Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner, and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And not only is it my favorite time of day, it is my favorite time of year. I see everywhere slogans that say the most wonderful time of the year. And I do believe that I am one of those people who loves to celebrate. And when we are celebrating, we're singing about joy, we're hanging lights. We tell ourselves this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. But I know that for many people listening right now, the holidays feel heavier than that. And at the holidays, it's almost like you carry a special burden with that because you think this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. I'm, supposed to be enjoying this. I'm supposed to be happy with my family. And then you feel guilty because you're struggling, and then you feel like you're missing out, and then you feel like you're making your family and friends miss out. And all of these things that can happen sometimes at the holiday. Grief is just louder for some reason. Finances are tighter. Family tension is thicker. Loneliness may feel sharper than usual. And anxiety and depression that maybe you struggle with during the year seems like it's just even more difficult to deal with. So if Christmas has ever made you feel more anxious than peaceful, more overwhelmed than joyful, listen, you're not broken, and you're not alone. You're not broken anymore than we are broken humans living in a broken world, in a falling world. And today we are talking about the part of the Christmas story that we don't always acknowledge. That ache, that waiting, and honestly, the real human struggle that surrounds it. I'm sure many of you have seen commercials that show people holding up masks. And this is what depression looks like. This is what anxiety looks like. Often you don't know it's there, but it is there. And today I'm excited, though, because we are going to invite hope into the conversation, into the middle of all of this messiness. And joining me today is Dr. Linda Mintle She is a licensed therapist, a professor, a national speaker, and, best selling author of more than 20 books, including her newest workbook, Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a guide to manage stress and overcome anxiety. And it was released by the American association of Christian Counselors and We have featured their executive director before and, told you about their services. And m. I'm so glad today for Dr. Mintle to bring to you some clinical wisdom, but also some spiritual compassion to the conversation that we'll have, because she understands anxiety, not only professionally, but personally. Dr. Mintle, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Linda Mintle: It's really a pleasure to be here. And I'm so glad we're talking about this at the holidays because you made a huge, list of reasons why people become more overwhelmed and get overly stressed. And it's true. And even with things like you talked about with grief and loss. So it's a really important topic to hit so that as we go into the holidays, we can be so much more aware and intentional about what we do so that we keep anxiety at bay. And that's really the goal.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're so right. And sometimes there's a long list of reasons, and sometimes I think even more frustratingly, there's no reason at all. Sometimes it just roars for. And you think, why? Why is this happening? But, Dr. Mintle I would love for you to start just by introducing yourself to our listeners. Tell them a little bit about your story, your perspective, and how God brought you to be sitting here today giving this message of in the middle of anxiety.
Dr. Linda Mintle: Well, you mentioned, a little bit of my background. I've been in academia and actually clinical practice for 30 years. So I have. I've worked in a lot, a lot of different universities, two medical schools. I'm currently at a medical school teaching future, physicians. And, obviously I teach them about anxiety because anxiety and depression are two of the most common things that your primary care physician will encounter. So they need to be somewhat equipped. And then when things get a little bit more. More, complicated, they will often refer to someone like me to work with people. So I have a doctorate in urban, health and clinical psychology. I've, done a lot of family work, couples work over the years. I actually have a specialty practice in eating disorders. People, with eating disorders, just because there was a need at the time I was at a medical school for developing those programs. So I went into that. And then when the opioid crisis hit, we started to look really in depth on how to help with pain and pain management. So a lot of my career has become specialized based on whatever I was doing in the clinical realm. Right. And teaching. And I have. I love the academic side of things, but I always want to be really practical with people on what to do. And I never really Thought about writing books and this was decades ago when a publisher approached me, was actually after the Columbine incident or the mass school shootings and asked me if I would write a book. And I never really thought about that. And that really began a long journey of writing on various topics. A lot on dieting and weight loss and you know, emotional eating, compulsive overeating, a lot on body image and mother and mothers and daughters relationship. So I'm the relationship doctor on my own podcast and I do a lot on relationships. and certainly as we're talking through the holidays, this is one of the key times when family dynamics, friendships, coworkers, office parties, all of these things really impact. But when the AACC came to me and said we would love you to write a workbook on anxiety, I thought back and I thought I've got 20 books and I've never really written on anxiety. Specifically one book talked about it a bit and I thought this would be great because so many people are struggling, so many people just want to have some strategies of what to do. And certainly I'm a person of faith and there's a, there's a spiritual directive that we're not supposed to be anxious about anything. And I thought, wow, you know, if God gives us that directive, there must be prescriptive ways of helping with all of this or he wouldn't ask us to do that. And then I, I began the book and the journey with my own personal story which is when I was on my way to the University of Michigan as a freshly minted freshman, my oldest brother was killed on, from a terrorist bomb on airplane. And that was long before we heard anything about terrorism. So this was not something, this was way before 9 11. We didn't know much about it. he was they attacked the plane. It was a commercial flight over NewSong Delhi, India and there were no survivors. And I just recall that, that when this happened on a, on a June afternoon, a sunny June afternoon, I was, I came home during the day and I, I saw my father in the kitchen during the day and I thought, well that's unusual and strange. And my mom was at work and I thought what is going on? And I saw the army officer at our kitchen table and he gave us the news and I mean it was just overwhelming. And as a result of that moment in time and the consequences that flowed out of that of having to tell my sister in law that she had just lost her husband and she had a two year old and A child on the way. a lot of that story, began a journey for me into feeling anxious about a lot of things in the future that were uncertain. And certainly my mom became anxious whenever I would get on an airplane. And, you know, was worried about what would happen to us. But it's a journey that I've walked myself during that period. And then a very long period of seven years of infertility where nothing was happening. I was in one of those unique categories of being undefined in my own, infertility. And it was just a very difficult time. Month after month of disappointment. Now, eventually I have two children, but seven years was a long time to deal with something that was unknown, uncertain. People around me were getting pregnant. I, I even talk about in my church. we started an infertility group and there were eight of us in that group. And at one point, everyone in the group got pregnant except me. And so I was down to one. I thought, well, I can't have a group with one person. But certainly if I had not had my faith and I had not understood how anxiety worked, I would have had a very difficult time. But I'm a walking example of how you can be free from all of that. And that's why I was excited when they said, hey, write a workbook on this. Give us some tips and strategies and what worked and what worked for you, but also what works for your clients and your patients as well.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, and there definitely is a need for it because this workbook sold out on Amazon, but is available at the American association of Christian Counselors. So if you feel like, I don't know if I can buy a workbook about anxiety, well, plenty of people have. And I think that's encouraging to m me to see people acknowledging, okay, these are the limitations of my own humanity. I'm so sorry for what you experienced, especially for the loss of your brother. How, how terrible that must be and how, how hopeful it must be to circumstance, though, with the hope of faith, the hope of God. And I don't, I just don't even have any words for an experience like that. But I think that sometimes we need to acknowledge the limitations of our own humanity because we think, oh, I can just pray more, I can just, you know, try harder. I can just, you know, buy my own strength, like help myself. And the self help industry is just booming right now. And I believe, and I think you share the same view that there are limitations to how much we can help ourself. And we really have to rely on God. And you're so right in quoting that scripture, from Philippians, about being anxious for nothing. You said it was prescriptive, and it's prescriptive right there in the scripture. But with prayer and thanksgiving. And we know now the benefits of gratitude. We know scientifically the medical benefits of gratitude. And when that verse says it will protect your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. You know, I was just kind of thought about your theoretical heart. Like, oh, it protects your, your feelings, but it protects your literal blood vessels because it lowers your blood pressure and it protects your heart health. And I find that so encouraging.
Dr. Linda Mintle says anxiety is common during the holidays
So, Dr. Mendel, tell us, why is anxiety harder in some ways during the holidays? What do we see?
Dr. Linda Mintle: Well, I, I'm glad that you said it's common. So I, I want everybody who's listening in to us to, to really understand that, you know, we don't want to stigmatize people for having this. I mean, we have a whole generation that's been called the anxious generation. Right. So it's. And you're right, it's a great problem to have a book sell out on Amazon now, hopefully they're going to restock it and get it back on. But it was great that you said AACC.net if you want it today, because, it's going to be there in the future, but you can certainly get it now. I think the issue here is that while my personal anxiety began with a lot of loss and uncertainty and, related to a medical issue that really was undiagnosed, those are three entrees into that. But there are so many other reasons why people can have anxiety. And a lot of it can be based in your childhood experiences, any kind of trauma. Just you may be a, personality type that gets very anxious easily, stress, coping skills. There's so many reasons why, people can get anxious. And one of them I want to mention, since you're a nurse practitioner, is we don't always think about, you know, the side effects of medications. those can create anxiety for some people, sometimes medical conditions. I mean, I teach in cardiology, and if you have a heart condition or, you know, you're much more susceptible to depression and anxiety just as a result of the physical changes that happen in the body. And then we don't always talk about lifestyle. And, you mentioned loneliness, one of the key factors in this. But also social media and even watching the nightly news. I mean, that can make so many people anxious because it's all bad news most of the time. Rarely do they Have a story on something positive every once in a while. But, you know, so there's so, so many ways that you can become anxious. But, I teach Jessica, in a, in an osteopathic school, and it's, body, mind and spirit. So I get to bring in the faith part of what I teach in this medical school. It's actually a Christian medical school. And so integrating your spiritual remedies into what we're going to be talking about in terms of lifestyle changes and the way you think and how to calm down your body when you get overly stressed, all of these things work together. And this is why it's important for people not to just give platitudes to each other. And, boy, I heard those when I went through my own struggles. You know, I heard, pray more, pray harder. God's got this, you know, all the things that people were very well meaning, and well intended, I think, when they were saying this thing to me. But sometimes you just need a little bit more to get to that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You. Dr. Mintle we are already at our first break. Time is flying, but we have a lot more help and hope on the way. Listen in after the break. We will be right back with more from Dr. Linda Mintle And we'll be talking more about what you can do, how you find hope and healing from anxiety. And you can go to the American association of Christian Counselors to find this workbook. We'll have more help and hope after the break.
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Until You by Danny Gokey: We were hopeless Looking for an answer until you. We were hurting calling for a helper until you. You put a star up in the sky and the angels on high Declaring the good news we were desperate longing for a savior until, you. Glory, glory, Christmas morning Hallelujah all is new Love came down and changed our story Every heart was waiting until you.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is until, you by Danny Gokey and as I'm sitting here listening to him sing that song about Christ coming as a baby, about the birth Jesus, about the hope of the Savior for the world, I think about the 400 years of darkness that were before that, of the waiting and the waiting and the waiting. And some of you may feel like that now. You feel like you're just in a waiting room that just seems really dark and you're feeling anxiety. Now, anxiety, I, want you to know it is not a moral failure. Anxiety is not a spiritual weakness. Anxiety doesn't mean feeling anxious, doesn't mean that God is disappointed in you or that you're not trying hard enough. Anxiety is your nervous system that's under strain. It's your mind reacting to try to protect you. It's your body reacting to that overload. But when you are sitting in it, when you are experiencing it, it starts to distort reality. It steals your peace. And most of all, what I see it do is whisper lies about who God is and who you are. And today we are unmasking that anxiety and helping you to find healing. I'm talking to Dr. Linda Mintle She has written a workbook and it's available right now. It's sold out on Amazon because there this is such a problem that so many people struggle with. But it's available at the American association of Christian counselors aacc.net it's called hope and Healing for Anxiety, a Guide to Manage Stress and overcome anxiety. And Dr. Mintle has told you about her own personal story with anxiety and her extensive professional clinical expertise. And Dr. Mintle, before the break, we were talking about the ways that anxiety presents. And you and I both work in primary care. I've worked in primary care my entire career. And when it comes in, though usually I've never had on my patient panel, you know, patients saying, wondering if this might be anxiety, it usually says, like, worried about blood pressure not or blood sugar not. sleeping well. You know, think I have the flu or something. I have pain somewhere. Usually it's their body that's trying to give Those signals that we don't always recognize that this is anxiety. And so let's talk about the difference between anxiety in your mind and your body, how that presents, what it looks like, why that happens, and most importantly, what we can do about it.
Dr. Linda Mintle: Yeah, it's such a good point. because a part of what happens is there are times when you just experience anxiety and you don't know why. You have no idea. You just, you just go. You have that anxious feeling sometimes with people, it's panic or just a feeling of, you know, just high arousal. And while all of this I'm going to talk about, you already mentioned Jessica, it all originates in your nervous system, but it's important to understand that when you don't really know what's causing it, and you just have the feeling, there are different strategies that you use versus when the, when the anxiety is originating in your mind. So when you're having anxious thoughts, when you're laying, you know, in bed and you're trying to sleep, and you're rehearsing the what ifs and what ifs, and if this happens and that happens, and, and that's what worry is. Worry is this anticipated negative outcome of, of something. It's doubting, it's wondering. And so that's a very different kind of approach that you want to use when it's more in your mind versus when it's in your body. Because what's happening in your body is that your nervous system has put down some memories of things, and it remembers things that you're not even aware of. Because your nervous system just is surveilling the environment, all the time. So you could walk past somebody and you might not even. You probably won't be conscious of this, but if they reminded you of somebody that you knew who was really bullying to you at one point, or abused you, suddenly you can have a moment in your body and you won't even put those connections together. So it's really important to pay attention to what your body is telling you. So if you're feeling anxious in your body, there are certain things that you can do that will get you back into a calm state. And a couple of those are, just let me give some really easy hacks for people to use. So when you're just feeling. Feeling highly anxious, part of what's happening is there's a part in your brain that's the feeling part that's just overtaken you. And the thinking part of your brain, which is another part of your brain, is Offline. So just think of it like that. The feeling part is online, overwhelming. The thinking part is offline, and it's not thinking. Well, what you want to do is get your thinking brain back online so you can calm your body down. A, lot of things that can help with that social connection. you mentioned this right at the beginning of this segment, where just maybe talking to somebody and there's a lot of calming that happens. If I were to look right into the camera and I would look at you, Jessica, and I would use this tone of voice and I would talk to you in a very calm way. I'm already calming you down because of what was happening in the cranial nerves in your body. So even just having conversations. That's why sometimes we say to people, talk to someone, you know, get in a conversation. Another really simple one that, that people use, but they don't really think about it. To anxiety. It's just deep breathing. It's just being able to take a really big exhale on four and then a long, I mean, inhale on four and then a very long exhale on eight. And what you're doing is there's a, there's this, this very long wandering nerve called the vagus nerve. And it's really activating the part of that, that's the calming part of your nerve. You can't be tense and calm at the same time. So part of this work, when your body is tensing up and getting anxious, is to do some things that can relax it. So that's a good one. Sometimes distraction is one of the best ways if you're having a very anxious moment, like, let's say you have to go on stage and you have to give a, talk or something. If you just stand there and I tell the medical students to do this all the time before a high yield exam, I'll just say, you know, start, counting to 10 in Spanish. Think, of five cities that begin with the letter A. What am I doing? I'm now distracting my brain into something very specific. And I'm going to calm the rest of my body down by doing a distraction. So there's a lot of ways you can distract yourself. You can look at an object in a room and you can just start describing it quietly to yourself. you can pay attention to your feet on the ground and the ground around you, and you can name five objects in the room. All of those little hacks will take you out of an anxious state and put you back into a moment of calm and that then you can start thinking, you know, what's going on, what's triggering me, what is, what's happening. So that's easy for the body. The mind is a little bit different. When you start talking about the mind.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Let'S stop there for just a second at the body, and then. And then we'll go on to the mind. Because I think this is really important, Dr. Mintle because, you know, because you're talking about when you're having those anxious feelings, when your pulse is racing, when you feel sweaty, you feel. Feel flushed, you have that fight or flight or freeze response. You know, those are ways to regulate your body. And.
You talk about the importance of holistic health when talking about anxiety
And before we move on and talk about the mind, which I definitely want to do, you and I were talking a little bit in the break about the importance of holistic health. And I think that everybody wants a quick fix. We live in a world of instant gratification. These things that you've described, they are quick fixes that I believe that God has given us a measure of grace in our bodies to be able to learn how to calm them down. Now, the more effective, the more that we practice them. But we tend to prefer to scroll as a numbing agent. Now, like, okay, let me just distract myself. You get on your phone or you want a pill, you know, they want a supplement, you want a vitamin, you want a medication. And really, we've got to pay attention to those things, to our, in our bodies. But also the way to set up our bodies for the best health is to be healthy, holistically, to sleep right, to eat right, to move our bodies. And I told you that. I asked my kids, who are all college age, high school age, if they call me and say, you know, I'm feeling a little anxious today. And I say, well, what have you eaten? Junk? Have you. Are you hydrated? No. Because that's another thing that I see, especially in younger people. They may even feel like they're anxious, but really they're just on a caffeine overload. They've had too many energy drinks or too many sodas. are you sleeping? No, I'm not sleeping very well. Have you gotten into the sunshine? Have you touched grass today? No, I haven't. Have you spoken to other people? No, I haven't. And then it's a wonder that your body feels like that. And I think that all connects to your mind. But just wanted to give that a, little space there to talk about how important that is. But I'll let you respond to that. Yeah, no, no, no.
Dr. Linda Mintle: I Want to say something? No. You reminded me of something that's really important. When we're talking about the body. When we do these quick hacks where we just try to get our, our body to calm down for the moment. The idea of that is not to then go numb like you said, or medicate yourself or whatever. The idea of that is to stay in the present moment. Now, this is one of the most important things about anxiety. You have to confront anxiety and you have to move through it for it to get better. Avoidance does not work. And a lot of people, when they feel anxious, they just want to avoid. Well, I'll never give a talk. I'll never go talk to that person. I'm not going to deal with conflict. I'm not going to, you know, talk to my boss, whatever it is. That is the worst thing you can do. Because when you avoid, you just keep having the same pattern of behavior over and over. And you want to interrupt that negative pattern. And the way that you do that is to calm yourself for the moment and then push yourself through the anxiety. We call this exposing yourself exposed to the anxiety. And the reason that's so important is because then the mind learns that, hey, this wasn't so bad after all. Wait, I just rode that elevator that I was so afraid of. Nothing terrible happened to me. You know, I felt hugely anxious when I had to get up in front of my company and give a talk. But you know what? I didn't die. Nothing terrible happened. I felt anxious. And the more you practice things that you feel anxious about, the better you're going to get, because the brain has to learn the new way of doing it. Now, I really want to say this, and you probably agree with me, we haven't talked about this ahead, but I'm not a big believer in using benzodiazepines. It's a medication as an anti anxiety drug. Because what that does in the brain is it basically puts the brain to sleep. And no new learning happens when you're on a benzodiazepine. So if you're someone, for instance, that's really struggling with anxiety, it would be better to do this exposure work where you expose yourself to the thing that you're afraid of. You gradually move through it until you get to the point where you can tolerate it. That is the best strategy for anxiety. And unfortunately not a lot of people use that. And it goes back to, like you said, we just want a pill for something. But boy, if you can use, if you can expose yourself to the very thing that you're afraid of and move through it with the help of maybe a therapist or a counselor or just even the workbook, then you're going to get to the other side and you're going to conquer that thing and you're not going to need. Need a medication.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That, that is really tough because I think, you know, sometimes medication is a critical part of therapy. But, especially, you know, my experiences at, children, and I think a lot of parents are surprised when I say the first line therapy for anxiety and depression are things like cognitive behavioral therapy are just these coping mechanisms that you have to name and claim. You have to recognize them, you have to practice them, you have to see them as tools in your toolbox. Okay, I'm feeling anxious here.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Here.
Dr. Jessica Peck: What tool do I want to pull out right now to calm myself in the moment? Okay. And then what coping mechanism do I use? And the more that you do it, the better that you get at it. And this all goes back to scripture. Thinking about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, taking every thought captive, and then that goes to our minds, which. That is the runaway train here. And the anxiety is that escalating thought process. But what if, what, what if, what if, what if? And then all of a sudden you've just spun yourself into an anxiety tornado, and then you feel a lot of guilt and shame about that. And it's just usually a cycle that's very difficult to stop. Ah, so how do you do that? How do you do that in your mind?
Dr. Linda Mintle: Yeah. Well, one more point before we go to the mind, because I just again think this is so important. You, you kind of hit on it. You know, a lot of times when parents see their kids being anxious, they want to take them out of the anxious situation. You know, they want to protect them, and they don't want them to face things that are really tough and difficult. And that's one of the reasons why we're seeing so much anxiety in teens and young children and even Gen Z, because they have not had to face difficulty a lot of times. And we have this idea that don't make them feel uncomfortable. Don't do anything to me. Well, actually, that's part of resilience is to feel uncomfortable and move through your discomfort, tolerate it. Learn to tolerate that discomfort and be able to be with people who are different and don't think exactly like you do, but or may do things that sometimes you don't always agree with. But don't just remove your children. I really want that message to get to Parents that when you remove them from anything that's, difficult, you're not teaching them to be resilient, and you're not teaching them to be exposed to things that are tough that they need to learn to move through. I think about when I had a difficult, professor back in the day, and the person was really tough. I didn't like it, and I didn't like the way the professor was talking to me all the time. But I certainly learned from that, from that experience, because I thought, okay, I'm not really excited about the way he's talking to me, but what he's saying is really important. Now what we have is people get upset if the professor talks poorly, you know, at you. And, oh, he made me uncomfortable, and this isn't a good thing. And why are they making me uncomfortable? That is just not a good approach. And I think that's a lot of the reason. Reasons why we see this. We see it on social media all the time where people write uncomfortable things and then people just cancel them. You know, this is not the way you learn to deal with people. You have to learn to face conflict. You have to learn to be uncomfortable, tolerate distress. A whole bunch of therapies that are centered around regulating your emotions and tolerating distress.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And that's hard. You're so right. And we're already at our second break. We will talk about the mind when we come back. But I agree, and I think the role of a good parent. We hear a lot about parenting strategies like helicopter and snowplow or bulldozer, just removing any obstacle. I think a good parent is a good coach, and the best thing a coach can do is make sure the practice environment is safe for failure. Let them try, and let them have those building blocks of resilience. We know a lot about resilience and how to raise resilient kids in an anxious world. But we'll be right back with more from Dr. Linda Mintle. Don't go away.
Dr. Al Mohler: Here's Dr. Al Mohler from the American Family Studios documentary. The God who speaks. Jesus in the Gospel of John continually points to the the Scriptures. And as he says famously, these are they that testify of me. If you knew Abraham from the scriptures, you would know me. Jesus himself refused to allow that division between his own authority and the authority of Scripture. He never set scripture aside. What he did was to make very clear that he perfectly fulfilled Scripture. And of course, he went beyond even the Old Testament law in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. I will tell you that if you've lusted in your heart, you have already committed adultery. So Jesus Christ himself drives us back to the authority of scripture, and evidently that's exactly where he wants his church to be. Visit thegodwhospeaks.org.
Hope Has A Name by Passion featuring Kristian Stanfill: The hope of all creation resting in his mother's arms. The song on the horizon ringing through the heavens. The long awaited Savior Come to set the captives free. Come to set the captives free. Come set us free. Hope has a name. Emmanuel. The light of the world who broke through the darkness. The King.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Hope has a Name by Passion featuring Kristian Stanfill And I will tell you, that song is literally at the top of my Christmas playlist this year. And it's such a great message. Hope has a name. Hope is not. something abstract, something unattainable, something that you just can't really wrap your arms around. Something that seems like it's maybe not for you. Hope has a name. And that name is Emmanuel, which means God with us. God sent his son Jesus to be born for you and for me. And he was not born into a picture perfect nativity scene like we all put in our homes. He was born into political unrest and fear and poverty and danger and violence. Does any of that sound familiar? The Christmas story doesn't begin in comfort. It doesn't begin in perfection. It's chaos and imperfection. And that's, I think, one of the reasons why it speaks to us so beautifully today. Because hope is not waiting for the conditions to be perfect to arrive in your life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Hope comes right in the middle of your mess. And maybe that mess that you are feeling today is anxiety. Maybe you're struggling with it personally. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your child. I think it's really hard if you're on the outside of it. If you've never experienced it before you. It's hard. You can't have empathy and you don't really understand it. And sometimes the person who's experiencing it doesn't really understand it. There's a lot of guilt and shame that goes along with it. Why can't I just be stronger? Why can't I just get over this? Why can't I just. Just pray harder? Why can't I just have more faith? And the answer is that our bodies are wonderful creations of God that are marvelously complex. And if God was big enough to, be an. If he was small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped. But I do believe that God has given us grace in some, professionals like My guest today, Dr. Linda Mintle who have studied the bright, the brain and the mind, how the mind works in the body and anxiety. And we know there are some things that we can do, some ways that God has given us to find hope and healing for anxiety. Now, Dr. Mintle has written a workbook about this. Workbooks for Mintle health are really popular and I'm really glad to see it. This book is sold out on Amazon, but you can, and it will be restocked, but you can get it now if you want it now at the American association of Christian counselors. aacc.net it's hope and Healing for Anxiety, a guide to manage stress and overcome anxiety. And it can feel impossible really at times, but there are things that we can do to find hope and healing and refinement in the waiting and the messiness of the, of the process.
Your primary care clinician should be someone you trust with your life
Now Dr. Mintle we were talking before the break just about the importance of, of kids responding to our kids recognizing when they're feeling anxious and what can we do about it. And your primary care clinician should be someone. And I'm going to talk about that actually on a show the first of the year. We're going to talk about how do you find primary care that you trust literally with your life and that is such an important connection to help you differentiate from. Is this on the normal spectrum of human emotion to, okay, is this rising to the level of diagnostic criteria? Is it impacting your daily life? Do we need a more focused plan?
Let's talk about the mind and what role that plays in anxiety
And I think we are going to spend this last few minutes talking together about the mind. We've talked a lot about the body. Let's talk about the mind and what role that that plays in anxiety and what we can do to take every thought captive.
Dr. Linda Mintle: Yeah, it's all connected. Right? So your emotions are connected to your behavior. That's connected to the way you think and your beliefs and your thoughts. And so when you look at anxiety, it really is pretty, pretty based, when it's, when it's racing thoughts that is based in your mind, what are you thinking? What are your beliefs? So start with your beliefs. Do you believe that God is able to help you in all circumstances? You know, it's interesting, Jessica, when I was dealing with this in my own life, it really, it really dawned on me that when I don't believe, that is when worried thoughts come in. It's really. Worry is doubting God. It's doubting God. It's kind of saying, you know, God, I know you went to the cross, and I know you, you know, you died for me, and I know, but for me, it's not really working. And we would never be that direct in our thinking. But one night I was just thinking about that, and I thought, that's what I'm doing when I don't trust God, with everything. Then part of that is when those worried thoughts come in. Because those worried thoughts are, what if, what if, what if? So when we look at the scripture and it says, take every thought captive, like you said, what does that mean? Well, when you put a thought captive, you're confining it. So the very first thing you want to do is you want to look at your anxious thought. Identify it. What is it I'm feeling anxious about? What am I saying in my brain or what am I saying in my mind, you know, about, whatever the situation is. Identify that, and then you confine it. So what does that mean when people are in confinement, when someone's in prison, they're confined. They can't go wandering out into wherever they want to go. So do not allow your thoughts to wander into worried waters. Confine them.
Dr. Linda Mintle: As soon as you identify it, confine it and then say, okay, what's true? What is true in this moment? What is it that I can replace this thought with? You have to replace your thoughts because you can't erase your thoughts in terms of the brain. So. But if you change your brain and you change your thoughts, you can change the way you feel. That's the way it works. So if you say, for instance, you know, I'm worried that I'm not going to have enough money this Christmas to buy kids gifts. Well, if you stop that thought, you identify it, there it is. You confine it to. Now. Is this true? Well, if I'm not, you know, budgeting, it could be true, right? That could be true. But then the solution would be to problem solve. So sometimes our, worried thoughts are based in some reality where we have to have some problem solving with them. Maybe I need to go talk to that coworker. Maybe I need to forgive somebody. Maybe I need to, to budget better. Maybe I need to get out and exercise and do some exercise because that's a huge, antidote to anxiety. So sometimes our thoughts can be clues to what we need to problem solve. But most of the time when they're worry, they're just circling the wagons. They're not going anywhere. It's not going to take you to any kind of goal. It's just going round and round. So that is when we replace the thought with something that is true. You know, Do I have evidence that I don't have any money for Christmas? No. Did I budget ahead? Actually, I did. Do I have, enough money to buy reasonable gifts? Yes.
Dr. Linda Mintle: So again, you replace it and you start to say, this now is not a worried thought. This is just a thought that I have to grab control and replace it with something that's more evidence based or in the truth of God. So I think there's.
Where the power is, is the scripture. And that's why I think scripture is so powerful
Where the power is, is the scripture. Because the word of God is living, it's transformative, it changes us just because it is the word of God. And so when you can replace it with things like what I had to do during the, infertility, say God, I trust you, I believe you. I know that you have my best. Even though it doesn't feel like it right now. I choose to believe that you are for me, not against me. That I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, that when I'm distressed, I can call on you and you hear me, me. So a lot of this is using scripture and knowing scripture and then applying it to the situation, whatever it is that you're in. And that's why I think scripture is so powerful. Yes, you can say positive things. Sure, you can say positive things. That's what secular people do. They, they replace their thoughts with something more positive. But we have the transformative power of Christ in his word and it, it is real and it is alive and it changes you when you apply it with your, your words and in your mind. So that is the most powerful, I think thing that you can do is replace it with the truth of the word of God. And no matter what it is, just compare what God says to whatever you're hearing in the world, whatever you're hearing in your environment, whatever if you have family conflict and you know, replace what God says to be true. Separate out those family members from the truth of God's character and make sure that you're aligning yourself with the word of God.
Dr. Jessica Peck: there's nothing more powerful than that. You're so right. And that's one of the reasons I really have a, I don't know what word I should use. But obviously I'm not overly fond of the self help industry because I think there are limitations on how we can help help ourselves. I mean, yes, I can say, oh yes, I am m strong, I am capable, I can do those Things. But I really want to say, you know, if God is for me, then who can be against me if I'm afraid? I want to say God has not given me a spirit of fear, but a power and love and a sound mind. And I want to say things like when I pass through the waters, God will be with me. You know, he will tuck me under his feathers. He's a strong tower that I can run to. I mean the righteous run in. I just, I think of all those things and there's no comparison for any self help message that I can give that compares to that. And that's why I think one of the most fundamental things that families can do for their Mintle health is to start memorizing scripture. Scripture, speak it over your families. Speak those words. Because when my kids are coming home and they're feeling anxious, I can say, oh, don't be anxious. You know, I'm here, I'll help you, I'll support you. And I can also tell you, you know, that, that have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. That is the most powerful follow up.
Dr. Mintle says worry sometimes is a prompt to change our behavior
And Dr. Mintle you said something that's really important that I want to go back to for just a second because you said that worry sometimes is a prompt to change our behavior. And I think that's true in a lot more cases than we realize. And sometimes, you know, when you touch a hot stove, your brain gets the message. Move your hand. And it's the same thing with worry. We can look at it as, there's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves these days. And if we look and we see we're feeling worried, okay, well, we've over committed our time, we've over committed our finances, and now we're wondering how are we going to juggle it all? And all of this pressure we put on ourselves. Now sometimes it's more complicated than that and I want to close with that.
There's a difference between being concerned about something versus worry
But talk a little bit more about using seeing worry as a healthy prompt to change your behavior.
Dr. Linda Mintle: So in one of the. I actually wrote a book on worry. Just that, that, that subject alone. And one of the distinctions I made in that book was there's a difference between being concerned about something versus worry. And I make very specific distinctions between concern and worry. So you should be concerned, you should be concerned with what we're seeing in our culture. You should be concerned with, you know, whatever is going on in your family life that could be problematic. But when it becomes a distressing and Impairing, you know, activity where it's in your mind and it's causing you distress and impairment. You're not functioning. It's more than just an everyday concern. Then you're in the worried. Water matters. And that's where you have to grab those thoughts and take them captive and start renewing your mind. So, yes, concerns should lead you and prompt you to do things. When you're concerned about trafficking of children, you should be doing something to help those children, you know, in whatever way you can, whatever, if it's giving money or whatever you, you need to do. But that is a distinction that we have to make is that difference. And when we do go into worry, I do believe that God is not pleased with that kind of behavior. Because in the essence, worry is doubt. It's doubting God. It's doubting God when you're worrying versus when you're actually identifying a concern. So I think that's an important distinction to make in your life, to not engage in worry, but certainly be aware, be concerned, look at your problems in your life. Work on problem solving and having good coping skills. But don't allow your mind to just engage in the. This circ, you know, just circling the wagons. It's like sitting on a rocking chair and never going anywhere with worry. Because it has no goal. It doesn't take you anywhere. It has no effective purpose. It doesn't work in the ways people think it works. It doesn't make you more aware of something. Concern and problem solving and identifying issues is different. So that's an important distinction.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It is an important distinction, and equally important, I think, is the distinction you talked about earlier. Because sometimes we, we have worry. We just wade into those worried waters. But I. Oh, and we're already at the end. Oh, no. I feel like this is like, dot, dot, dot. To be continued. And maybe we'll be able to continue our conversation. Dr. Mintle we only have one minute left, but I want you to speak to those who are struggling with anxiety that maybe is related to something they're still discovering that, that, that is physiological. Just speak to those who just feel like they're still in that deep water. Can you give them a word of prayer?
Dr. Linda Mintle: Anxiety is not something as mysterious to us. We know exactly what it is. We know how to treat it. We know what to do. And there's so many strategies that you can do to take care of anxiety on your own if you, if you know what those are. So be encouraged. There is a lot of hope. You don't have to live your life being anxious. And you can. I'm a. I'm a walking example of somebody that overcame a lot of anxiety early on in my life. Life. You can do it, too.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Thank you so much for sharing that. And as my. One of my team members always tells me, radio is so rude. Cuts us off right at the good part of the conversation. But I hope to have you back and continue the conversation. The workbook is called Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a guide to manage stress and overcome anxiety. I can't emphasize what Dr. Mintle said enough. We know a lot about anxiety and what to do about it. You just gotta do it. So maybe that doing it today is picking up your computer, your phone and ordering this workbook and taking a step forward, talking to someone and seeking a healing journey. And as you do that, I pray that wherever you are that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace. And most of all today, I pray that he gives you hope and healing from anxiety. It is possible. I'll see you right back here tomorrow. Merry Christmas, everybody.
Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner, and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And not only is it my favorite time of day, it is my favorite time of year. I see everywhere slogans that say the most wonderful time of the year. And I do believe that I am one of those people who loves to celebrate. And when we are celebrating, we're singing about joy, we're hanging lights. We tell ourselves this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. But I know that for many people listening right now, the holidays feel heavier than that. And at the holidays, it's almost like you carry a special burden with that because you think this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. I'm, supposed to be enjoying this. I'm supposed to be happy with my family. And then you feel guilty because you're struggling, and then you feel like you're missing out, and then you feel like you're making your family and friends miss out. And all of these things that can happen sometimes at the holiday. Grief is just louder for some reason. Finances are tighter. Family tension is thicker. Loneliness may feel sharper than usual. And anxiety and depression that maybe you struggle with during the year seems like it's just even more difficult to deal with. So if Christmas has ever made you feel more anxious than peaceful, more overwhelmed than joyful, listen, you're not broken, and you're not alone. You're not broken anymore than we are broken humans living in a broken world, in a falling world. And today we are talking about the part of the Christmas story that we don't always acknowledge. That ache, that waiting, and honestly, the real human struggle that surrounds it. I'm sure many of you have seen commercials that show people holding up masks. And this is what depression looks like. This is what anxiety looks like. Often you don't know it's there, but it is there. And today I'm excited, though, because we are going to invite hope into the conversation, into the middle of all of this messiness. And joining me today is Dr. Linda Mintle She is a licensed therapist, a professor, a national speaker, and, best selling author of more than 20 books, including her newest workbook, Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a guide to manage stress and overcome anxiety. And it was released by the American association of Christian Counselors and We have featured their executive director before and, told you about their services. And m. I'm so glad today for Dr. Mintle to bring to you some clinical wisdom, but also some spiritual compassion to the conversation that we'll have, because she understands anxiety, not only professionally, but personally. Dr. Mintle, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Linda Mintle: It's really a pleasure to be here. And I'm so glad we're talking about this at the holidays because you made a huge, list of reasons why people become more overwhelmed and get overly stressed. And it's true. And even with things like you talked about with grief and loss. So it's a really important topic to hit so that as we go into the holidays, we can be so much more aware and intentional about what we do so that we keep anxiety at bay. And that's really the goal.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're so right. And sometimes there's a long list of reasons, and sometimes I think even more frustratingly, there's no reason at all. Sometimes it just roars for. And you think, why? Why is this happening? But, Dr. Mintle I would love for you to start just by introducing yourself to our listeners. Tell them a little bit about your story, your perspective, and how God brought you to be sitting here today giving this message of in the middle of anxiety.
Dr. Linda Mintle: Well, you mentioned, a little bit of my background. I've been in academia and actually clinical practice for 30 years. So I have. I've worked in a lot, a lot of different universities, two medical schools. I'm currently at a medical school teaching future, physicians. And, obviously I teach them about anxiety because anxiety and depression are two of the most common things that your primary care physician will encounter. So they need to be somewhat equipped. And then when things get a little bit more. More, complicated, they will often refer to someone like me to work with people. So I have a doctorate in urban, health and clinical psychology. I've, done a lot of family work, couples work over the years. I actually have a specialty practice in eating disorders. People, with eating disorders, just because there was a need at the time I was at a medical school for developing those programs. So I went into that. And then when the opioid crisis hit, we started to look really in depth on how to help with pain and pain management. So a lot of my career has become specialized based on whatever I was doing in the clinical realm. Right. And teaching. And I have. I love the academic side of things, but I always want to be really practical with people on what to do. And I never really Thought about writing books and this was decades ago when a publisher approached me, was actually after the Columbine incident or the mass school shootings and asked me if I would write a book. And I never really thought about that. And that really began a long journey of writing on various topics. A lot on dieting and weight loss and you know, emotional eating, compulsive overeating, a lot on body image and mother and mothers and daughters relationship. So I'm the relationship doctor on my own podcast and I do a lot on relationships. and certainly as we're talking through the holidays, this is one of the key times when family dynamics, friendships, coworkers, office parties, all of these things really impact. But when the AACC came to me and said we would love you to write a workbook on anxiety, I thought back and I thought I've got 20 books and I've never really written on anxiety. Specifically one book talked about it a bit and I thought this would be great because so many people are struggling, so many people just want to have some strategies of what to do. And certainly I'm a person of faith and there's a, there's a spiritual directive that we're not supposed to be anxious about anything. And I thought, wow, you know, if God gives us that directive, there must be prescriptive ways of helping with all of this or he wouldn't ask us to do that. And then I, I began the book and the journey with my own personal story which is when I was on my way to the University of Michigan as a freshly minted freshman, my oldest brother was killed on, from a terrorist bomb on airplane. And that was long before we heard anything about terrorism. So this was not something, this was way before 9 11. We didn't know much about it. he was they attacked the plane. It was a commercial flight over NewSong Delhi, India and there were no survivors. And I just recall that, that when this happened on a, on a June afternoon, a sunny June afternoon, I was, I came home during the day and I, I saw my father in the kitchen during the day and I thought, well that's unusual and strange. And my mom was at work and I thought what is going on? And I saw the army officer at our kitchen table and he gave us the news and I mean it was just overwhelming. And as a result of that moment in time and the consequences that flowed out of that of having to tell my sister in law that she had just lost her husband and she had a two year old and A child on the way. a lot of that story, began a journey for me into feeling anxious about a lot of things in the future that were uncertain. And certainly my mom became anxious whenever I would get on an airplane. And, you know, was worried about what would happen to us. But it's a journey that I've walked myself during that period. And then a very long period of seven years of infertility where nothing was happening. I was in one of those unique categories of being undefined in my own, infertility. And it was just a very difficult time. Month after month of disappointment. Now, eventually I have two children, but seven years was a long time to deal with something that was unknown, uncertain. People around me were getting pregnant. I, I even talk about in my church. we started an infertility group and there were eight of us in that group. And at one point, everyone in the group got pregnant except me. And so I was down to one. I thought, well, I can't have a group with one person. But certainly if I had not had my faith and I had not understood how anxiety worked, I would have had a very difficult time. But I'm a walking example of how you can be free from all of that. And that's why I was excited when they said, hey, write a workbook on this. Give us some tips and strategies and what worked and what worked for you, but also what works for your clients and your patients as well.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, and there definitely is a need for it because this workbook sold out on Amazon, but is available at the American association of Christian Counselors. So if you feel like, I don't know if I can buy a workbook about anxiety, well, plenty of people have. And I think that's encouraging to m me to see people acknowledging, okay, these are the limitations of my own humanity. I'm so sorry for what you experienced, especially for the loss of your brother. How, how terrible that must be and how, how hopeful it must be to circumstance, though, with the hope of faith, the hope of God. And I don't, I just don't even have any words for an experience like that. But I think that sometimes we need to acknowledge the limitations of our own humanity because we think, oh, I can just pray more, I can just, you know, try harder. I can just, you know, buy my own strength, like help myself. And the self help industry is just booming right now. And I believe, and I think you share the same view that there are limitations to how much we can help ourself. And we really have to rely on God. And you're so right in quoting that scripture, from Philippians, about being anxious for nothing. You said it was prescriptive, and it's prescriptive right there in the scripture. But with prayer and thanksgiving. And we know now the benefits of gratitude. We know scientifically the medical benefits of gratitude. And when that verse says it will protect your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. You know, I was just kind of thought about your theoretical heart. Like, oh, it protects your, your feelings, but it protects your literal blood vessels because it lowers your blood pressure and it protects your heart health. And I find that so encouraging.
Dr. Linda Mintle says anxiety is common during the holidays
So, Dr. Mendel, tell us, why is anxiety harder in some ways during the holidays? What do we see?
Dr. Linda Mintle: Well, I, I'm glad that you said it's common. So I, I want everybody who's listening in to us to, to really understand that, you know, we don't want to stigmatize people for having this. I mean, we have a whole generation that's been called the anxious generation. Right. So it's. And you're right, it's a great problem to have a book sell out on Amazon now, hopefully they're going to restock it and get it back on. But it was great that you said AACC.net if you want it today, because, it's going to be there in the future, but you can certainly get it now. I think the issue here is that while my personal anxiety began with a lot of loss and uncertainty and, related to a medical issue that really was undiagnosed, those are three entrees into that. But there are so many other reasons why people can have anxiety. And a lot of it can be based in your childhood experiences, any kind of trauma. Just you may be a, personality type that gets very anxious easily, stress, coping skills. There's so many reasons why, people can get anxious. And one of them I want to mention, since you're a nurse practitioner, is we don't always think about, you know, the side effects of medications. those can create anxiety for some people, sometimes medical conditions. I mean, I teach in cardiology, and if you have a heart condition or, you know, you're much more susceptible to depression and anxiety just as a result of the physical changes that happen in the body. And then we don't always talk about lifestyle. And, you mentioned loneliness, one of the key factors in this. But also social media and even watching the nightly news. I mean, that can make so many people anxious because it's all bad news most of the time. Rarely do they Have a story on something positive every once in a while. But, you know, so there's so, so many ways that you can become anxious. But, I teach Jessica, in a, in an osteopathic school, and it's, body, mind and spirit. So I get to bring in the faith part of what I teach in this medical school. It's actually a Christian medical school. And so integrating your spiritual remedies into what we're going to be talking about in terms of lifestyle changes and the way you think and how to calm down your body when you get overly stressed, all of these things work together. And this is why it's important for people not to just give platitudes to each other. And, boy, I heard those when I went through my own struggles. You know, I heard, pray more, pray harder. God's got this, you know, all the things that people were very well meaning, and well intended, I think, when they were saying this thing to me. But sometimes you just need a little bit more to get to that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You. Dr. Mintle we are already at our first break. Time is flying, but we have a lot more help and hope on the way. Listen in after the break. We will be right back with more from Dr. Linda Mintle And we'll be talking more about what you can do, how you find hope and healing from anxiety. And you can go to the American association of Christian Counselors to find this workbook. We'll have more help and hope after the break.
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Until You by Danny Gokey: We were hopeless Looking for an answer until you. We were hurting calling for a helper until you. You put a star up in the sky and the angels on high Declaring the good news we were desperate longing for a savior until, you. Glory, glory, Christmas morning Hallelujah all is new Love came down and changed our story Every heart was waiting until you.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is until, you by Danny Gokey and as I'm sitting here listening to him sing that song about Christ coming as a baby, about the birth Jesus, about the hope of the Savior for the world, I think about the 400 years of darkness that were before that, of the waiting and the waiting and the waiting. And some of you may feel like that now. You feel like you're just in a waiting room that just seems really dark and you're feeling anxiety. Now, anxiety, I, want you to know it is not a moral failure. Anxiety is not a spiritual weakness. Anxiety doesn't mean feeling anxious, doesn't mean that God is disappointed in you or that you're not trying hard enough. Anxiety is your nervous system that's under strain. It's your mind reacting to try to protect you. It's your body reacting to that overload. But when you are sitting in it, when you are experiencing it, it starts to distort reality. It steals your peace. And most of all, what I see it do is whisper lies about who God is and who you are. And today we are unmasking that anxiety and helping you to find healing. I'm talking to Dr. Linda Mintle She has written a workbook and it's available right now. It's sold out on Amazon because there this is such a problem that so many people struggle with. But it's available at the American association of Christian counselors aacc.net it's called hope and Healing for Anxiety, a Guide to Manage Stress and overcome anxiety. And Dr. Mintle has told you about her own personal story with anxiety and her extensive professional clinical expertise. And Dr. Mintle, before the break, we were talking about the ways that anxiety presents. And you and I both work in primary care. I've worked in primary care my entire career. And when it comes in, though usually I've never had on my patient panel, you know, patients saying, wondering if this might be anxiety, it usually says, like, worried about blood pressure not or blood sugar not. sleeping well. You know, think I have the flu or something. I have pain somewhere. Usually it's their body that's trying to give Those signals that we don't always recognize that this is anxiety. And so let's talk about the difference between anxiety in your mind and your body, how that presents, what it looks like, why that happens, and most importantly, what we can do about it.
Dr. Linda Mintle: Yeah, it's such a good point. because a part of what happens is there are times when you just experience anxiety and you don't know why. You have no idea. You just, you just go. You have that anxious feeling sometimes with people, it's panic or just a feeling of, you know, just high arousal. And while all of this I'm going to talk about, you already mentioned Jessica, it all originates in your nervous system, but it's important to understand that when you don't really know what's causing it, and you just have the feeling, there are different strategies that you use versus when the, when the anxiety is originating in your mind. So when you're having anxious thoughts, when you're laying, you know, in bed and you're trying to sleep, and you're rehearsing the what ifs and what ifs, and if this happens and that happens, and, and that's what worry is. Worry is this anticipated negative outcome of, of something. It's doubting, it's wondering. And so that's a very different kind of approach that you want to use when it's more in your mind versus when it's in your body. Because what's happening in your body is that your nervous system has put down some memories of things, and it remembers things that you're not even aware of. Because your nervous system just is surveilling the environment, all the time. So you could walk past somebody and you might not even. You probably won't be conscious of this, but if they reminded you of somebody that you knew who was really bullying to you at one point, or abused you, suddenly you can have a moment in your body and you won't even put those connections together. So it's really important to pay attention to what your body is telling you. So if you're feeling anxious in your body, there are certain things that you can do that will get you back into a calm state. And a couple of those are, just let me give some really easy hacks for people to use. So when you're just feeling. Feeling highly anxious, part of what's happening is there's a part in your brain that's the feeling part that's just overtaken you. And the thinking part of your brain, which is another part of your brain, is Offline. So just think of it like that. The feeling part is online, overwhelming. The thinking part is offline, and it's not thinking. Well, what you want to do is get your thinking brain back online so you can calm your body down. A, lot of things that can help with that social connection. you mentioned this right at the beginning of this segment, where just maybe talking to somebody and there's a lot of calming that happens. If I were to look right into the camera and I would look at you, Jessica, and I would use this tone of voice and I would talk to you in a very calm way. I'm already calming you down because of what was happening in the cranial nerves in your body. So even just having conversations. That's why sometimes we say to people, talk to someone, you know, get in a conversation. Another really simple one that, that people use, but they don't really think about it. To anxiety. It's just deep breathing. It's just being able to take a really big exhale on four and then a long, I mean, inhale on four and then a very long exhale on eight. And what you're doing is there's a, there's this, this very long wandering nerve called the vagus nerve. And it's really activating the part of that, that's the calming part of your nerve. You can't be tense and calm at the same time. So part of this work, when your body is tensing up and getting anxious, is to do some things that can relax it. So that's a good one. Sometimes distraction is one of the best ways if you're having a very anxious moment, like, let's say you have to go on stage and you have to give a, talk or something. If you just stand there and I tell the medical students to do this all the time before a high yield exam, I'll just say, you know, start, counting to 10 in Spanish. Think, of five cities that begin with the letter A. What am I doing? I'm now distracting my brain into something very specific. And I'm going to calm the rest of my body down by doing a distraction. So there's a lot of ways you can distract yourself. You can look at an object in a room and you can just start describing it quietly to yourself. you can pay attention to your feet on the ground and the ground around you, and you can name five objects in the room. All of those little hacks will take you out of an anxious state and put you back into a moment of calm and that then you can start thinking, you know, what's going on, what's triggering me, what is, what's happening. So that's easy for the body. The mind is a little bit different. When you start talking about the mind.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Let'S stop there for just a second at the body, and then. And then we'll go on to the mind. Because I think this is really important, Dr. Mintle because, you know, because you're talking about when you're having those anxious feelings, when your pulse is racing, when you feel sweaty, you feel. Feel flushed, you have that fight or flight or freeze response. You know, those are ways to regulate your body. And.
You talk about the importance of holistic health when talking about anxiety
And before we move on and talk about the mind, which I definitely want to do, you and I were talking a little bit in the break about the importance of holistic health. And I think that everybody wants a quick fix. We live in a world of instant gratification. These things that you've described, they are quick fixes that I believe that God has given us a measure of grace in our bodies to be able to learn how to calm them down. Now, the more effective, the more that we practice them. But we tend to prefer to scroll as a numbing agent. Now, like, okay, let me just distract myself. You get on your phone or you want a pill, you know, they want a supplement, you want a vitamin, you want a medication. And really, we've got to pay attention to those things, to our, in our bodies. But also the way to set up our bodies for the best health is to be healthy, holistically, to sleep right, to eat right, to move our bodies. And I told you that. I asked my kids, who are all college age, high school age, if they call me and say, you know, I'm feeling a little anxious today. And I say, well, what have you eaten? Junk? Have you. Are you hydrated? No. Because that's another thing that I see, especially in younger people. They may even feel like they're anxious, but really they're just on a caffeine overload. They've had too many energy drinks or too many sodas. are you sleeping? No, I'm not sleeping very well. Have you gotten into the sunshine? Have you touched grass today? No, I haven't. Have you spoken to other people? No, I haven't. And then it's a wonder that your body feels like that. And I think that all connects to your mind. But just wanted to give that a, little space there to talk about how important that is. But I'll let you respond to that. Yeah, no, no, no.
Dr. Linda Mintle: I Want to say something? No. You reminded me of something that's really important. When we're talking about the body. When we do these quick hacks where we just try to get our, our body to calm down for the moment. The idea of that is not to then go numb like you said, or medicate yourself or whatever. The idea of that is to stay in the present moment. Now, this is one of the most important things about anxiety. You have to confront anxiety and you have to move through it for it to get better. Avoidance does not work. And a lot of people, when they feel anxious, they just want to avoid. Well, I'll never give a talk. I'll never go talk to that person. I'm not going to deal with conflict. I'm not going to, you know, talk to my boss, whatever it is. That is the worst thing you can do. Because when you avoid, you just keep having the same pattern of behavior over and over. And you want to interrupt that negative pattern. And the way that you do that is to calm yourself for the moment and then push yourself through the anxiety. We call this exposing yourself exposed to the anxiety. And the reason that's so important is because then the mind learns that, hey, this wasn't so bad after all. Wait, I just rode that elevator that I was so afraid of. Nothing terrible happened to me. You know, I felt hugely anxious when I had to get up in front of my company and give a talk. But you know what? I didn't die. Nothing terrible happened. I felt anxious. And the more you practice things that you feel anxious about, the better you're going to get, because the brain has to learn the new way of doing it. Now, I really want to say this, and you probably agree with me, we haven't talked about this ahead, but I'm not a big believer in using benzodiazepines. It's a medication as an anti anxiety drug. Because what that does in the brain is it basically puts the brain to sleep. And no new learning happens when you're on a benzodiazepine. So if you're someone, for instance, that's really struggling with anxiety, it would be better to do this exposure work where you expose yourself to the thing that you're afraid of. You gradually move through it until you get to the point where you can tolerate it. That is the best strategy for anxiety. And unfortunately not a lot of people use that. And it goes back to, like you said, we just want a pill for something. But boy, if you can use, if you can expose yourself to the very thing that you're afraid of and move through it with the help of maybe a therapist or a counselor or just even the workbook, then you're going to get to the other side and you're going to conquer that thing and you're not going to need. Need a medication.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That, that is really tough because I think, you know, sometimes medication is a critical part of therapy. But, especially, you know, my experiences at, children, and I think a lot of parents are surprised when I say the first line therapy for anxiety and depression are things like cognitive behavioral therapy are just these coping mechanisms that you have to name and claim. You have to recognize them, you have to practice them, you have to see them as tools in your toolbox. Okay, I'm feeling anxious here.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Here.
Dr. Jessica Peck: What tool do I want to pull out right now to calm myself in the moment? Okay. And then what coping mechanism do I use? And the more that you do it, the better that you get at it. And this all goes back to scripture. Thinking about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, taking every thought captive, and then that goes to our minds, which. That is the runaway train here. And the anxiety is that escalating thought process. But what if, what, what if, what if, what if? And then all of a sudden you've just spun yourself into an anxiety tornado, and then you feel a lot of guilt and shame about that. And it's just usually a cycle that's very difficult to stop. Ah, so how do you do that? How do you do that in your mind?
Dr. Linda Mintle: Yeah. Well, one more point before we go to the mind, because I just again think this is so important. You, you kind of hit on it. You know, a lot of times when parents see their kids being anxious, they want to take them out of the anxious situation. You know, they want to protect them, and they don't want them to face things that are really tough and difficult. And that's one of the reasons why we're seeing so much anxiety in teens and young children and even Gen Z, because they have not had to face difficulty a lot of times. And we have this idea that don't make them feel uncomfortable. Don't do anything to me. Well, actually, that's part of resilience is to feel uncomfortable and move through your discomfort, tolerate it. Learn to tolerate that discomfort and be able to be with people who are different and don't think exactly like you do, but or may do things that sometimes you don't always agree with. But don't just remove your children. I really want that message to get to Parents that when you remove them from anything that's, difficult, you're not teaching them to be resilient, and you're not teaching them to be exposed to things that are tough that they need to learn to move through. I think about when I had a difficult, professor back in the day, and the person was really tough. I didn't like it, and I didn't like the way the professor was talking to me all the time. But I certainly learned from that, from that experience, because I thought, okay, I'm not really excited about the way he's talking to me, but what he's saying is really important. Now what we have is people get upset if the professor talks poorly, you know, at you. And, oh, he made me uncomfortable, and this isn't a good thing. And why are they making me uncomfortable? That is just not a good approach. And I think that's a lot of the reason. Reasons why we see this. We see it on social media all the time where people write uncomfortable things and then people just cancel them. You know, this is not the way you learn to deal with people. You have to learn to face conflict. You have to learn to be uncomfortable, tolerate distress. A whole bunch of therapies that are centered around regulating your emotions and tolerating distress.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And that's hard. You're so right. And we're already at our second break. We will talk about the mind when we come back. But I agree, and I think the role of a good parent. We hear a lot about parenting strategies like helicopter and snowplow or bulldozer, just removing any obstacle. I think a good parent is a good coach, and the best thing a coach can do is make sure the practice environment is safe for failure. Let them try, and let them have those building blocks of resilience. We know a lot about resilience and how to raise resilient kids in an anxious world. But we'll be right back with more from Dr. Linda Mintle. Don't go away.
Dr. Al Mohler: Here's Dr. Al Mohler from the American Family Studios documentary. The God who speaks. Jesus in the Gospel of John continually points to the the Scriptures. And as he says famously, these are they that testify of me. If you knew Abraham from the scriptures, you would know me. Jesus himself refused to allow that division between his own authority and the authority of Scripture. He never set scripture aside. What he did was to make very clear that he perfectly fulfilled Scripture. And of course, he went beyond even the Old Testament law in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. I will tell you that if you've lusted in your heart, you have already committed adultery. So Jesus Christ himself drives us back to the authority of scripture, and evidently that's exactly where he wants his church to be. Visit thegodwhospeaks.org.
Hope Has A Name by Passion featuring Kristian Stanfill: The hope of all creation resting in his mother's arms. The song on the horizon ringing through the heavens. The long awaited Savior Come to set the captives free. Come to set the captives free. Come set us free. Hope has a name. Emmanuel. The light of the world who broke through the darkness. The King.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Hope has a Name by Passion featuring Kristian Stanfill And I will tell you, that song is literally at the top of my Christmas playlist this year. And it's such a great message. Hope has a name. Hope is not. something abstract, something unattainable, something that you just can't really wrap your arms around. Something that seems like it's maybe not for you. Hope has a name. And that name is Emmanuel, which means God with us. God sent his son Jesus to be born for you and for me. And he was not born into a picture perfect nativity scene like we all put in our homes. He was born into political unrest and fear and poverty and danger and violence. Does any of that sound familiar? The Christmas story doesn't begin in comfort. It doesn't begin in perfection. It's chaos and imperfection. And that's, I think, one of the reasons why it speaks to us so beautifully today. Because hope is not waiting for the conditions to be perfect to arrive in your life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Hope comes right in the middle of your mess. And maybe that mess that you are feeling today is anxiety. Maybe you're struggling with it personally. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your child. I think it's really hard if you're on the outside of it. If you've never experienced it before you. It's hard. You can't have empathy and you don't really understand it. And sometimes the person who's experiencing it doesn't really understand it. There's a lot of guilt and shame that goes along with it. Why can't I just be stronger? Why can't I just get over this? Why can't I just. Just pray harder? Why can't I just have more faith? And the answer is that our bodies are wonderful creations of God that are marvelously complex. And if God was big enough to, be an. If he was small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped. But I do believe that God has given us grace in some, professionals like My guest today, Dr. Linda Mintle who have studied the bright, the brain and the mind, how the mind works in the body and anxiety. And we know there are some things that we can do, some ways that God has given us to find hope and healing for anxiety. Now, Dr. Mintle has written a workbook about this. Workbooks for Mintle health are really popular and I'm really glad to see it. This book is sold out on Amazon, but you can, and it will be restocked, but you can get it now if you want it now at the American association of Christian counselors. aacc.net it's hope and Healing for Anxiety, a guide to manage stress and overcome anxiety. And it can feel impossible really at times, but there are things that we can do to find hope and healing and refinement in the waiting and the messiness of the, of the process.
Your primary care clinician should be someone you trust with your life
Now Dr. Mintle we were talking before the break just about the importance of, of kids responding to our kids recognizing when they're feeling anxious and what can we do about it. And your primary care clinician should be someone. And I'm going to talk about that actually on a show the first of the year. We're going to talk about how do you find primary care that you trust literally with your life and that is such an important connection to help you differentiate from. Is this on the normal spectrum of human emotion to, okay, is this rising to the level of diagnostic criteria? Is it impacting your daily life? Do we need a more focused plan?
Let's talk about the mind and what role that plays in anxiety
And I think we are going to spend this last few minutes talking together about the mind. We've talked a lot about the body. Let's talk about the mind and what role that that plays in anxiety and what we can do to take every thought captive.
Dr. Linda Mintle: Yeah, it's all connected. Right? So your emotions are connected to your behavior. That's connected to the way you think and your beliefs and your thoughts. And so when you look at anxiety, it really is pretty, pretty based, when it's, when it's racing thoughts that is based in your mind, what are you thinking? What are your beliefs? So start with your beliefs. Do you believe that God is able to help you in all circumstances? You know, it's interesting, Jessica, when I was dealing with this in my own life, it really, it really dawned on me that when I don't believe, that is when worried thoughts come in. It's really. Worry is doubting God. It's doubting God. It's kind of saying, you know, God, I know you went to the cross, and I know you, you know, you died for me, and I know, but for me, it's not really working. And we would never be that direct in our thinking. But one night I was just thinking about that, and I thought, that's what I'm doing when I don't trust God, with everything. Then part of that is when those worried thoughts come in. Because those worried thoughts are, what if, what if, what if? So when we look at the scripture and it says, take every thought captive, like you said, what does that mean? Well, when you put a thought captive, you're confining it. So the very first thing you want to do is you want to look at your anxious thought. Identify it. What is it I'm feeling anxious about? What am I saying in my brain or what am I saying in my mind, you know, about, whatever the situation is. Identify that, and then you confine it. So what does that mean when people are in confinement, when someone's in prison, they're confined. They can't go wandering out into wherever they want to go. So do not allow your thoughts to wander into worried waters. Confine them.
Dr. Linda Mintle: As soon as you identify it, confine it and then say, okay, what's true? What is true in this moment? What is it that I can replace this thought with? You have to replace your thoughts because you can't erase your thoughts in terms of the brain. So. But if you change your brain and you change your thoughts, you can change the way you feel. That's the way it works. So if you say, for instance, you know, I'm worried that I'm not going to have enough money this Christmas to buy kids gifts. Well, if you stop that thought, you identify it, there it is. You confine it to. Now. Is this true? Well, if I'm not, you know, budgeting, it could be true, right? That could be true. But then the solution would be to problem solve. So sometimes our, worried thoughts are based in some reality where we have to have some problem solving with them. Maybe I need to go talk to that coworker. Maybe I need to forgive somebody. Maybe I need to, to budget better. Maybe I need to get out and exercise and do some exercise because that's a huge, antidote to anxiety. So sometimes our thoughts can be clues to what we need to problem solve. But most of the time when they're worry, they're just circling the wagons. They're not going anywhere. It's not going to take you to any kind of goal. It's just going round and round. So that is when we replace the thought with something that is true. You know, Do I have evidence that I don't have any money for Christmas? No. Did I budget ahead? Actually, I did. Do I have, enough money to buy reasonable gifts? Yes.
Dr. Linda Mintle: So again, you replace it and you start to say, this now is not a worried thought. This is just a thought that I have to grab control and replace it with something that's more evidence based or in the truth of God. So I think there's.
Where the power is, is the scripture. And that's why I think scripture is so powerful
Where the power is, is the scripture. Because the word of God is living, it's transformative, it changes us just because it is the word of God. And so when you can replace it with things like what I had to do during the, infertility, say God, I trust you, I believe you. I know that you have my best. Even though it doesn't feel like it right now. I choose to believe that you are for me, not against me. That I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, that when I'm distressed, I can call on you and you hear me, me. So a lot of this is using scripture and knowing scripture and then applying it to the situation, whatever it is that you're in. And that's why I think scripture is so powerful. Yes, you can say positive things. Sure, you can say positive things. That's what secular people do. They, they replace their thoughts with something more positive. But we have the transformative power of Christ in his word and it, it is real and it is alive and it changes you when you apply it with your, your words and in your mind. So that is the most powerful, I think thing that you can do is replace it with the truth of the word of God. And no matter what it is, just compare what God says to whatever you're hearing in the world, whatever you're hearing in your environment, whatever if you have family conflict and you know, replace what God says to be true. Separate out those family members from the truth of God's character and make sure that you're aligning yourself with the word of God.
Dr. Jessica Peck: there's nothing more powerful than that. You're so right. And that's one of the reasons I really have a, I don't know what word I should use. But obviously I'm not overly fond of the self help industry because I think there are limitations on how we can help help ourselves. I mean, yes, I can say, oh yes, I am m strong, I am capable, I can do those Things. But I really want to say, you know, if God is for me, then who can be against me if I'm afraid? I want to say God has not given me a spirit of fear, but a power and love and a sound mind. And I want to say things like when I pass through the waters, God will be with me. You know, he will tuck me under his feathers. He's a strong tower that I can run to. I mean the righteous run in. I just, I think of all those things and there's no comparison for any self help message that I can give that compares to that. And that's why I think one of the most fundamental things that families can do for their Mintle health is to start memorizing scripture. Scripture, speak it over your families. Speak those words. Because when my kids are coming home and they're feeling anxious, I can say, oh, don't be anxious. You know, I'm here, I'll help you, I'll support you. And I can also tell you, you know, that, that have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. That is the most powerful follow up.
Dr. Mintle says worry sometimes is a prompt to change our behavior
And Dr. Mintle you said something that's really important that I want to go back to for just a second because you said that worry sometimes is a prompt to change our behavior. And I think that's true in a lot more cases than we realize. And sometimes, you know, when you touch a hot stove, your brain gets the message. Move your hand. And it's the same thing with worry. We can look at it as, there's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves these days. And if we look and we see we're feeling worried, okay, well, we've over committed our time, we've over committed our finances, and now we're wondering how are we going to juggle it all? And all of this pressure we put on ourselves. Now sometimes it's more complicated than that and I want to close with that.
There's a difference between being concerned about something versus worry
But talk a little bit more about using seeing worry as a healthy prompt to change your behavior.
Dr. Linda Mintle: So in one of the. I actually wrote a book on worry. Just that, that, that subject alone. And one of the distinctions I made in that book was there's a difference between being concerned about something versus worry. And I make very specific distinctions between concern and worry. So you should be concerned, you should be concerned with what we're seeing in our culture. You should be concerned with, you know, whatever is going on in your family life that could be problematic. But when it becomes a distressing and Impairing, you know, activity where it's in your mind and it's causing you distress and impairment. You're not functioning. It's more than just an everyday concern. Then you're in the worried. Water matters. And that's where you have to grab those thoughts and take them captive and start renewing your mind. So, yes, concerns should lead you and prompt you to do things. When you're concerned about trafficking of children, you should be doing something to help those children, you know, in whatever way you can, whatever, if it's giving money or whatever you, you need to do. But that is a distinction that we have to make is that difference. And when we do go into worry, I do believe that God is not pleased with that kind of behavior. Because in the essence, worry is doubt. It's doubting God. It's doubting God when you're worrying versus when you're actually identifying a concern. So I think that's an important distinction to make in your life, to not engage in worry, but certainly be aware, be concerned, look at your problems in your life. Work on problem solving and having good coping skills. But don't allow your mind to just engage in the. This circ, you know, just circling the wagons. It's like sitting on a rocking chair and never going anywhere with worry. Because it has no goal. It doesn't take you anywhere. It has no effective purpose. It doesn't work in the ways people think it works. It doesn't make you more aware of something. Concern and problem solving and identifying issues is different. So that's an important distinction.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It is an important distinction, and equally important, I think, is the distinction you talked about earlier. Because sometimes we, we have worry. We just wade into those worried waters. But I. Oh, and we're already at the end. Oh, no. I feel like this is like, dot, dot, dot. To be continued. And maybe we'll be able to continue our conversation. Dr. Mintle we only have one minute left, but I want you to speak to those who are struggling with anxiety that maybe is related to something they're still discovering that, that, that is physiological. Just speak to those who just feel like they're still in that deep water. Can you give them a word of prayer?
Dr. Linda Mintle: Anxiety is not something as mysterious to us. We know exactly what it is. We know how to treat it. We know what to do. And there's so many strategies that you can do to take care of anxiety on your own if you, if you know what those are. So be encouraged. There is a lot of hope. You don't have to live your life being anxious. And you can. I'm a. I'm a walking example of somebody that overcame a lot of anxiety early on in my life. Life. You can do it, too.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Thank you so much for sharing that. And as my. One of my team members always tells me, radio is so rude. Cuts us off right at the good part of the conversation. But I hope to have you back and continue the conversation. The workbook is called Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a guide to manage stress and overcome anxiety. I can't emphasize what Dr. Mintle said enough. We know a lot about anxiety and what to do about it. You just gotta do it. So maybe that doing it today is picking up your computer, your phone and ordering this workbook and taking a step forward, talking to someone and seeking a healing journey. And as you do that, I pray that wherever you are that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace. And most of all today, I pray that he gives you hope and healing from anxiety. It is possible. I'll see you right back here tomorrow. Merry Christmas, everybody.
Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Dr. Linda Mintle joins Jessica to talk about increased anxiety and stress during the holidays that can lead to seasonal depression.
Rx for Hope: Find Hope and Healing for Anxiety
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