected and we agree with that point of view. He says that it is a 20th century phenomenon you know teaching of creative writing and according to him and this is a very interesting point. He says that it is linked to increasing importance of the concept of creativity in modern English studies and later on he goes on to point out not only in modern English studies, but also in many other spheres of you know activity and knowledge generation. This term has become a very, very central term of inquiry. So let us see what he has to say about creative writing within literary discourse, so he according to him there was a shift from the focus on the key term imagination to creativity because the term imagination which again itself is a post enlightenment term which was linked to literary activities, but that began to sort of also have fairly ambivalent associations are not necessarily associations that showed the strength of this term or the strength of imagination as a way of getting into or expressing events around the writer or any other imaginative person. So according to him this ambivalence slowly led to the replacement of the term imagination by this term creativity which is according to him the productive imagination fully secularized and divested of any ambivalent connotations. At this point it is enough to say that creativity replaced the term imagination because of his positive associations and this is something that Raymond Williams also pointed out and we had evoked that definition where he said that the term creative and creativity is one of the most positive words in the English language with absolutely no negative association of any kind. So again it is corroborated what he has to say Dawson has to say is corroborated by what Raymond Williams also pointed out and that is fairly important endorsement. So now according to him the other thing that one can take note of is the fact that when this focus on creativity shifted and the term became very popular it also actually was a term that was linked to the study of processes rather than only the product. So especially with reference to creative writing programs and since we are also focused on the processes I think that is why we have again picked up this idea from Dawson in terms of the historical framework that he has developed. The second connected discussion that we have identified and separated is of course related to creativity studies. Now this also Dawson has himself mentioned. So we are actually also examining some of those ideas from our own perspective. Creativity studies in some ways you can say how can you separate it from you know developmental psychology because this is also a branch of psychology and cognitive sciences you know and that is absolutely true. But the reason we have separated this is because this indeed seems to have its very distinct trajectory very concrete distinct sort of orientation starting with J. P. Guilford's very famous essay titled creativity which was published in 1950 in American psychology and that seemed to have opened this whole field of creativity studies in a manner that had not happened prior to that. At the same time the reason we have separated this out is because the cognitive sciences are also involved in this whole outlook of towards creativity. So Guilford is credited with the inauguration of this massive interest in creativity studies and the key concept that he himself developed was the concept of a structure of intelligence which involves a number of mental processes. So he was not really completely focused on creativity itself you know but he was interested in understanding the structure of human intelligence and he developed along with many other ideas you know there is a long list, a long inventory of what he considers very vital in terms of the structure of intelligence and these mental processes. He has identified it, he has also fine tuned it and there have been lots of very important debates about it but for our purpose what he also proposed was a divergent thinking as an extremely important component of this whole process. And what divergent thinking involved was the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem you know and therefore it also was used as a synonym for creativity. So for our purpose this term divergent thinking becomes extremely important because it enables us to understand how creativity requires you know this opening up and generating multiple possibilities. Now this can be discussed later on in different ways but Dawson has undertaken some kind of explanation which we will look at. Now convergent thinking is also an important attribute of human intelligence but what it does is to actually focus on the ability to deduce a single solution to a problem and it is more bound by rules as opposed to divergent thinking that actually opens up any particular problem solving situation you know in it opens it up for numerous perspective. So it is not rule bound to that extent. Now in creativity studies another thing which is really notable is its belief or its you know not only just believe you know these are seen as scientific studies and what they have tried to suggest is that there is creativity is a latent faculty in everyone and it is applicable to every field of human endeavor. An idea that we have also discussed with you in module 1 in our own you know open and dead intuitive fashion but these are more systematic studies so if you are interested in any of these ideas you can really pursue this line of thinking. The consequence of this notion of creativity as a latent faculty has also led to lots and lots of theorizations. One of which is related to some of the recent articulations that I thought I would share with you because we have been talking about globalization and some of the new possibilities that have emerged in this very chaotic phase of our history. So one of this is related to the concept of general human creativity in the climate of rapid economic changes. Creativity becomes a key term and it also becomes a motor for economic expansion. This is one way of looking at it but I thought I would share this with you because Dawson goes on to quote Richard Florida and his study the rise of the creative class in which he very emphatically points out that creativity because it is a driving force of economic growth in terms of influence the creative class has become the dominant class in society. So it gives a very different color to what we are saying no doubt because when you enlarge it in this manner there are other political issues of a dominant class whether it is right to have a dominant class like this whether it is right to have a definition like this. So there are whole lot of political issues that emerge but I at the same time think it is valuable to look at these discourses because we are also so intermeshed in the era of globalization that it is important for us to see how different people look at different endeavors including creativity which is so close to human temperament and at the same time what are the institutional manifestations what are the institutional definitions of this. Actually Florida he went on to in club many different groups within this framework of notion of creativity being a generalized human endeavor he felt that the core of creative class includes people in science and engineering architecture and design education arts music and entertainment whose economic function is to create new ideas new technology and or new creative content. So this is how he defines it he also says that around this core there oscillates a broader group of creative professionals in business and finance law health care and related fields. So it is a very enlarged definition and Dawson has suggested that this whole milieu of creative concerns has influenced the notion of creative writing courses also although it actually emerges from within the discourses of literary studies but there are also these other areas of knowledge which have influenced it and also made it extremely popular. So now what I would like to do is to point out how Dawson has looked at the teaching of creative writing in terms of the notion of divergent thinking. He feels that much of creative writing teaching takes place within the workshop module which actually is a metaphor for the mental process of divergent thinking because it provides different writers who are part of that classroom situation. It provides them with a range of different options offered by fellow students often on the same idea that is being discussed thus training them to internalize this process in the act of composition. So this is again a very very interesting important idea it also sort of enables us to look at possibilities, diversities, pluralities in a much more productive manner. Another idea that I think we now want to refer to and this is not part of Dawson's framework. This is related to some of the issues from cognitive sciences that we again wanted to share with you. This is again as you know these are part of our reports on the way this branch of knowledge has grown. David Morley he refers to the arguments of cognitive science that the literary mind is the fundamental mind. According to Morley the literary mind is a fundamental mind. Now of course we are not saying the literary mind is the exclusive preserve of those who go to the university we are not saying that we are also suggesting that there is certain kind of universal presence of literary linguistic activity which is very very expressive in nature. So along with that he says that it is not a separate kind of mind alongside many other neuroscientists Mark Turner contends that story is a basic principle of mind and parable is the root of the human mind. Now I think you know the word parable but if not you can check out its meaning and what actually it refers to is this whole you know preoccupation our human preoccupation with narrating a story which has an implied meaning or implied value it is close in some ways to metaphoric ability also. So he says that story is a basic principle of mind and the parable is the root of the human mind of thinking, knowing, acting, creating and plausibly of speaking. So that is also very interesting for you to think about and also see you know while you are creating characters for your novels or short stories or plays you know whether how one can capture this ability also because after all it is not really as I said exclusive preserve of only those who write or who go to the university. The other observation which is very very interesting and it comes from the cognitive sciences is related to how neurologically we are changed by the experience or experience of writing as much as we are by reading and creativity and metaphoric thinking are ubiquitous and although that is so but a writer fine tunes it and therefore for a writer metaphor is an art of attention seeking. So the more powerful metaphor you would create the better you would be able to convey what you want to convey and writing comes out of this great creative tension between what you experience and how you want to articulate it. So this is a way of a tension seeking of asking you to perceive something afresh that is the demand on writing. Now I would shift in some way shift back to developmental psychology which also is very close to creativity studies as I said you know you can even say contest as to why we have separated the two but I think we have separated the two for the reasons that I gave you earlier and we are suggesting an interface between these two. The idea is to extend what Dawson had to suggest by adding our own insights and also then finding a blend which works for us better because we are really located in a very very different institutional framework and it is never enough to only academically look at ideas. If we want to be creative we will have to be rigorous but at the same time we will have to take our own chances. So from that point of view I am going to refer to the ideas we had referred to earlier regarding developmental psychology and add one or two ideas further so that we have a blend of possibilities or we have the possibility of working out a blend. So in terms of developmental psychology we had talked about the creative state of mind and experience and knowledge in the lecture title learning from knowledge systems and in that lecture the whole you know emphasis of developmental psychology on infancy and childhood stages that we had tried to bring out. The purpose of those ideas and placing them in the first module was really related to helping the students take their own personal experience seriously. So this was a way of bringing systems of thought that endorse the complex set of things that happen to different individuals. Trajectory indeed is unique in each case but the human sciences or you know sciences like psychology what they do is to give you a generalized sense of some universal patterns. This is again a very contested field because what can anything be called universal but within a broad area of agreement I think there are notions of developmental psychology that cut across national variation. So therefore with that assumption we had already discussed these ideas with you. We had also discussed Shikshanth Mihaly's ideas in order to show how with that orientation of developmental psychology some of the theoreticians and practitioners have been focused on the growth potential of individuals. So how do we define certain states of mind or being that help us understand our potential and to tap it further. So that is what we had done in that first module and at the same time we were extremely keen on talking about our own context, the diversity of our cultural diversity, blends of languages, academic realm through a focus on the evolving sense of the self. So we looked at all these you know the language issue, the academic issue, the larger diversity of our framework. But our idea was to help you you know locate yourself within this complex situation in order to again find your own sense of what your potential is all about. That is always it can be a difficult thing sometimes it is not, sometimes it is very difficult. So the next idea that we had also looked at was Shikshanth Mihaly's you know notion of the psychology of optimal experience, mainly from this perspective of finding your bearings and evolving sense of self. And for evolving sense of the self we had looked at Ericsson's revision of Freudian psychoanalytical insights through psychosocial approach. This blend of the psychological which is self directed and social which is other directed. So we had picked that up for your scrutiny and again the focus was on the significance of child rearing experience, social relationships and cultural influences on the development of the ego or self. And what we had also highlighted was this issue of crisis and growth pattern which unfolds in each stage. And that was kind of interesting because on the one hand one is growing in terms of the physical changes and at the same time there are social frameworks and institutions that are available through which these changes can be worked out. In fact they are created in order to take care of these changing needs of the human being. So we had looked at that and also we had focused on the crisis and growth pattern. So it is not just crisis that we had looked at but also the growth pattern attending a particular stage of crisis without which growth cannot occur. So in other words the idea was to sort of establish the fact that you have to engage with activities, you have to engage with contradictions, paradoxes, opposing pulls in order to move forward. One should not really feel afraid of dealing with these kinds of issues. One is taught not to deal with complexity but to sort of develop convergent thinking more sharply. So then finally I would say that what we have then in that segment and earlier in terms of developmental psychology what we have tried to do is to look at the transformations that are possible and therefore sense of authenticity that you feel through reflection and also through exploration of your inner drives. From Shiksanthi Mihai we had used the term autotelic. Now we want to add just one more idea which we had discussed in the first module with reference to some of the books and films about growing up that we had discussed and this is an idea from Abraham Maslow regarding the notion of self-actualization which refers to the discovery and fulfillment of one's full potential. We thought we would give you the sense of you know how this pyramid that he has worked out and we have referred to the website towards the end. Basically Maslow's point of view is that human motivation it does not stay you know it does not remain static. There is always this urge to have multiple sort of desires fulfilled and in a certain way he has given these hierarchy or hierarchy of needs that seems to be the basis of his model. What he seems to suggest that the highest point of our search is sort of located in the notion of self-actualization which of course cannot occur unless these other needs like physiological needs, safety needs, need for love and belonging, esteem all of these also need fulfillment. You may not have such a clean clear cut separation between them but they sort of keep brewing within us all the time and according to him self-actualization shows human potential at its best. So this motivation towards self-actualization which requires according to him morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts all of these show the fulfillment of human potential and this motivation again is universally present. Again we would not go into debates of you know this notion of self-actualization whether self-actualization is possible in highly disturbed societies or it is a you know parameter of a very highly stabilized society. We do not really know I do not think there are easy answers but for us for part of fairly stable academic situation but a very unstable world I think it certainly gives you a point to reflect on and two or three other quotations we have selected because they show Maslow's wisdom in dealing with life. Again as I said it is really not prescriptive we are not into prescriptions but we are only interested in sharing possibilities and also productive ideas. So here is Maslow's take on some of the life-related issues which also are issues of human potential. So the first quotation from this website that we picked up is related to how you view yourself.  You can think about it but I do feel that he is trying to suggest that we need to look at our own self in a much more dynamic fashion. We should not underestimate ourselves and at the same time it is really not an easy thing if you are placed in a situation where the world judges you or your academic framework judges you or your social framework judges you and that judgment does not sit comfortably with you surely you will have a big tussle. But I think finally the wisdom of Maslow comes from the fact that you have to believe in yourself and you have to in sometimes fight many adversities in that process. The second quote from Maslow is related to mental wellness. I think it is also very close to what Shikshanti Mehai said about autotelic activity. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. If you recollect Shikshanti Mehai had talked about autotelic activity also as an activity where there is complete absorption in the given moment and without this full concentration in a given moment in the kind of activity you have undertaken it is really not possible to do something valuable but he also relates it to mental wellness. Maybe the very encouraging thought from Maslow we are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, colleagues and that seems to be my belief also thank you.


Hi everyone, Joe for jazby'scasebrakes.com coming at you with 2020 Panini Mosaic Football Cellopack Break number 187. It's the last filler we got to do to unlock that football mixer. It's coming up in the next video. Big thanks to this group for getting this going. There are the teams right there, so we do the break first and then we'll do a different dice roll, different randomizer for the giveaway apartment, one out of five, six times for names and teams, one, two, three, four, five, and six, and final time. One out of five, six times for the teams, one, two, three, four, five, and six. Alright, here's the first half of the list right here. And then the second half of the list right over there, no trade windows. There you go. Final printout. Drew, what's going on? Let's see what we've got here. Any surprises here? No. What about here, Tyree Kill, Eddie George, NFL debut CD lamb for Dallas, not bad, Carl with the Cowboys. Alright, now let's see who's going to win those mixer spots. So it's going to be the top six after eight, top six, six and a two, eight times. Good luck. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, and final time. So it's only the top six. So from seven on down, it's going to be sad times. The worst part is the closest one, Carl, very close. Not quite there. Hopefully your name's still on the top. But ultimately, for now, sad times for seven through 32, thanks for giving this a shot. Happy times. For the top six, you're in the football mixer. Anthony's happy. So it was Carl, Nestor, Nestor, Carl and Evan. So Carl, you did get a couple spots there. Nice and thanks to you and everybody for making this happen. Appreciate it. I'll see you in the mixer, jaspyscasebreaks.com.


Welcome, everybody. Today, we're going to be going over a strengths-based biopsychosocial approach to recovery from panic. Now, let's see, today is what Thursday? No, Tuesday. Last Thursday, we talked about the same thing as far as recovery from anxiety. And this one, we're going to specifically talk about panic disorder, because panic disorder can be debilitating for a lot of people. Over the next few minutes, we're going to define panic, examine how the fight-or-flight reaction can be corrupted to prompt panic attacks, examine the cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and biological sources of the stress reaction, and then explore a variety of interventions that may assist people in counter-conditioning the panic response. When you run into someone with panic disorder, they find that there are a lot of situations that will almost automatically trigger a panic attack. Think about back when you were little. If you got called to the principal's office, you know, all of a sudden, there was a panic response. Even if you didn't do anything wrong, just going to the principal's office was not good. Or maybe that's how you feel when you get called to your boss's office now, I don't know. When we work with people with panic disorder, these situations which may not warrant a panic response, we need to help them counter-condition it so they can approach situations without having that adrenaline dump seem to come from out of the blue or, you know, maybe they know where it's coming from, but it's still bothersome. Panic attacks are overwhelming. If you've ever had one, you know that it can feel just completely debilitating and overwhelming. You may feel like you're going to die. Panic attacks are exhausting and can leave people feeling control out of their own body. When you have a panic attack, your body is in this extreme fight-or-flight phase or mode, which means it is excreting all of these excitatory neurotransmitters that's telling your body to get up and go. Your body's jumping adrenaline and doing all this other kind of stuff. So yeah, you're going to feel exhausted. It's not all in your head. Your body has just burned a whole truckload of energy. So we need to help people understand that because if they're having a lot of panic attacks, they're going to feel more drained, more exhausted, more lethargic, which can compound feelings of depression, hopelessness, hopelessness, yada yada. People can avoid things they have phobias of, but panic attacks don't seem to follow that same rule. You can't just avoid everything or every situation where you've ever had a panic attack. And a lot of people may not really know what triggered their panic attack. It feels like, you know, their heart just started racing for no apparent reason. And we're going to examine some of that, but it's important to understand that it's not just a phobia. It is something that almost follows people around, like this little thing they've got on their shoulder that decides to pop up whenever it wants. People with panic attacks often restrict what they do superstitiously to avoid panic triggers. So again, I said a lot of times people don't understand what's causing their panic attacks. So it's like, okay, this happened when I was in the car. So I probably don't want to drive anymore. And that's kind of blowing it out of proportion to a certain extent. But if it happens a couple of times when you're in the car, you may get nervous before you start driving. If you get nervous, then the first sign that there may be something getting ready to happen, you can sort of think yourself into a panic attack. Awareness of what a panic attack is and what triggers them for each individual is crucial to recovery. And throughout this presentation, I'm going to use the example that I used, I think I used it last week, of when I was pregnant. And I had super ventricular tachycardia, which means that blood would pool in my extremities, pull down on my feet if I was sitting for too long. And then my heart would start to race to try to pull that blood back up from from my feet. And when that would start to happen, I wouldn't know what was going on, which would make me go start kind of thinking catastrophically and creating a situation where I may have had a panic attack when I didn't need to necessarily get that upset about it. With my daughter, it was a little bit different because the OBGYN had explained to me what was going on. And he said, when you start to feel that way, or preferably before you start to feel that way, just make sure you're tensing and releasing all those big muscles in your lower body when you're driving. So the blood doesn't pull down there. Because you've got all this extra weight in your gut sitting there, keeping the, I was like, thanks, Doc. But having something that I could do, the doctor said, this will help. Well, and theoretically, I trusted him. And that helped a lot because then I felt like I had more control over what was going to happen. And I could prevent those things from coming from out of the clear blue. We have a primitive response system that protects us from danger. It's fight, flight or freeze. And a lot of times we talk about fight or flight. And we forget to talk about freeze. Sometimes people get completely paralyzed in their own terror. And they can't get out of it when they start having a panic attack. They're frozen. They're not fighting. They're not fleeing. They're hyperventilating. To prepare to take on the threat, the body sends out excitatory signals. Your heart rate increases. Let's think about what else increases heart rate. You get cut off in traffic. That increases heart rate. You're, you know, you have something going on that causes your heart to spike for some reason. And we're going to go through some of the physical causes later in the presentation.  And there's a whole lot of caffeine in Starbucks. So your heart rate may start racing. Or, you know, who knows, there could be a variety of different things that may make your heart race. Or sometimes people just have a situation where the heart kind of skips a beat. Most people have that happen occasionally. And if it happens a lot, obviously they're going to send you in for EKGs and all that kind of stuff. But if every time or if the first time that happens, it can be kind of scary, you can be like, Oh, that felt really weird. If you tend to lean toward catastrophic thinking, you may go from the heart skipping a beat to I'm having a heart attack and I'm going to die in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Numbness or increase in respiration. What causes you to start breathing heavier? If I am sitting in a chair and my office at home is in the basement and I'll sit in the chair and I will be working on the computer, not moving much for a couple of hours. And then I will get up and I'll go upstairs to get something to drink or, you know, help the kids with something. Not really thinking about it, but I go from no movement to climbing stairs. And all of a sudden I'm like out of breath. Now I run 10ks every day. So it's not like I'm out of shape, but my body is trying to catch up.  Knowing that it's easy to understand why my respiration might be going up, why my heart rate might be going up more.  You get up too fast. Sometimes your body can't adjust. It's trying to get that blood circulating again to meet the body's needs. And just like when I was pregnant and sitting down, sometimes if you stand up, blood pools in the lower extremities and the body is like trying to get the blood back up to the main core where it's needed. Numbness or tingling in hands, you know, when you're in a stress reaction, your blood goes to the core. It wants to protect, it wants to get the heart rate moving, it wants the heart rate going, it wants to get your body moving, and it wants to make sure that the brain stays alive. So your hands not as important. So you can start having numbness tingling or coldness in your hands. There are a lot of things that can cause this. Anything from carpal tunnel syndrome to just being too daggum cold. Be aware of what's going on in your situation. And we're going to talk about body scans. Sweating. This is an interesting thing that I learned. And you know, I've taught the fight or flight response for years and years and years. But one of the things that I learned when I was doing this presentation was one of the reasons that your body starts to sweat not only is to help you regulate your temperature and not get overheated, but it also makes you slippery to predators. You know, think grease pig. So I was like, Oh, well, that kind of makes sense. We sweat for a variety of reasons. You know, if you're hormonal, you may just start sweating for no reason at all. Being aware that sometimes your body temperature is just going to change. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything majorly wrong. Pupil dilation. When your pupils dilate, it helps you see more of what's around you. This is what happens in a stress response. When it happens, you may have some blurred vision. It may feel like it's way too bright.   Same sort of thing is going on. Your pupils are so wide, it's taking in too much light. So people might start freaking out that they're having a stroke because they're suddenly having blurred vision and seeing spots. When in reality, they're having a stress reaction and their pupils are dilated. Muscle tension. If you're going to fight, if you're going to flee, or if you're just going to freeze up, but fighting and fleeing, both of those involve moving the muscles. So the muscles are going to be tense and prepared for action. Once people start to understand the function of the symptoms, why their body's doing it, and then we can start looking at why does your body think there's a threat. Most of the time with panic attacks, something relatively innocuous happens. You have an unexpected increase in heart rate or increase in respiration. Something scares you.  People who have a history of panic attacks can take that and be like, oh, that's going to cause me to have another panic attack. And then they cognitively basically talk themselves into one. The mind's response to panic.  It thinks something is going wrong. The body is sending out all these stress signals. The mind is going, why is my heart rate increased? My heart rate has increased. There must be something going wrong. So I need to start figuring out what to do. A lot of times people with panic disorder kind of go straight to catastrophic thinking. I'm going to pass out.   I'm not safe. I fill in the blanks. One of the things to be aware of when you're working with people who have PTSD is the fact that they may tend to be more hypervigilant naturally because in the past they haven't been safe. I don't want to take that away from them, obviously. It's important to help them work through understanding that, okay, you weren't safe back here. That's true. That happened and we can deal with it. What can make you safe now? So people can feel these catastrophic thoughts that go through their head. They need to have a counter to it so they understand that they are not going to die right now. They're not going to throw up. So the panic cycle, and I found this online. I thought it was a really interesting diagram because it shows the interactive nature physiologically. Any of these things can kind of kick off a panic attack, an increased heart rate, muscle tension, sweating and blushing, you know how you feel that warmth go up in your face, dizziness and nausea or stomach ache. Any of these symptoms might send a signal to somebody that says, oh, I'm getting ready to have a panic attack. If that's what precipitated or what they think precipitated the first panic attack. Cognitively, if somebody starts getting hung up on the what ifs. What if I'm driving and I get lost and then my heart skips a beat or what if I'm out running and I start to have a heart attack. And then if they're out running and their heart skips a beat or they start feeling chest tightness, which if you're running really hard, you're going to feel some chest tightness. They might create a panic attack. Constantly worrying about those physiological symptoms.  One of my friends who's a physician said, best thing you can tell people, stay off WebMD because people will go on there and think, and my son does the same thing, bless his little heart. You know, every time he finds a lump, a bump, a ache, a pain, he goes on WebMD and he's convinced himself by the end of the day that he's got cancer. I'm like sweetie, you're 14. You don't have, you know, chances of that happening are very unlikely. Let's talk about what other options there are. And then worries about anxiety provoking situations. If you worry about going to something that you're worried about, you can rev your body up enough where it doesn't take much to kind of send it over the edge and to panic. Behaviorally, reduce performance due to anxiety and avoidance of things, then you're not exposing yourself to something and you can create a situation where it might not actually trigger a panic attack, but you're afraid it will. And that fear gets intensified if you have, you know, this is more towards the phobias sort of situation. If you have a fear of spiders, for example, and you don't ever get around a spider, you can convince yourself that you're way more afraid of spiders than you actually really are. And once you expose yourself to them, you can develop a greater understanding of how your body's going to react. Emotionally, fear, dread and panic.  If you wake up in the morning and you're like, okay, when am I going to have the panic attack today? Not if I'm going to have a panic attack or what can I do to prevent a panic attack? Just it's going to happen. So, you know, I might just start bracing forward the minute I get my foot out of bed, which can lead to frustration, anger, disappointment and sadness. Frustration, anger, fear, dread and panic can all cause muscle tension, increased heart rate, yada, yada, yada. All these things can cause people to think, oh, well, here comes the panic attack. Cognitive things kick in. You can see how everything sort of folds in on itself. The cool thing is, again, like, you know, we've talked about a lot of times, you can address any one of these areas and the person will likely start feeling improvement. Most of it really deals with what they're willing to work on right now. Physiological is helpful because it's education about what's going on, but then you can get into biofeedback and relaxation and all those other things. First thing, track your panic symptoms with an anxiety log, not just panic, because anxiety keeps you revved up. If you're already revved up, if you're already on edge, it doesn't take much to send you, like I said, over that edge into panic. So when you're having an anxiety episode, when you're really stressed out, what are your symptoms? When you get stressed out, what are your symptoms? Does your heart increase? Does your respiration get deeper and faster or shallow? What's going on? Do you feel tightness in your chest? Does your belly get upset? What physical symptoms do you have? And it's different for everybody. Cognitively. And for me, like I said, when I was pregnant and having those episodes, the first thing that I would notice is my ears would start to ring. And then everything, I'd start to get tunnel vision. Once I started convincing myself that that was happening, that was all she wrote. So helping people work through it. As I got used to or starting to understand what symptoms were going on, you know, that was a clue to me to do something a little bit different. Let's start tensing some muscles. I was also able to call people. I had some friends that I could call and just kind of talk me through it. Because generally for me, if I distracted myself, it worked better than focusing on what was going on because then I hyper focus. So have people identify what their physical symptoms are that they think triggers a panic attack. But also, when you get stressed, what are your physical symptoms? Cognitively, when you start getting anxious, what are your thoughts? What feeds your anxiety? Fear of failure, fear of rejection, using those all or nothing thought patterns. And then emotionally, how did you feel when you got stressed out? Did you feel helpless? Did you feel out of control? Did you feel embarrassed?  But what else did you feel? Because we rarely feel just one emotion. You felt anxious. How do you feel about feeling anxious is another way to ask them. Then say, okay, looking back to this anxiety situation, what triggered it? What caused the anxiety? Did you have to go in for your annual evaluation? Did you have to go to the dentist? Did you have to drive somewhere new? What was it that triggered that anxiety situation? And why was that triggering for you? And what may have made you more vulnerable to your triggers? It's important for them to understand that if they have anxiety issues to begin with, that points to the fact that they have some neurochemical imbalances going on. Cognitively, they can talk their body into excreting more norepinephrine and adrenaline and keep things going. Not everybody creates the biochemical imbalance, but a lot of times cognitive and behavioral symptoms of panic attacks worsen the neurochemical imbalances. If you're hyper-vigilant about panic triggers, you're going to find them. If you look around for things that are going to stress you out, you're going to find them. So let's try not to look at life from the perspective of what's going to set off my panic today. And instead, how am I going to have this wonderful great day? And oh, by the way, if I have a panic attack, what am I going to do? Easier said than done. But ideally, we want to get to that point where people aren't getting up with this dread and anticipation that they're going to have a panic attack. Review the anxiety log. Identify the triggers and make a plan to deal with them. If you know that going to your boss's office for your annual evaluation just completely flips you out, that's an issue to deal with in counseling. Why does that flip you out? How can you deal with it? Because you have to.  I think my boss hated doing them worse than we hated receiving them because he used to just give us our evaluations, the blank forms, and say fill this out and give it back to me. So there was very little anxiety there because you kind of knew what you were getting. Identify vulnerabilities. What things make you more likely to be edgy? To have these symptoms that may trigger a panic attack. For me personally, I said I'm a runner. Dehydration. If I get too dehydrated, I can have racing hard a little bit more. I can feel exhausted. I can have some of those symptoms. Too much caffeine. I'm already high strong enough. So having a lot of caffeine in my system is usually not beneficial. I know those are my vulnerabilities. I know having too much on my plate if I have too, not food, but too much to do. If I feel time stressed, if I feel like I am pulled in too many different directions, that's going to increase my anxiety. Those are my vulnerabilities. So I have to figure out how do I make sure that that doesn't happen so I'm not already on edge. One of the things to start out with, and this is a simple one, body scans. What am I experiencing? Just going through not defining it, not doing anything. What am I experiencing? I'm experiencing a racing heart rate. Okay. What might be causing it? Is it blood sugar? For each person, thinking for themselves. So they're not always going to this catastrophic option. And obviously, they want to go to their doctor and rule out any health causes or physical health causes and then look for other possible reasons. Low blood sugar can cause shakiness. When somebody starts to feel shaky, they may think they're getting ready to have a panic attack. Stimulants. We already talked about caffeine and adrenaline rush. If somebody slams a door behind you or a car backfires outside or whatever the case may be, if you have a startle reaction, that can actually make some people start down that path to a panic attack because they don't feel safe anymore. For whatever reason, their body's just like, oh, we're not safe. I'm going to start fight or flight. Orthostatic hypertension, like a top hypotension, like I talked about earlier. When you get up, you get up too fast, you feel kind of dizzy. Some people can take that symptom and have some faulty cognitions about what's going on. They're going to pass out, they're going to die, whatever their thought processes are. Or excitement or panic. Sometimes your heart starts to race because you're really excited about something. That's okay. You know, I want people's heart to race because they're really excited about something. When you're getting ready to go and run a 10K race, I'm hoping your heart rate is kind of up and ready and you're pumped and ready to go.  It means your body's excited. Mindfully attend to the panic. Feel the feeling. You're like, okay, focus on your breathing. When people start to have panic attacks, they may start breathing more rapidly. The body's reaction is to breathe deeper and more rapidly. Some people breathe more shallowly. Either way, it's rapid. Slow it down. If your breathing is rapid, your heart rate's going to increase. If your breathing is slow, your heart rate's likely going to slow and kind of shake hands. Use positive self-talk. Help people understand what's going on, that panic attacks crest and start to dissipate within 10 to 15 minutes. So it's not five minutes. If you get to that full-out neurochemical dump, where your body's in the fight-or-flight situation, it may take 10 to 15 minutes before you start feeling better. When the body's on high alert because it's getting stress signals, but you're sitting still, there's a disconnect. If you're sitting still, and I will admit I had some very bad habits when I was in college with working out and taking pre-workout supplements, which is a nice way of saying caffeine, high levels of caffeine. So I'd be driving to the gym and all of a sudden, my heart rate would go up to 140. My heart rate's normally like 52. So that causes a disconnect. My heart starts racing and I'm like, oh, is it racing because of the stimulants? Or is it racing because I'm getting ready to have a heart attack? Because obviously, it was going to be benign or completely catastrophic. So this can cause an increase in stress chemicals.  That's not okay. Your body wants to protect itself. And I give the body sort of its own persona because it is, in many ways, there's a primitive side of view that wants to protect itself, that wants to survive. One way to get the mind and body back into sync is to move. Not, you know, move to another state, but to move your body. It provides a reasonable explanation for the increased heart rate. Think about if you've had clients working in residential, we would have people periodically kind of go at each other's throats and, not literally, and we'd have to separate them. Now, I'm all of 5'4".  But a lot of times, if you could separate people physically and get them to walk around and get them to walk around, then all of that adrenaline and energy that they had for that fight reaction starts to dissipate because their body's like, oh, the heart rate's raised because we're going to walk. We're going to walk now. It helps people calm down. It gives their body a way to use all of that stored energy that was released for the fight or flight reaction. And exercise release is serotonin. If you remember prior presentations, serotonin and norepinephrine work sort of in tandem. When one goes up, the other one goes down. Norepinephrine is your drive and your focus. Serotonin is your calm and your chillax kind of chemical. So when you're exercising, you release serotonin, so this panic, this drive, this stress chemical has to go down. Serotonin's going to go up, so that has to go down. Nutrition, stimulants, medications, and certain supplements can trigger a stress response. We've already talked about caffeine. One thing we haven't talked about is decongestants. Decongestants are like pseudofed or proplemen or whatever it's called now, generic pseudofed. Anything that has a decongestant component to it, not antihistamine, but decongestant, will also likely have a stimulant effect to it. If people know this, then when they're sick and they take it and their heart starts racing or they feel kind of tingly, then they will understand what's going on. Gorana is an herb that is in a lot of pre-workout supplements that is high in caffeine. Being aware of what you're putting in your body. Hot peppers. Now this is an interesting one. You thought we were going to keep talking about caffeine and other stimulants. Hot peppers can trigger indigestion and a stress response. We've heard about people who've gone to the hospital thinking that they were having a heart attack and that turned out they just had indigestion. Let me tell you what, it doesn't feel good. I decided that I would grow hot peppers and I wasn't going to grow just jalapenos. No, no. I was going to grow the really, really hot ones. They're called ghost peppers. Well, my chickens impacted a couple. So I thought, well, it couldn't be too bad if the chickens are eating it. So I picked one right off the plant and I bit into it.  Not only did I drink a lot of water and inhale a lot of air while I was trying to get my entire mouth to stop burning, but it also caused the gastric juices in my stomach to get a little bit wonky. So I had indigestion. Now it hurt. I knew exactly what it was, but it hurt. So I can see how someone who gets indigestion, maybe not quite that dramatically, it was actually hot enough it gave me hiccups. So, you know, that's hot. But I can see how somebody who gets indigestion can feel those symptoms and start freaking out that they're going, that they're having a heart attack. Low blood sugar can trigger cold hands, dizziness and trembling. Being aware of your blood sugar when the last time you ate was, sometimes it's a matter of drinking a glass of water and eating a little something. Now am I telling you to keep M&M's in your office drawer? No. You know, I'd really like to, but that's not the healthiest response to this. Eating frequent meals probably is a little bit better. Oh, eat frequent small balanced meals, drink enough water and explore green tea, which is thought to have anti-anxiety effects. There are certain chemicals in green tea that are supposed to support anti-anxiety. Green tea does have caffeine though. So be aware that you're not drinking something that's decaffeinated unless you're getting decaffeinated green tea. Some people when they start drinking green tea and they're looking for the anti-anxiety effects drink too much. Then they have that caffeine rush and they're like, well, that didn't work for me. So make sure people understand that if they drink green tea, it does have caffeine. Breathing, meditation and guided imagery. Mindful breathing. We've talked about combat breathing before. Breathe in for three, hold for three, out for three. This is one of the fastest ways to help people get through that tunnel vision and that initial adrenaline rush, which lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute and a half. Aware breathing. You know, if you don't want to go to the combat breathing, just being aware of your breath. If you're breathing shallowly and rapidly, let's get into a more normal rhythm. I noticed the other night and that I was laying next to my dog because I let my dogs in the bed. That's just me and I started feeling like, you know, I couldn't catch my breath.  Now we breathe about 12 breaths a minute. He breathes like 20. So yeah, I was breathing a little bit too fast and I used to do that when I would snuggle with my kids too. We try to sync our breathing kind of with what we're hearing. So having people be aware of their breathing and what's going on so they can get it normalized for them. One technique for the body scan is the rain technique. Recognize what's happening. I'm having a stress reaction. Allow life to be just as it is. If you try to control it and try to stop it and try to do all this stuff, it can actually cause you to focus on it more and build it up instead of just letting it go. Investigate the inner experience with kindness. Look at what you're telling yourself or listen to those thoughts and things that you're telling yourself and just let it be.   Just be kind. Notice those cognitions and let them go. You can work on disputing them later. And non-identification. Sometimes if you just let it be and let it, you know, flow in and flow out without having to worry about what caused it and what's going on, for some people that works better. Relaxation slows your heart rate when you relax. Your body sends out relaxing neurochemicals so it can slow, help slow your heart rate. Low is your blood pressure. Slows your breathing rate because remember the heart and the breath, go hand in hand. Reduce the activity of stress hormones. If you're reducing muscle tension and you're doing all these things, sending the signal to the brain that there's no threat, then all of those neurochemicals that are your threat neurochemicals are going to go away or at least kind of be toned down a little bit. It increases blood flow to major muscles. When your body doesn't think there's a threat, it's not going to keep all the blood in the core. It's going to send it out to your fingers and your toes. It can help you improve concentration and mood. Think about when you're really stressed and you're really tense and, you know, your hands are kind of cold and tingly and you just don't feel right. How good of a mood are you in and how functional are you at concentrating? You know, you can try to concentrate, but you may feel like you're just not getting anywhere. It lowers fatigue. Muscles, when they're tense, are using energy. Ha! Big surprise there.  So if you get rid of some of that excess tension, then your body can use that energy for other things. Reduces anger and frustration because we can get really frustrated when we're already feeling stressed out and edgy and tense and then somebody comes in and drops a new project on your desk or something and it's like, uh-huh. So relaxation can help you sort of eliminate the vulnerability. So when a new stressor comes your way, you're not already like, I can't take one more thing. It boosts your confidence to handle problems and provides a sense of control over your bodily responses. As you get used to relaxing, progressive muscular relaxation is excellent, but there are a variety of different meditation and guided imagery, different things that you can do to help you get a sense of control over your bodily responses. Because I'm a nerd, you know, it's just the way it is.  Just to say I could. Yeah, the nurses didn't like me very much, but it was, it was, I was bored. It was a game. It was not right. Don't do it. But it does provide you a sense of control when you know you can slow your own heart rate, when you know you can control what's going on. Heart rate monitors are excellent. I've had clients wear them before and have it set. So it starts to beep for them when their heart rate gets above a certain level that indicates stress, not, you know, running level. So they can understand and they can notice before they even really cognitively notice, they can notice that their body is sensing some sort of a stress reaction. Then they can start to address it. Obviously, for some clients, this wouldn't be appropriate because every time it started to beep, they would freak out and talk themselves into a panic attack. Physical conditions, and this is not an exhaustive list, but some that I found when I was doing the research for this, physical conditions that increase anxiety, exhaustion. When you're exhausted, it's hard to deal with life on life's terms.  Hypertension and hyperthyroid, both of these are hyper. Guess what? Anxiety, panic, hyper. So if you have a high blood pressure, hypertension, or if your thyroid hormone is kind of in, or thyroid gland is kind of an overdrive, that can increase anxiety, that can have you kind of revved up all the time anyway. A lot of times, hypertension is caused because you're revved up all the time anyway. So we need to look at the hypertension and go, okay, what's causing this, and how can we address it? PMS, pregnancy, and postpartum. Hormone changes, testosterone and estrogen can cause increases in anxiety levels. There are correlations between serotonin levels and GABA levels, and both of those hormones. Pregnancy, as the body changes and blood goes different places, there are a lot of different things that may trigger an anxiety reaction. There's also just inherent anxiety some people feel about becoming a parent. Being aware of that. Postpartum, one of the things that we don't talk about a lot, and this is one of my pet topics, I guess, in the postpartum phase, there is the initial trauma to the body, if you will, after childbirth. But then there's a whole other readjustment phase after the mother quits breastfeeding. For some people, that's one and the same, but for others, they may have another increase of mood instability when they stop breastfeeding, partly because of, you know, guilt or emotional issues that go with it, maybe, but also partly and largely because hormone levels are like altering at a mind-boggling rate. Helping parents, helping mothers understand what's going on and understand what may be causing it can help them get through it and understand, okay, once my body adjusts, then, you know, I'm going to feel more normal again. Anemia, bronchitis and emphysema. Bronchitis and emphysema, think about it. All of, both of those are in the lungs. They make it hard to breathe. If it's hard to breathe, then you may start to panic. If you start to panic, then you can work into a panic attack. Obviously, cardiac issues, if your heart does actually do something wonky, you can get freaked out about it and create a panic attack on top of something else. So, it's always good to get cardiac issues ruled out. In clinic, it's not possible unless you have a physician or a nurse on staff that can, you know, handle the medical part. If somebody's just in your office or in your group session and they start having a panic attack, a lot of times it is not possible to differentiate between that and a heart attack. So, you know, obviously there's clinical judgment and then there's that person's judgment about what needs to happen. And I always err on the side of caution, obviously, because I'd rather have the paramedics come out for no reason than not call them and have somebody have big problems. Side effects of medications including SSRIs. So, your normal benzos, they're not going to cause an anxiety reaction, but a lot of times SSRIs and SNRIs are prescribed for anxiety. And, you know, it's a common practice. The caveat is that if somebody already has high serotonin, if you increase their serotonin, then it may cause increased anxiety and increased panic. And SSRIs and SNRIs don't just monkey with serotonin or norepinephrine. Remember, all those neurochemicals are in a, what do I want to say, in kind of a soup. And they have to be balanced, you know.  So, anything that affects your neurotransmitters, anything that affects your hormones, you know, pregnancy, postpartum, anemia, and yes, menopause, can cause symptoms that someone may mistake for a stress reaction or a threat reaction and then start wondering, well, what's going on? Am I going to die? Or is there, you know, something going on? A lot of times, they're not looking around going, oh, this is a dangerous situation. They're just sitting in their living room going, what the heck? So, something has happened internally and their body's trying to process what's going on. Behaviors that increase panic. Poor time management. That's me taking on too much. But the other thing is procrastination. Some people, because they're anxious about whether somebody's going to approve it or, you know, a whole host of reasons, people may procrastinate even starting on something. When I was in college, I took this course that was philosophy of religion. It was a really interesting course, but we had to write these papers and I don't have a philosophical mind. My mind just, I get stuck sometimes taking those leaps. And we'd have to write these papers and for all four of them, I was not able to start on it until the night before the paper was due, which is very, very unlike me because I couldn't figure out what to say. I couldn't figure out the answer. In reality, I was, I didn't understand it and I was afraid I was going to get it wrong and I was afraid I was going to fail. So, I just kept putting it off. We need to look at the reasons people take on too much. Are they looking for external validation? Do they just have bad time management skills? Are they the type of person that wants to please everybody? If so, all three of those we can work with in counseling. You know, there are interventions. Procrastination, why do you put it off? If you don't like to do it, how can we make it more pleasurable? If you're afraid of evaluation or you're afraid you're going to fail, how can we deal with that? Type A personalities also tend to be really, really high strong. Perfectionists, overachievers, conscientious. And thinking back to that anxiety presentation we did last week, these are also three characteristics of generalized anxiety in young people. Hmm, just a thought. Phobia of wasting time or a lack of time perspective. And I'm super guilty of this. I hate sitting in three, four, five hour meetings because I'm like, you could have sent this to me in an email. We don't need to pontificate that much. There's so much more we could do. So, I'm almost always multitasking. Not that that's good. Type A personalities tend to be stressed that there's not going to be enough time to get it done or I could have gotten it done better and faster if you would have just gotten out of my way. They're mind races. They're high strong. You know, I don't want to say stressed out, but they're kind of like chomping at the bit to get stuff done all the time. And I always use the example of the chihuahua because, you know, chihuahuas seem to be really high strong little animals to me. And difficulty falling asleep because they're mind racing. You know, if you're sleeping, then you're not getting stuff done. If you have a phobia of wasting time, then guess what? It's going to be hard to fall asleep. So, these people are not getting enough rest. They've got exhaustion. They tend to be overly concerned about what people are going to think and whether they get it perfect. So, they spend a lot of time doing things over again that may not necessarily have needed to be done over again. Thinking patterns, all or nothing. I'm either perfect or I'm useless. We've talked about that with cognitive distortions. I'm not going to belabor that, but go over all of your cognitive distortions because they tend to increase anxiety, which is why, you know, so much is written and done with them. Ego-centric thinking, center of attention. Thinking that people are going to remember what you did six months from now. Likely they're not. You know, when I was working at one of the clinics in Florida, you know, this was back when everybody used to wear stockings. And I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I will. The only bathroom was up in the front lobby. And so, you know, every once in a while, you've got to go to the bathroom. I went upstairs, went into the front lobby, went to the bathroom, came out. You can see where this is going. Started walking down the hall of the residential unit. And one of the clients pulled me aside and let me know very nicely, thankfully, that my dress was tucked into the back of my stockings. And so, like, everybody in the lobby had seen my tushy. Yeah, that was not okay. I was mortified. Now, I could have used that and been like, okay, I'm not going back to work. I'm calling in sick the rest of the week. You know, no, I laughed it off. I'm like, they're not going to remember six weeks from now. Or if they do, we'll just laugh about it. But people who are worried about getting other people's approval and think that everyone notices every mistake they make, and everyone focuses on that, create a lot of stress for themself, which can lead to social anxiety and can lead to situations that prompt a panic reaction.  Yeah, that increases anxiety and panic. Every time you have an ache or a pain, you convince yourself that you're dying. You're increasing your anxiety. So let's look at how we can deal with that. Aside from getting on WebMD because that generally makes things worse. Need for approval. And I use WebMD because that's kind of like the brand that everybody knows. But going and searching online, you can find all kinds of horrific outcomes for things when likely it's pretty whatever's going on with you is pretty benign. But also this need for approval. When everything you do is in order to get other people's approval. If you do things, you're thinking, okay, they will be happy with me if I do this. That can increase anxiety because sometimes you just can't please people. One thing you can do with your clients is have them write down five things that cause them anxiety. Annual evaluations, going to the doctor, going to a new place. It's only three, but those are my three big ones. The big city, you know, driving into Nashville like freaks me out. I'm a country girl. So, you know, I usually have somebody else drive because they can handle the one way streets and, you know, parking and all that stuff. I know that freaks me out. So, I have to plan ahead whenever I have to go into one of those situations. Helping people understand why it freaks them out, whatever their stress triggers are. Identify the underlying thoughts that trigger your anxiety. So, why is it that going to the big city causes me so much anxiety? Because what if I get lost? What if I turn down the wrong way on a one-way street? What if I, you know, I can make things catastrophic at the drop of a hat, you know? If I'm already anxious, I can usually make a mountain out of a molehill really easily. Helping people understand that once they're already anxious, that catastrophic thinking can kick in is especially helpful. And then help people dispute those thought patterns. When I have to go to Nashville, I look all the stuff up on Google Maps ahead of time. I know where I'm going to go. I know where I'm going to park. And now that we have GPSs everywhere, I'm a lot calmer because I know that Siri will just redirect me if I take a wrong turn. Easy as that. Most of what we do as clinicians is educating people about what their body is doing, having them figure out what cognitions or things they're doing that may be causing their body to do that, and then helping them figure out how to fix it. A lot of people with panic attacks are very embarrassed. There's a lot of shame about having those panic attacks and, you know, when they're driving or when they're going into public situations, or maybe they don't even know when it's going to happen. They have a panic attack and then they're like, well, I can't go back to that place now. Encouraging people to identify why they feel ashamed or embarrassed, look at, again, how many people are really going to remember six weeks from now or six months from now? What does it mean about you that you had a panic attack in the middle of the Walmart? You know, what are you telling yourself that is causing you to hold on to this negative attitude about yourself? A sense of inadequacy going crazy, all of those kind of feed in, or anxious anticipation. These are the people who they're like, okay, every time I go to Walmart, I have a panic attack. So we're going to Walmart, I just got to brace myself. Well, that pretty much sets you up for a panic attack. And you know what? If they go into Walmart 10 times and eight times, they don't have a panic attack, but two times they do, guess which two times they're going to remember? Or I guess I kind of gave it away. They're going to remember the two times that they did have the panic attack and discount the eight times they didn't. Part of our job is to help them really focus on all of the evidence. What was different the eight times that you didn't have the panic attack? Identify what causes these emotions and what the emotion means about you. Because a lot of people they're like, I'm really embarrassed. Well, what does that mean about you? Why are you embarrassed about these panic attacks? And then help them find statements to dispute it. Don't over commit. And don't procrastinate. Easier said than done. If people over commit, again, we need to look at why they do it, what they're getting out of it, and how they could meet that need. Otherwise, remember your decisional balance exercises. What happens if you say no? Oh my gosh. Yeah, some people can't even fathom telling someone no. Other people can't fathom telling someone yes. Help them understand why they're saying yes to everything. And maybe they just feel like, Oh, sure, I can squeeze that in or I can squeeze that in because they don't stop to really look at it. Some personality types, people who are more impulsive, people who are more free about things may tend to always feel like there's plenty of time to get stuff done. So helping them chart it out, teaching people to always say no, I'll get back to you as soon as I consult my calendar. Since we have smartphones now, a lot of times you can say, let me check my calendar and pull it out and check right then and there. That way you don't actually have to say no, if that's something that is too overwhelming for your client at that point. Have people make a list of all the things they have to do? And when clients come into my office and they talk about being overwhelmed and stressed, I'm like, what do you have to do? And they just start with this laundry list of stuff. And I'm like, wow, I'm exhausted just listening to it. But in reality, I'm hearing there are a lot of things there they don't have to do. Things you have to do are things that if they're not done, there are going to be significant consequences. Pay the light bill. Feed your children. Now, do you have to make a seven course meal? No. You know, sometimes you may get a frozen dinner or fast food or something that is not what you would consider your ideal meal for your kids. But it feeds them, you know, it nourishes their little bodies. So have people separate this list into three categories. I like using index cards just because I can sort them and it's easier. Some people use Excel spreadsheets. Other people use whiteboards, whatever works for your clients. The pile that's must do are those things that if they're not done, there's going to be consequences. Go to work. Feed the kids. Pay the light bill. All those things are have to do. Need to do soon. Laundry.  So you probably have a couple days grace period here. That goes in the need to do soon. You know, maybe by the end of the week or, you know, over the weekend. But it's not something that has to be done today. And then the third pile is those things you would like to do. You would like to, you know, go out to the lake. You would like to take your kids to the park. You would like to do these other things. But if they don't get done this week or next week, the world is not going to come crashing down. And then encourage people to prioritize and delegate the must do's. You know, okay, there are these things that have to be done. So which one am I going to do first? And are there any that I can have someone else do? You know, maybe laundry, maybe you did wait until everybody was out of underwear. So maybe laundry somebody else can help with. So we go we've gone over a lot. Thinking back over the past week, and clients that you've seen that have had anxiety, that have had panic. How do they handle it? And ask them in the short term, how effective was that for you? And in the long term, how effective was it? And how are you going to handle it in the future? You know, if in the short term, you just avoid going to that place. Okay, that might have prevented you from having a panic attack today. But in the long term, that means you can't ever go back there again. What does that mean? What can they do differently? What haven't they tried? What if they tried this worked? And how can we build on that? And if you would have had any of these tools and have clients identify what tools they think would work for them? If you would have had any of these tools, which ones may have made a difference for you? And how can you start integrating them into your routine? Have them develop a step by step treatment plan, goal plan, whatever you call it for them. So they can start doing what they need to do to address their anxiety. Don't identify too many goals at once. What are the first two things that you need to do? All right, between now and next time we meet next week, how are you going to start making that happen every day or start using that to your advantage? Panic is caused by the fight or flight reaction. Many things that are mostly benign may cause symptoms of the stress reaction and people just cognitively interpret them as the world is crashing down, which can cause a full blown panic attack. For some people, body scans and breath awareness can help them calm themselves down. The rain method and distraction, not naming it, just letting it be, may work better for others. Eliminating vulnerabilities can also eliminate low grade chronic stress, which can increase the likelihood of a panic attack. So they're not constantly just high strong and ready to ready to pop. Are there any questions?


Zero Accounting Software 2023 Organization Settings Features. Get ready because it's time to become an Accounting Hero with Zero 2023. Here we are in our custom Zero homepage going into our new company file. We set up in a prior presentation that being Get Great Guitars. We're continuing on to take a look at the settings options noting that we set up a new company file. So these are basically the default setting options provided by Zero when we set up a new company file. Go into the dropdown up top. We're taking a look at the settings. Last time we took a look at the general settings. Now we're going to look at the features. So first let's just give an overview then we'll go into some of them in more detail. We've got the invoice settings. Create branding themes for documents, ad payment services and auto reminders for invoices. Then you got the payment services, add and manage online payment options for your sales invoices. Then you've got the email settings, set or reply to email address and email template content. You've got the check styles, customize how you would like checks to be printed. You've got the zero to zero, connect with other zero users to automate invoices and bills. And you've got the custom contact links, create shortcuts for your favorite zero contacts and other tools. Alright, let's go into the invoices up top and take a look at it in a bit more detail. Noting that the invoice is the form that you're going to be sending to customers typically these days with an email in order to try to request payment for work that has been done in the past. So a couple things we want to keep in mind with the invoice like with all other forms the invoice will most other forms is going to be creating a financial transaction typically increase in accounts receivable the other side going to sales and then you might have inventory that will be involved with it as well. So from a logistical standpoint from the accounting standpoint we have that that we want to make sure we understand. And then we also are giving this invoice to the customer and therefore it's we want to be looking good from a marketing standpoint from the branding standpoint and whatnot have our logo on it and all that kind of stuff. And the invoice is the thing that's going to be facilitating the recipient to turn around and pay the invoice. So we might also want to think about ways that we can make that turnaround process as easy as possible possibly providing other payment options. So so they can pay it with more ease and whatever payment option they think is best like giving them credit card payment options and other you know PayPal or whatever ways that they can pay it may increase the turnaround time once they receive the invoice. So just a couple things to keep in mind. All right. So we can customize invoices to suit our organization and match your brand create invoice templates add your logo and select which financial information to show see our help article to learn more. Now for us we're mainly going to be using the default invoices here and our focus is going to be on the accounting side of things meaning we're going to enter the invoice and see the impact on the financial statements of the invoice. But and then we might have other sections where we touch on some more of these types of things such as the setting up more payment options and then customizing your invoice for more branding geared ways but you can create different templates. So the standard template works pretty well but you can have different templates that you can create. You've got the new branding theme. That's what they call it. You might call it an invoice template. They call it a branding theme. So you've got the standard and then you've got other branding themes. You might even be able to use word to help you with your branding if you wanted to get more detailed on it. You've got your default settings. You've got your payment services. This actually links to another kind of settings that I believe we'll take a look at in a second and then invoice reminders which again these two I think will take you to another place of the settings but you can go to them from here. And then we've got the standard information. You've got the US letter margins and so on up top. You've got the information that is shown on down below. You've got your logo. So this is probably the default thing that most people if they're using just the standard invoice would probably want to add a little bit of a touch to it with your logo here. You've got your options up top to edit it copy it upload logo and preview. Let's take a look at the preview. So this is what it looks like at this point in times in terms of the general format. Now if you're going to make a different one you might want to copy the standard one right you might make a copy of it and then this will be your title for the new will be test one test one testing testing one one one test one. So now we've got the standard up top and we've got our test one and then we can kind of edit you know the test one if you want to go into up top and edit this one and then you've got some of your standard editing up top page size a for US letter you can play with the margins here and some of this is a little bit more restrictive of course than if you had like a word document or something but that restriction also makes it a little bit easier to do some customization without you know messing everything up. So you've got the font size draft invoice title approved invoice title overdue invoice title. You've got the credit note title statement title draft purchase order title purchase order title draft quote title quote title remittance advice advice title and then you could show the tax number show column headings and you could toggle these on or off show item code show unit price and quantity show payment advice cutaway show tax column show registered address show logo hide discount show contact account number and then you can show the tax subtotals and then you've got your dropdowns here tax rates tax rates over zero and so on show currency conversion if you have that in place payment services payment services and so on and then you've got your logo alignment which you could put left center and right show taxes as exclusive and enter your contact details so that's going to be the general information terms and terms so we're going to keep that we're going to say OK that looks good now again if you want to get into more detail than that you might be able to like export it to word and basically format it there obviously that adds a big level of complexity to do to go into that so that's the general idea with the invoices we're generally going to be using the defaults here let's go back into the settings we're going to go into the settings again and look at the payment services so I believe the payment services is one of the things that we could have clicked on within the invoice settings which basically would have taken us here just another way to get there and it says get paid faster and securely so remember when we talked about the invoices that's the thing that's going to the customers in order to request payment for goods and services that were provided we want to we want to make sure that the invoice facilitates the transactions correctly from the accounting side of things we might want to make sure it looks nice clean so that the customer gets a good impression of us from a brand standpoint and we want to facilitate payment options as easily as possible so you might just send it out and say pay us with a check or pay us with whatever format that you provide them you could even try to try to say that provide them with an external payment option within the letter that you give to them on the invoice for like a PayPal or something or some other payment option that way but it would it might be easier on them if you have an integrated payment service within the invoice that would be quite nice that they can turn around and pay with possibly paying directly with an electronic transfer from their bank or with a credit card or maybe you have a PayPal thing that you can integrate within there and then PayPal can take care of those things now note that as you think about these integrations you have to be a little bit careful because one the integrations add a bit level of complexity to the system as opposed to just an invoice that doesn't have the integration stuff but they can they're not too bad they can be nice but two there's going to be typically fees involved so you want to be balancing out the ways that you want them to pay you and the fees that will be related to that so so you might have give them more opportunities to pay you in different ways if you think that that's going to facilitate more turnaround on the invoices meaning you're going to be able to get your money faster and you're likely to have more of your customers actually pay you and less of that bad debt of people just not paying you by providing them multiple payment options and that might be something to kind of think about in other words you're really good customers you might say hey look I'd like you to pay me this way whatever way that is in order to minimize the fees because and that might be great but if you have a lot of customers and you're dealing with new customers all the time and you don't have an ability to give an impression on them other than the financial transactions you're giving them then it might facilitate a better turnaround if you can give them multiple payment options so you've got the cards so you got cards and digital wallets making payment invoices easy by accepting credit debit cards digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay you got the direct debit so automate payment collection and reconciliation for any zero invoice and then you've got the PayPal let your customer pay invoices instantly with their PayPal account so again some people like of course PayPal if they have a PayPal account that could be great other people like to pay with the credit card this is powered by Stripe which can give you know the other payment options and so on so you want to kind of think about these in terms of which would be integrated best in your businesses and when you might use them so we're not going to turn them on for our practice problem purposes I'm going to go back here because we're mainly focusing on the impact of the financial transactions as they take place not on the different payment options but we might touch on them as we go through the practice problem and then you've got your email settings so if we go into the email settings I believe this is another area that if you checked clicked on the invoices that when we were in the invoice area that it would take you to well maybe not this one it goes to the messages this is where you tailor their email you send from zero so see your help article to learn how to control the displayed name and reply address so tailor the email so for your emails you sent as Bob's deal with replies going to the email you could add an email address and then you've got your templates down below so here we go with our templates so this one then is an invoice so let's take a look at the invoice and so you've got your template here so the basic include quick link to online invoice and detail summary so the message that's going to be sent out so remember some of these these are going to be the types of forms that you might actually email to the client with possibly the attachment of the invoice and so then you're going to have to have some kind of text in here for the email as long as as well as the attachment which will be the invoice or some kind of invoice that will be involved with it as well so now these are the default messages and you could go into here and customize your messages so this one says for example yet you could include quick link to online invoice so that's checked off you've got the invoice invoice number in the message here trading name contact name obviously the stuff in the brackets is going to be pulling in that data into those bracketed areas so it says high contact first name so that means that it's going to be high kind of informal and that it's being picking up the first name that it's pulling from the contact list that was it knows because you created an invoice with the contact list so here's invoice there's the invoice number that's going to be here for currency code invoice total without currency so that's the amount that it's pulling in from the invoice the amount outstanding of currency code amount due without currency so again it's pulling that information in from the invoice is due on due date view your bill online from your online bill you can print a PDF export a CSV or create free law login and view your outstanding bills if you have any questions please let us know thanks and then name so again you might want a different closer here you might want a little more less formal in message so you can think about what you want to do within the message and then by the way these these items here when you want to add those that are pulling in here's the things that you can pull in the amount due without currency amount due contact first name last name so if you want to make it more formal instead of having just the first name and you want to make it first and last name or something like that you could you can use these items and that should add this bracketed thing I believe which will then pull in the proper information when you make your messages so I'm going to close that back out the invoice is going to be one of the most important forms to do that with because you're probably going to be sending a lot of invoices but you have have the credit note here's a credit note deduct the remaining credit and so on that could come up from time to time the statement here's your statement if you have any questions statements might be something that be fairly common as well if they have like multiple stuff outstanding for invoices remittance here's your remittance advice for payment and then you've got the receipt attaches a receipt for your payment of so on if you have any questions and so on purchase order so these are now going on the vendor side of things when you're buying stuff here's a purchase order and so on repeating invoice here's your da da da da and so on and then you've got your quote also something that if you use quotes will be quite common and another external kind of report so you can go into those invoicing settings I'm going to go back on over so those are your email settings then you've got your check styles which which if you're using checks if everything's not automated at this point in time you could take a look at the different check styles and then again you've got your zero to zero connect with other users to automate invoices and bills and then you've got your custom contact links create shortcuts to your favorite zero contacts and other tools so here's a look at the zero to zero so zero to zero lets you connect directly with other businesses who use zero allowing you to exchange invoices directly in and out of your zero accounts so that's pretty neat because then you can you know instead of emailing them possibly you've got this direct connection from zero to zero so that's pretty neat sending invoices via zero to zero to set up enter your customer zero network key into your contact record once complete invoices sent via zero to zero will appear in your customer zero account automatically receiving bills via zeros to zero to set up send your supplier your zero network key and ask them to set it up and then here's your custom links create custom links to allow you to click from zero contacts to other systems such as the customer relationship management the CRM you could set up your custom links if that is applicable