Are You More Anxious Than You Think? A Scientific Way to Find Out!
By Melanie Yukov
Transcript:
Hi, are you anxious? And maybe don’t even realize that. So there is a scientific way to really understand if you’re prone to anxiety, if you’re prone to being anxious, and I’m going to share with you what that is today. I’m Melanie of Root to rise wellness, and I empower anxious women over 40 facing reflux and other digestive issues, to rebalance their nervous systems, to move stuck energy and to basically understand their body’s needs. And this is the foundation of really lasting peace and confidence.
Understanding Interoception
So one of the ways we can know if we are anxious is by the word interoception. What does that mean?
So there’s two parts to interoception that are really important. One is the actual experience, and then the other is the interpretation of the experience. Because the reality is two people can experience the same trauma and react differently to it right? And so we want to make sure we’re creating healthy pathways, right, and we are understanding how much of our bodies we’re in tune with.
Now, having good interoception may or may not be a good thing, because if you’re hypersensitive in your own body, like I am, then you’re hyper attuned to discomfort or things and and you have neurons firing at you all the time, and you may be really reactive and really sensitive.
And so I am that way. I have a high interoception score, which means I’m more prone to kind of anxiety, which is why I have a lot of tools that I use to help me, and I’m sharing that with clients.
I have a high interoception score, which means I'm more prone to anxiety, which is why I have a lot of tools that I use to help me, and I'm sharing that with clients.
Tools to Lower Anxiety
So you can have tools such as slowing down your breath. So normal breathing would be, let’s say, 12 breaths per minute, if you do something called coherence breathing, and you lower that to six breaths per minute, right? You’re calming your body, and you’re getting into that parasympathetic or more rest and digest state, another thing would be putting your feet in the earth barefoot, right?
Earthing, or doing my vagus training. So I have a 20 minute training that gets you into the parasympathetic state and really works on detoxing, healing, increasing your immunity and getting into that rest and digest state.
Determining Your Interoception Score
So how can you know if you are if you have a high interoception or a low interoception score, a really low score wouldn’t be good either, because then you’re not in tune with your body sensations at all. Right?
So one way that you can do this is get a stopwatch and count how many heartbeats you feel in a minute, okay, and then write that number down, and then with your fingers on your wrist or on your neck, count your heart beats and write that number down, and that would be again in one minute. Then wait two minutes and do it again.
And then what you’re going to do is take the average of those numbers. So if you count 60 heartbeats and the pulse average is 80, then your difference is 20, then you divide the difference by the pulse average, which would be point two, five. In this example, track that number from one, and then you get your interoception score. And here are what the averages are, so then you can know if you have moderate, high or low interoception.
So this is kind of a clue as to how in tune are you with your bodily sensations. And then the next step is obviously learning strategies to get you more in that relaxed state and being aware that you are maybe hyper vigilant, like I am, and need more strategies, essentially, to get into that rest and digest state.
If you’d like my vagus nerve training, you can grab that on my website. It is free currently, and it’s at Root2rise wellness.org/vagusnerve, and that is 20 minutes practice where it can get you more in that rest and digest state. Thank you. Melanie, from Root to Rise Wellness.
In addition to being a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Melanie is also a Community Herbalist. She has been a practicing Pediatric Speech and Language Pathologist for 20 years with a degree from Columbia University. She integrates her passion for teaching children in her mommy and me Herbalicious Exploration Classes where she connects people of all ages to their roots, nature, and healthy practices through conscious community. What she has learned from her journey has led to her Core Beliefs which you can read about along with her many trainings and certifications here: https://root2risewellness.org/about.
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