Many high performers suffer from anxiety.

"The anxiety itself becomes an addiction."-Kevin Davis

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• Do only combat veterans suffer from PTSD?
  
• What is brain zap?
  
• Why you don't have to be a monk to meditate.
  
• Rest and relaxation are not lazy: how to change your mindset on this.
  
• True or false: it takes 20 minutes to get really focused after switching tasks?
  
• And so much more...
  

The stigma surrounding anxiety is slowly receding in American culture today, and that's a good thing. PTSD and other anxiety disorders are incredibly common, and so is the unhealthy habit of masking or attempting to treat those disorders with medication which often does more harm than good.

Here to give us suggestions on how to recognize if we're suffering from an anxiety issue and what to do about it is Kevin Davis. Kevin is an anxiety coach who runs a podcast called The Anxiety Coaches. He has grappled with anxiety personally and found solutions that didn't require medication. He'll tell us all about that and so much more on episode 364 of The Art of Charm.

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One day while driving down his usual road Kevin had to swerve into the ditch to avoid an oncoming car. Everything happened so quickly he wasn't able to stop his car from running head on into a pole. His hood crumpled and he saw his car's engine explode into flames. Fortunately he escaped and was okay.

But a few weeks later he started having severe physical symptoms while driving down that same road. His rate would rapidly increase to 200 or more, which increased his panic. He worried he had done irreparable harm to his body by over-consuming caffeine, working out too hard and steroids. Not once did he correlate his symptoms with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his frightening car accident, nor did anyone else in his life.

He eventually went to the doctor and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. His doctor wanted to give him medication but when Kevin read the side effects he wanted no part of it.

Instead he researched all possible treatments for anxiety and started exploring on his own. He found a few things that worked, meditation being one of them. But it seemed like as one treatment would kick in his symptoms would show up in another form, he could treat his constricted feeling in his throat for a week or two only to have tingling in his hands show up the next week.

Then his mom Googled anxiety disorders and found a web site run by anxiety coaches. These were men and women who had experienced anxiety themselves and had it overcome it, without drugs. They were now trained coaches with psychology backgrounds who were sharing their expertise with anxiety sufferers. Kevin found a coach and together they realized he had PTSD from his car accident.

That was his first step towards truly healing of his anxiety. With a new understanding and the help of his coach he was able to get a handle on his symptoms and treat their roots.

One of the tools he learned was meditation. According to Kevin we don't have to become monks to meditate and reap the benefits. By listening to a guided meditation for just 20 minutes a day our brains will respond differently in just a few short weeks. Those 20 minutes will help our minds focus better, stay on track easier, stay calmer and reduce our overall anxiety.

Another trick we discuss is not to multi-task. When we've got 3 different things we're trying to do within the hour it's best to focus on one, knock it out and move on to the next one. If we try to juggle all 3 at the same time we won't get as far and may not even finish any of the tasks.

When we're focused on one task we can hone in on it with laser focus; we actually get far less done when we're juggling multiple tasks because it takes us up to 20 minutes to shift gears from one subject to another. So if you're editing something and you want to switch to creating a new spreadsheet it can take your brain up to 20 minutes before it's really focused in on making that new spreadsheet. So focus in on one thing, get it done and move on.

Kevin and I also talk about the need to recharge and why it's important to set boundaries, and more on this episode. Have a listen to get the full download as Kevin shares his personal story, insights and wise words on today's episode. Thanks to Kevin for joining us and as always, thank you for being here. We'll see you next time.

If you enjoyed this session of The Art of Charm Podcast, let Kevin know by clicking on the link below and sending him a quick shout out on Twitter:

Click here to thank Kevin on Twitter!

The Anxiety Coaches Podcast
Kevin Davis on Twitter

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