Last week, I told you about some tricky brain functions that may sometimes fool you. If you missed the blog, you can check it out HERE.

This week, let's talk about what you can do when you feel yourself starting to freak out. I will be giving you some specific questions that you can ask yourself whenever you are on the verge of panicking, to make sure that the bomb doesn't go off. Watch the full video below or keep reading...

When you're in prefrontal cortex overload and you start panicking, it affects you at a neurobiological level. You start sweating, your heart's racing, you may feel powerful emotions like anger, fear, hurt, sadness, guilt, terror, helplessness... But all the pieces of information that are causing for you to feel this way can very often be controlled by the way you perceive things. We are usually in a stage where we are actually exaggerating. We are catastrophizing, as we've seen LAST WEEK.

So how do we disarm the bomb and make sure that it doesn't go off? I've found that these 3 questions are very powerful. They're from Brenee Brown’s latest book.

1. "Do I have enough information to freak out?"

Something just happened and you're about to freak out. Ask yourself: "Do I have enough information to freak out?" What a great question! Very often, the answer is no. For example, let's say that the power is out, and then you start freaking out because you have a meeting coming up. Well, do you know for sure that the power will be out for the rest of the day, or is it going to be out only for five minutes, or was it just a click?

Sometimes, there's just no point in freaking out. Maybe we don't have all the information. I could go on and on with many different examples, and I'm sure you can think of some as well.

2. "Will freaking out help?"

Brenee Brown is brilliant, really. The answer to this question is almost always a no. When you start freaking out, you are in emotion mode. You're not in thinking mode. And when you're freaking out, your heart starts beating faster, you start sweating... Let's just say you're not at your best. The answer is always no.

So how do you stay calm? The very first thing you do is take a deep breath, close your eyes, refer back to the first question and think: "Do I have enough information to freak out?" And then you ask yourself: "Will freaking out help?" It's always no.

3. "Is this really bad, or is it good, or is it too soon to know?"

I like that one, because is this really bad? Sometimes it's just not fun. Sometimes it's just bad, but is it really bad? Or maybe it's good. How could it be good? Let's refer back to many of my blogs where I suggested you ask yourself what you are learning. There has got to be a positive learning from this, a silver lining. Could that potentially be good? Or is it too soon to know? Maybe it's just too soon to know. Let's not categorize this as a really bad thing yet.

I thought I would share these with you because I thought they were absolutely brilliant. Hopefully, these questions will help you in your day-to-day life, and please, don't let yourself boss you around. You are in control of your brain. Be in charge, step in the driver's seat.

All these tricks, all these blogs, they're always designed for you to use your brain better so that your life gets much easier. Control your brain and avoid freaking out when you don't need to!

ARE YOU LOSING SLEEP?

Tired of losing sleep over things that are making you freak out? 

(See what I did there?)

Check out the latest THINK Yourself® ACADEMY Online Course, THINK Yourself® ASLEEP! Learn more about how anxiety, weight gain and different problems that could be caused by lack of sleep. You will also discover the five stages of a sleep cycle along with more info about sleep inertia, dreaming, snoozing and napping. You will leave with four techniques to sleep better along with tools you can use before (prevention), during (while you are tossing and turning) and after (to cope after a bad night’s sleep).

Check out some of my previous blog posts...