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Sam Harris Anxiety and Meditation | Sam Harris Talks (Fan Page) | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Sam Harris Anxiety and Meditation
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Summary
Core Theme
Anxiety, while often perceived as a crippling monster, can be managed by understanding its neurophysiology and reframing its perceived threats through cognitive techniques and mindfulness, rather than solely relying on medication.
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okay so I got your questions on Reddit
and when I last looked at this page
there were over 1,300 of them so
needless to say I will not make much
Headway but I really thank you for
delivering so many questions and voting
them up and I I can only assume that the
ones that came first now were the ones
that in fact were reliably voted up some
of these questions surprise me but and
maybe I'll dig around a little to find
others that are of Interest so there are
many questions on anxiety and one person
wrote anxiety is a monster that is
crippling and paralyzing and keeps you
in a loop of debilitating negative
emotions even when one desperately wants
out what are the causes what can one do
to help themselves what steps big or
small do you suggest well the the
neurophysiology of anxiety is pretty
well understood but I don't think
understanding it in any detail really
helps you there are drugs you can take
to mitigate the effects of anxiet iety I
should say upfront I have have no
clinical experience and this is not my
area I would think that if anxiety is
really crippling there's some role for
drugs to play whether it's beta blockers
that impede the effect of adrenaline on
your heart rate so you don't get the
racing heart experience or anti-anxiety
drugs that work on the neurotransmitter
Gaba but in general the people who work
with anxiety therap tically to my
understanding don't recommend you take
those drugs and that you do something
more along the line of cognitive
behavioral therapy which is to say you
you expose yourself in manageable ways
to the things that provoke anxiety and
you reframe them conceptually you become
open to feeling the effects of anxiety
and realize you can get through it and
there's certainly a role for meditation
and mindfulness to play in this part of
the process
for instance many people are afraid to
fly and even those of us who aren't
especially afraid to fly can feel
anxious in significant turbulence now
why do we feel anxious well we have some
thought that turbulence might be
dangerous right that it makes it more
likely the plane will
crash and of course truly significant
turbulence can cause a plane to crash
but this as we know from the statistics
of plane crashes is a very very rare
thing so there there are two levels to
respond to this experience so as to
mitigate anxiety so picture this you're
in an airplane and it begins to bounce
now unless you're in that rare and
horrible experience of being actually
thrown around the cabin so as to get
injured it's very likely that the
bouncing is not physically painful right
this is you're not being being harmed by
this sensation and in other context you
would subject yourself to even more
violent bouncing and not be worried
about it at all you might go on some
ride at an amusement park which exerts
greater force on you bodily and you do
it because you're seeking that
experience out now on an airplane it's
totally unwelcome to you because you're
afraid of dying but if you just take the
raw Sensations they are not your problem
it's what they port prend is your
interpretation of them that worries you
there are at least two levels at which
you can deal with this first is to think
conceptually about the nature of the
problem and about what you fear is it
rational to worry that your plane will
crash if you're experiencing turbulence
no it actually isn't the likelihood of
dying in a plane crash is minuscule over
the course of your journey you should
begin to worry as you leave leave the
airport and get in an Uber or a taxi or
drive yourself home in your own car
that's when your risk of mortality
begins to Peak so if you understand that
if you understand that every moment in a
plane is in fact safer than many moments
you spend on the ground certainly safer
than when you're walking as a pedestrian
fixated on your smartphone and stepping
into the crosswalk that's
when your adrenaline should surge or
when you're driving and glancing down at
your phone to see what text just came in
those are the moments where the sweat
should begin beating up on your forehead
so when you're in a plane and it's begun
to bounce it is in fact unreasonable to
worry that the bouncing means much of
anything if you understand that that
actually can have an effect then you can
become willing to just experience the
raw sensations of turbulence then you
can cease to interpret the experience as
a sign of actual danger the other level
which you can address this and and these
are totally compatible moves I recommend
both of them is to become mindful of the
feeling of anxiety itself what is it and
what does it mean well it's just
sensation it's just a pattern of energy
in your
body and it actually doesn't mean
anything at the level of raw sensation
you might have thoughts about it and
very likely much of your thinking in
that moment is purposed toward trying to
figure out how not to feel that way or
not to let it get worse but if you'll
step out of your thoughts and just
become willing to feel the raw sensation
of anxiety actually Just Surrender your
resistance to it just feel it as energy
it can lose its meaning it can become
very difficult to disting uish from what
under another framing would be a
positive experience like excitement how
do you know the difference between being
anxious about something that's about to
happen and being excited for the most
part it is the thoughts you're thinking
when you're feeling that arousal there's
a cognitive conceptual overlay on top of
this raw feeling you can consciously
reframe things or you can step out of it
all together and just feel
the raw energy of this experience and
when you do that anxiety can be like any
other experience that has no meaning for
you as a person really I mean it doesn't
say anything about you so something like
indigestion or itching let's say you're
let's say you have a rash on your elbow
and it's itching okay that doesn't say
anything deep about you as a person that
has no psychological implications it
might be unpleasant it might be
extraordinarily unpleasant but it
doesn't reach into your sense of who you
are the deepest way to respond to
anxiety and again I'm not saying that
there is no case in which drugs are
valuable or even necessary there may
very well be but for anxiety in its more
ordinary range the Deep way to respond
to it is to become willing to feel it to
cease to interpret it as important and
to function
in the midst of it and then it will pass
anxiety Rises and Falls like any other
emotion and if you're not continually
thinking the thoughts that make you
anxious it actually can't stay around
very long and this is true of other
unpleasant emotions like anger and
sadness and they're continually
resurrected by our thoughts and we are
spending most of our time thinking
without knowing that we're thinking so
mindfulness in particular is a very good
antidote to this problem but the trick
is you can't apply it as an antidote you
can't be mindful of anxiety so that it
will go away you can't push it away with
meditation or at least that attempt is
more likely to fail what you're really
after in those moments is genuine
equinity real acceptance of the energy
of this emotion become interested in it
become willing to feel it just let it
burn bright in you and discover that it
doesn't matter simply comes and it goes
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